Ku Klux Klan Research Paper

Morgan Malcolm
Dana Berro
Language Arts
28 January 2015
The KKK in the Reconstruction of America “Where slavery is, there liberty cannot be; and where liberty is, there slavery cannot be.” these words were spoken on January 1, 1863, as the United States neared it’s third year of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This document states that all people that had previously been know as slaves were free. This startled many people and many White Supremacist groups were conducting a reign of terror throughout the South. One of the most prevalent of these groups would be the Klu Klux Klan. The KKK set back America in becoming accepting of other races and made it socially acceptable to express racism in public.
Originally the Klu Klux Klan started as a social club and not as a racial hate group. They got their name from the greek word kuklos, meaning “circle”, and the scottish-Gaelic word “clan” which was probably chosen for the sake of alliteration. The first big riot that The Klan was involved in was in 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee between whites and black ex-soldiers the casualties include: 46 killed, 70 wounded, and numerous churches and

In 1868 an anonymous KKK member sent a threat letter to a black elected official in Lincoln County, GA. This letter suggested that he was a ghost sent by the KKK to control any African American who wanted to become an a public figure. The Klan had many intimidation methods that were considered unnecessary such as hanging in public and burning crosses. In the Virginia Vs Black case the supreme court decided that burning crosses in the attempt to intimidate is against Virginia law. There were many different ways that the KKK killed including, rapes and killings, lynching, house burnings, shootings and many more. They had many gruesome ways of killing and intimidating others making them feel