The second was a
very large, controversial, nationwide organization in the 1920s that especially
opposed Catholics. The current manifestation consists of numerous small
unconnected groups that use the KKK name. They have all emphasized racism,
secrecy and distinctive costumes. All have called for purification of American
society, and all are considered part of right-wing
extremism.[3][4]
The current manifestation is classified as a hate group by
the Anti-Defamation
League and the Southern
Poverty Law Center.[5] It is estimated to have between
5,000 and 8,000 members as of 2012.[2]
The first Ku Klux Klan flourished in the Southern United
States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s.
Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats,
designed to be outlandish and terrifying, and to hide their identities.[6][7] The second KKK flourished
nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, and adopted a standard white costume
(sales of which together with initiation fees financed the movement) and code
words as the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and
mass parades. It stressed opposition to the Catholic Church.[8] The third KKK emerged in the
form of small local unconnected groups after 1950. They focused on opposition
to the Civil Rights Movement, often using threats of
violence. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent
reference to the America's "Anglo-Saxon"
blood, harking back to 19th-century nativism.[9] Though most members of the KKK
saw themselves as holding to American values and Christian morality, virtually
every Christian
denomination officially denounced the Ku Klux Klan.[10]
First KKK
The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee,
by six veterans of the Confederate Army.[11] The name
is probably derived from the Greek word kuklos (κύκλος)
which means circle.[12]
Although there was little organizational structure above the
local level, similar groups rose across the South and adopted the same name and
methods.[13] Klan
groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement during the Reconstruction era in the United States. As a
secret vigilante group,
the Klan targeted freedmen and their
allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by
threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871, the federal
government passed the Force Acts,
which were used to prosecute Klan crimes.[14] Prosecution of Klan crimes and
enforcement of the Force Acts suppressed Klan activity.
The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its
objectives. It seriously weakened the black political establishment through its
use of assassinations and threats of violence; it drove some people out of
politics. On the other hand, it caused a sharp backlash and unleashed new
federal laws that Foner says were a success in terms of "restoring order,
reinvigorating the morale of Southern Republicans, and enabling blacks to
exercise their rights as citizens."[15] Historian George C. Rable
argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the
Democratic leaders of the South. He says:
the Klan declined
in strength in part because of internal weaknesses; its lack of central
organization and the failure of its leaders to control criminal elements and
sadists. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its
central objective – the overthrow of Republican state governments in the South.[16] Read History
