Ku Klux Klan

Origins

The origins of the KKK had less to do with purpose than circumstance. Conceived initially as a fraternal organization for its own members' amusement, the Klan was formed in 1866 by a small group of young Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. These founders established much of the Klan's enduring iconography, including its elaborate initiation rituals, complex slates of offices, and long robes topped with conical hoods. The group's name drew upon the Greek word for “circle,” kuklos, supplemented, for alliterative purposes, by the word klan.

In Pulaski, a community beset by pervasive lawlessness following the Civil War, the group's fraternal aims were superseded by new members' desire to restore order. In the Reconstruction-era context, in which many White Southerners feared political, economic, and social upheaval engineered by newly freed Blacks and their Republican allies, such calls referred not only to reducing criminality but also to a reassertion of the White supremacist culture that had defined the antebellum status quo. An 1867 meeting in Nashville reorganized the Klan, placing it in the hands of several prominent Confederate officers, including General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who became the group's first and only “Grand Wizard,” or national leader.

Forrest and his associates proceeded to recruit extensively, mobilizing many Confederate veterans throughout the South as local leaders. With the added assistance of newspapers supportive of Southern Democrats and their causes, the KKK grew significantly throughout 1868. The Klan's appeal was greatest where Democrats could pose an effective challenge to “radical” Republican political institutions. Along with similar vigilante groups, such as the Order of Pale Faces and the Knights of the White Camellia, the group quickly became known for its efforts to violently intimidate Black community leaders [Page 816]and the “carpetbaggers” (i.e., Northerners who settled in the South during this period) and the “scalawags” (i.e., White Southern Republicans) who supported them. During Reconstruction, KKK adherents committed literally thousands of criminal acts, ranging from arson to severe beatings, shootings, and lynchings; it was not unusual for a single Southern county to witness 100 Klan-perpetrated “outrages” over the course of a year.

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