The Origins Of The Ku Klux Klan

223 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Civil war north vs south

The KKK, known alternatively as the Ku Klux Klan had its start in December 24, 1865 in the hands of six former Confederate officers. The South was in great need of the slave trade to prosper economically, its people were bored and angry, and they felt that it could never return to its glory. And the six officers thought to do something about it. It was a lighthearted start: Klan members would ride through time on horseback and would play pranks on their friends and neighbors. The public viewed them as a fun source of entertainment in the depressed post-war environment. Although it gave the people distraction from reality, the pranks and playfulness did not last long. Klan members soon grew tired of the mindless pranks and took a dark turn.

Show More
Related

  • Connection Between To Kill A Mockingbird And The Kkk

    231 Words  | 1 Pages

    The KKK is a form of white southern resistance against what they recognized as encroaching african-american right. The Ku Klux Klan originated in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866. The group included many former Confederate veterans founded in the first branch of the KKK as a social club. The first two words (Ku Klux) supposedly derived from

    Read More

  • The KKK—1890’s, 1970’s, and Today

    1621 Words  | 4 Pages

    A few years ago, my mother told me something thought provoking: we had once lived on the same block as the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. That had been in Charlotte, North Carolina, around 1994. The Ku Klux Klan, according to Blaine Varney in Lynching in the 1890’s, used to “…set out on nightly ‘terror rides’ to harass ‘uppity Negroes’….” They are far more infamous, however, for their “lynching”—nightly “terror rides” that included murder—of African Americans. Varney tells us lynching levels reached their pinnacle in 1892, with 161 recorded murders that year. In modern times, most Americans would agree that the Klan, along with any form of white supremacy, has no place in society—and pointing out its survival is a good way to imply that we, as a people, are still not perfect.

    Read More

  • Cultural Confrontations of the 1920’s: KKK, Scopes Trial

    1387 Words  | 3 Pages

    The 1920s were a time of change for the United States. Following the First World War there was a rush of new cultural, social, and artistic dynamism, partly fuelled by the Progressivism movement that was cut short when American entered the Great War. This decade was defined by a change from more rural farm life to industrialism in big cities. The shift from the frugality and traditional family values or previous generations to the happy-go-lucky consumerism and metropolitan life occurred more rapidly than any other social shift in living memory. These swiftly changing tides caused cultural clashes and confrontations throughout the decade as America struggled to define for itself a fresh national identity in the wake of its new position as a world power.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of The Ku Klux Klan

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Ku Klux Klan was the most prominent organization and was established in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee. The original intent, a social club for former confederate soldiers, soon altered and changed to a terrorist organization. After the Klan was transformed into a terrorist organization, they were responsible for thousands of deaths and remarkably weakened the political power in the south of blacks and republicans. WGBH 1) Although many Americans associate Klan activity with the South, particularly Georgia and Alabama, the largest, most powerful states of the organizations were those of the Midwest, and especially Indiana in the early 1920’s where the Klan gained its greatest influence and highest level of membership for any state (Moore 2 ).

    Read More

  • How Is The Klu Klux Klan Justified

    597 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Klu Klux Klan was known for many things, one among them torture. They were an extreme terrorist group that did many things just to make the lives of different races terrible. Also, they held cross burnings and lynchings of black people. They justified their cruelty with passages from the Bible, and with their tainted ideas of morality. The KKK demonstrated that they thought they were superior over other races by terrorizing blacks and justified it through the Bible.

    Read More

  • Ku Klux Klan Cause And Effect

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    The reign of white terror that took place consisted of the murderous group known as the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK (Ku Klux Klan), were created back in 1866 in a small town known as Pulaski, Tennessee. They started off as social groups who would perform secret rituals in costume. At first they were known as pranksters but slowly they began to make the lives of Blacks and Republicans a nightmare by intimidating them. The Ku Klux Klan lashed out as they were angry regarding a couple of things that included fear of former black slaves retaliating against the whites, having to pay blacks for working under them, and anger regarding the Federal troops watching over the South.

    Read More

  • History of the Ku Klux Klan

    463 Words  | 1 Pages

    The KKK is a movement that has been very controversial since the Civil War. The Klan as they call themselves was created as a result of the occupation of Federal troops in the South. The KKK's purpose at the time was to provide the people of the south with the leadership to bring back the values of Western Civilization that was taken from them. In the 1920's the Klan had its most popular era. At this time the KKK was the most active politically then it has ever been in history. The KKK still exists today as a brotherhood and a new White racial community that lives and functions by the ideals it promotes. Today the Klan is in its 5th era and continues to be America's oldest and most effective White Christian Fraternal organization.

    Read More

  • The Formation of the KKK

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American civil war was fought between 1861 and 1865. A civil war is a war fought between different regions within a country. The American Civil War was fought between the North and the South. Shortly after President Abraham Lincon was elected, eleven states in the south seceded from the union. After only being president for six weeks, Abraham Lincon declared these southern acts of succession as illegal. Lincon then requested that congress would allow him to use 500,000 soldiers to help crush the very threatening rebellion in the south. Massive sections in the south were destroyed in the process of the north attempting to regulate the south. Lands were destroyed along with social structure and economics. In 1862, Lincon began to liberate the slaves in the south. On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincon issued the emancipation proclamation. When the proclamation was issued it was clear that the war was now about slavery. The emancipation proclamation freed many slaves, but not all of them. It wasn’t until December in 1865 that the thirteenth Amendment was ratified. The thirteenth amendment states "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction."(US Constitution). When the slaves were freed, the southerners were frenzied because the slaves were their main way of achieving money. The hate towards the North caused a small group to transition into one of the largest hate groups in American history. The Ku Klux Klan was first formed in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee in the year 1865. The Ku Klux Klan first started as a fraternity group including six confederate veterans and lat...

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement: The Struggle Continues

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    White Southerners who hated blacks started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866. It was also called the KKK. They tried to stop black people from voting and having other civil rights. They would wear white sheets and masks with pointed hoods. They would beat up blacks and public officials. They would burn crosses by the houses of people they wanted to scare. The KKK was declared illegal in 1...

    Read More

  • Overview Of The Ku Klux Klan

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    The KKK or Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee by former Confederate Soldiers. Some of the founders of this organization consisted of; Captain John Lester, Major James Crowe, and Richard Reed to name a few. Their main target at the time was blacks and any white person that stood with them. The Ku Klux Klan was the head of the racism movement in America. Being a hate group among minorities, they made them live in terror day in and day out. The KKK was the most feared group of people in the 1860’s.

    Read More

  • The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the KKK

    1597 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the time of 1880-1920s it was the period of time where there was large population of immigrants. People were immigrating to the United States at that time. And not to offend anyone or anything but I mean immigrants are new to everything, they are kind of lost so it’s easier to bribe them to doing things since they don’t know what are the pros and cons of this doing. KKK members were recruiting and I guess their targets were the immigrants since they didn’t know much. By 1925, the KKK had an outstanding number of 4-5 million members in their Klan and it’s due to the incoming immigrants that was coming to the United States. With new immigrants coming, it meant that there would be an expanded variety of races that were going to be hated. The KKK expanded their groups of who they hated such as Jews, Asians, Catholics, and African Americans. The more they hated meant that the more killings they would do or anything harmful to those races which would give them jobs to do and not have them to just sit around. With the KKK members moving all over the place, getting known for committed crimes such as murders they have done, they would be more likely known, which means that their fame would expand. More people would know what’s the KKK and maybe more people would most likely join due to similarity of

    Read More

  • The Ku Klux Klan

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    The KKK was once an African American hate group in the late 1800’s, created by Confederate generals who wanted to continue suppressing their former slaves with terror. It was shut down after their leaders were plagued with scandals, and their business dealings put out into the open, for all to see and read. People finally understood what the Klan was about and obviously did not want it. Although in 1915, William J. Simmons watched D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” which depicted the story of what happened after the Civil War, through the eyes of a glorified Klansman. He was stargazed at how Griffith depicted the Klan, and as him being a long time joiner of clubs, he decided to bring back the Ku Klux Klan. A surprising fact is how a man like this could lead a group of hate, as he used to be a minister. (“Ku Klux Klan -- Extremism in America”) This second generation of the Klan created almost an “Invisible Empire” by their high point. Their members were scattered across state and federal government, and one could say that they “co...

    Read More

  • The Ku Klux Klan

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    The critical time periods in the Ku Klux Klan’s history can be simply broken down into separate “Klans.” Former Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee formed the first Klan around a year after the end of the Civil War. Soon after, Nathan Forrest, a former Confederate lieutenant general, was named the “Grand Wizard” of the organization. The “main objective of white supremacy organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White Brotherhood, the Men of Justice, the Constitutional Union Guards and the Knights of the White Camelia was to stop black people from voting” and restore the white supremacy the South saw prior to the Civil War ("Effects of the Klu Klux Klan"). At this point, Klansmen would ride at night through towns brutally intimidating, blacks and radical Republicans. These tactics got so bad that in 1870, Congress began passing the first of three...

    Read More

  • Ku Klux Klan In The 1920s

    249 Words  | 1 Pages

    With almost 50,000 members in the Ku Klux Klan in 1927, the late 1920s were a time of change for the province of Saskatchewan. The Ku Klux Klan is an organization that had formed in in 1865 in Tennessee, but by 1925, they had reached Canada. Although they were present in many cities, their largest impact was on Saskatchewan. They were an Anglo-Saxon protestant society that used fear and violence to spread their beliefs. By 1928, 100 Saskatchewan cities had contained KKK chapters. Their acts of crime were mainly targeted towards Roman Catholics, French-speaking Canadians, Jewish communities, the Métis and immigrants. One of the only people to stand up against this group was James Garfield Gardiner, the Premier of Saskatchewan

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Klu Klux Klan

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    For the soldiers and families that had fought in the Civil War for years, the end meant victory; it meant that slavery would be abolished and things would turn for the better. All the suffering enslaved people had previously suffered would be over and the South would no longer be able to mistreat them. Finally, all men would be equal. This vision seemed like a happily ever after for America, a justice that was finally served. However, this dream never became reality. When the Civil War is thought of today, most see a valiant effort to rid America of slavery forever, and stop the vastly unequal practices that many white Americans relied on. The war is seen as its own story, beginning with people who were kept as property, and ending with the

    Read More

More about The Origins Of The Ku Klux Klan

Open Document