What is the Ku Klux Klan?
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the nation’s largest and most enduring terrorist group, founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. It waged a violent campaign against newly freed black slaves who exercised their rights and the whites who supported Reconstruction (Chalmers, 1981). Outrage over Klan atrocities led to the passage of the Federal KKK Acts, laws that are still used today to punish violent deprivations of civil rights. The Klan’s influence ensnared the whole South and its membership soared to over 500,000 before it was “officially” disbanded in 1869 by its founder, a former Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest (Chambers, 1981). The Klan’s second incarnation came in 1915. A Georgia preacher named William Simmons broadened the scope of Klan bigotry to also include Catholics, Jews, and new immigrants, in addition to African-Americans. He also sculpted Klan ideology to embrace Christian fundamentalism and fanatical patriotism-trends that are present today in the ideological framewo
