The Ku Klux Klan
At the end of the American Civil War radical members of Congress
attempted to destroy the white power structure of the Rebel states.
The Freeman's Bureau was established by Congress on 3rd March, 1865.
The bureau was designed to protect the interests of former slaves.
This included helping them to find new employment and to improve
educational and health facilities. In the year that followed the
bureau spent $17,000,000 establishing 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals and
providing homes and food for former slaves. Attempts by Congress to
extend the powers of the Freemen's Bureau was vetoed by President
Andrew Johnson in February, 1866. In April 1866, Johnson also vetoed
the Civil Rights Bill that was designed to protect freed slaves from
Southern Black Codes (laws that placed severe restrictions on freed
slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit
on juries, limiting their right to testify against white men, carrying
weapons in public places and working in certain occupations).
The election of 1866 increased the number of Radical Republicans in
Congress. The following year Congress passed the first Reconstruction
Act. The South was now divided into five military districts, each
under a major general. New elections were to be held in each state
with freed male slaves being allowed to vote. The act also included an
amendment that offered readmission to the Southern states after they
had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and guaranteed adult male
suffrage. Johnson immediately vetoed the bill but Congress re-passed
the bill the same day. The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was
established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a
general organisation of local Klans was established in Nashville in
April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the
Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an
outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two
years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white
sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites.
Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan: 1865 to the Present by David Chalmers records the history of the Ku Klux Klan quite bluntly, all the way from its creation following the civil war, to the early 1960’s. The author starts the book quite strongly by discussing in detail many acts of violence and displays of hatred throughout the United States. He makes a point to show that the Klan rode robustly throughout all of the country, not just in the southern states. The first several chapters of the book focus on the Klan’s creation in 1865. He goes on to discuss the attitude of many Americans following the United State’s Civil War and how the war shaped a new nation. The bulk of the book is used to go through many of the states, and express the Klan’s political influence on both the local and state governments. The author starts with Texas and Oklahoma, and goes through the history of the Klan geographically, finishing with New Jersey and Washington. The author stresses that the KKK did not just commit acts of violence towards minorities, but also carried political power. He continues to discuss the impact of the Klan on Civil Rights movements in the 1960’s, and various other important political controversies between the 1920’s and 1970’s. Towards the middle of the book, David M. Chalmers focuses on portraying the feelings of governments and state legislatures, as well as normal citizens towards the Klan. To do this more effectively, the author uses excerpts and quotes from editorials and newspapers, along with several dozen pictures. The conclusion of the book was used mainly as an overview of all of the major incidents and deaths involving the Klan, and how their persistence has allowed them to still exist today despite a lack of resources and support.
Prejudice comes in many forms. Two such forms of extreme prejudice are the Salem witch-hunts and the Ku Klux Klan. In the colonial time, from 1700 to 1775, the Salem witch-hunts took place. The KKK originated after the civil war and is still going on today. These two groups based their prejudice on religious beliefs. People from many different cultures founded our nation, which gives us a unique diversity that was and is not always respected. The Ku Klux Klan states they are based on Christianity and uses such symbols as the flaming cross. Burning the cross is supposed to represent “opposition to tyranny and obedience to God.” The KKK believes they are superior to all non-whites. The people responsible for the Salem witch-hunts feared and persecuted those whom didn’t share religious and personal beliefs. A way of testing your beliefs was being forced to recite the 10 commandments without falter. Ku Klux Klan often expressed their beliefs by putting burning crosses in non-white homes, setting homes and businesses on fire, and even hanging non-whites. In the same way, the witch-hunts would force those who were prosecuted to confess and incriminate, if not, they would be hung, burned, or in one case smashed to death. Both groups use Christianity against other people that differed from them. The KKK was an underground organization, and used robes and hoods to disguise themselves. Rarely did members become publicly known because they were denounced by majority of society. Public leaders such as, reverends and government officials conducted the Salem witch-hunts. The trials were often public events that were well attended by the general population. The Ku Klux Klan was not based on fear of non-whites, rather their own supremacy. While the witch-hunts feared those with different beliefs including what we would now consider, “mentally disabled.” What good are religious beliefs such as Christianity if they are twisted, warped, and used as an excuse for violence.
“The most successful terrorist group in the United States for almost 70 years was the Ku Klux Klan. They hated Catholics, Jews, and blacks. They were prone to violence. “-Pete Hamill
Social change always creates a spark of controversy, and new attitudes will always have opposition. The Ku Klux Klan, which had died out in the 1870s, rose again to combat the turmoil that the nation was experiencing during World War I. The group came out resilient and often deadly, and members had influence in the United States that had not been witnessed before. Therefore, the second Ku Klux Klan that emerged during World War I was much more powerful than its former manifestation. The Klan arose because of social changes such as the increasing amount of immigrants, the movie The Birth of a Nation, and the highly-publicized murder of Mary Phagan. The combative nature of World War I triggered a rise in the feeling of nationalism among Americans, creating a gateway for the second generation of the Ku Klux Klan.
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.
The Ku Klux Klan is an extreme racist group founded in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee by six former Confederate veterans. The first two words in the name come from the Greek word “kyklos” meaning “circle.” The KKK used to be known as just the Klan or the Hooded Order. The group was formed due to the white Southern resistance to the Republican Party’s newly established policies for the economic equality for blacks; main beliefs of the group included white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration. The KKK met at a convention, the “Invisible Empire of the South,” in 1867. The first appointed leader in charge of the Klan was Nathan Bedford Forrest (a former Confederate soldier, slave trader, and plantation owner). By the time 1870 rolled around, the beliefs of the men were spread to almost every Southern state.
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 and could be found in almost every southern state by 1870. In the south, the KKK was turned into a tool for white resistance for the Republican Party’s Reconstruction era policies which were aimed at establishing political and economic equality for black people. Due to the Reconstruction era policies, the members of the KKK waged an underground campaign of violence and intimidation directed at white and black Republican leaders. The KKK saw one way to its primary goal: the reestablishment of white supremacy through Democratic victories in the state legislatures all throughout the south. This was accomplished, causing the gradual increase of white supremacy in the south while the Reconstruction era waned. The KKK ended up disbanding in the waning years of the Reconstruction because of the Ku Klux Klan Act. This act designated certain crimes committed by Klan individuals to be federal offenses, including conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to hold office, serve on juries and enjoy the equal protection of the law. The act also authorized
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...
These individuals sought to punish the South for their insolence, and tried to prevent the former ruling class from returning to power. They passed the Military Reconstruction Bill of 1867, splitting the former Confederate states into five military districts, and outlined how the new government would be designed (Document 7). Under the careful eye of federal reinforcements, blacks men receive the right to vote and hold political offices, positions formally belonging to Southern Democrats. (To the disappointment of many women suffrage groups, women were still excluded from the political world. This would be remedied in 1920, following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.) In response, the outraged Southerns formed the Ku Klux clan, a secret organization used to terrorize local Republican leaders and blacks through beatings, lynching, and massacres (Document 5). The defenseless blacks turned to the federal government for protection, leading to the passage of the Enforcement Act of 1870, empowering the President to enforce the first sections of the 15th Amendment (Document 4). In addition to the rise of black leaders, many “carpetbaggers” from the North were pushed into political offices through support from black voters. The Southern Democrats condemned these Northerns, calling them “manipulat[ors] of the colored vote”, and fought against the “carpetbaggers”
The Ku Klux Klan was a white-supremacist organization that was a product of Civil War. The group's methods evolved over time, but the key goal was to promote white power by threatening minorities. After the Civil War ended in 1865, subsequently the Ku Klux Klan was created. It was created in 1865 by six college students for the purpose of horseplay and pure amusement and not with the intention of it becoming a white supremacist group. Once however the group gained great popularity and an increasing number of followers, the philosophy of the group changed. The group began targeting and harassing African-American’s but without the use of violence. Over time however the group changed their treatment towards African-Americans and began harassing them with extreme violence. The Klan was not alone in their practices and many other discriminating groups were forming at this time. The groups decided to meet with the Klan and joined forces, they collectively drafted a constitution. They also elected a central leader by the name Nathan Bedford Forrest, his title Grand Wizard.
Cries ring out in the dead of night from the black people of the southern states in Tennessee, as mysterious figures in white robes with hoods ride on their horses. To most they were thought of as the Confederate soldier’s ghosts riding and terrorizing the blacks. People wanted to know who these mysterious riders are and why they are terrorizing the black people of the south. Since they were wearing all white robes they could not tell their identity leading to more confusion. They became known as the Invisible Empire due to the fact that there were hundreds of them but nobody knew who they really were. Later in the Invisible Empires history we find out that these mysterious ghost riders are a part of the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was an organization meant to preserve the southern way of life. They use forms of intimidation to scare the black people such as riding through the night on horses. It was first started as something for ex-confederate soldiers to do since they were not fighting the war anymore but soon these small threats and intimidation turned into a violent hate group. Through the Ku Klux Klan’s history we see its practices and beliefs evolve from a fun, social organization to a worldwide feared hate group.
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.
The Ku Klux Klan A cult is a type of religious organization that stands apart from the
...d freedmen’s civic activities. Although theoretically unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, black codes remained in effect throughout the South, albeit unofficially, due to terror campaigns waged by racist clubs like the Ku Klux Klan. This association of ex-Confederates tormented, brutalized, and lynched freedmen and opportunistic Northerners who had traveled southward to reap the benefits of victory in the war. A Thomas Nast cartoon labeled the Klan as “worse than slavery” (Document I), attesting to its influence. Ultimately, the federal government suppressed the organization through laws that transferred jurisdiction over Klan cases to the federal government. Reinvigorated Southerners responded to these enactments by asserting modified versions of the states’ rights doctrine, as evidenced by an article in a publication entitled Nation (Document H).
The progressive era in the Unites states lends itself well to the study of women interactions to politics considered alongside the rise of radical right-wing organizations. The most promote organization was the Klu Klux Klan and the new formed women's branch. I started research on this topic by reviewing reference works, then refining the topic's broader idea through articles and books. The research allows for the understanding of the topic to create a question about woman's interactions to politics through the right-wing ideology of the Klan.