Essay On Ku Klux Klan

Ariel Kazer

5/11/14

Mrs. Kaplan 10H3

The Ku Klux Klan: The Evolution of Hatred

The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the KKK, is a native-born American racist-terrorist organization that established itself after the Civil War. In December of 1865, a group of six former Confederate officers formed a secret social club. They adopted the Greek term for circle “Kuklos” from their college to birth the name “Ku Klux Klan.” The Ku Klux Klan started out as a benign social club, but the Civil War quickly transformed it into the group of violent white Christian supremacists we know it as today.

The KKK’s goals were not always about inflicting pain and terror toward those with whom they disagreed. At first they were just a “social club” for white Democrats. As time wore on, they advanced from pranks and verbal intimidation to attacks that ended in bloodshed. The main goal of the Ku Klux Klan had to do with gaining the social, economic, and political control of the South the white population had before the Civil War.

The ex-Confederate members of the Klan would meet during the night in one of the member’s houses, hoping to relieve the stress of the times. Eventually they were bored, and determined to bring their conferences to consequent level. They disguised themselves in masks and flowing robes, hiding their identities and running around town after dark. They attacked at night, anticipating to scare former black slaves in the area, claiming to be ghosts of the Confederacy. The Klan terrorized newly freed blacks, trying to intimidate them from applying for jobs formerly held only by whites, and from running for public office, goals which would have given them dignity and a semblance of power. This white supremacy group started with ...

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...ion was to break down the radical party by whipping and killing….” The group had increased to a point of no return, and they had lost members because of this. The violence and murder now incorporated into the Klan activities had given them a new reputation.

The history of the Ku Klux Klan is strewn with countless deaths and terrorist acts. The Klan rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government's progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South. For the Klan, nothing else mattered until the newly freed African American slave population was returned to a servile status, since slavery was no longer an option. Although the Klan is less active today, it left a legacy of cowardly Southern politicians, scapegoating their new freed black voters as an explanation for their failed economic policies.