KU KLUX KLAN

Ku Klux Klan

KU KLUX KLAN

Introduction

The end of the American Civil War and the establishment of Radical Reconstruction resulted in the elimination of many Southern white men from public life. Determined to guide their own destiny and control the newly freed slaves, many whites resolved to carry on a kind of guerrilla warfare against both African-Americans and whites who represented the federal government in the South. As a result, scores of coercive, violent organizations, such as the Regulatros, the Jayhawkers and the White Brotherhood, were formed between 1866 and 1876 to 'keep the Negro in his place'. The most infamous and longest-lasting organization created was the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Discussion

In some ways, the Klan may be the world's oldest and most persistent terrorist organization, although the intensity of its activity has ebbed and flowed for nearly a century and a half. Begun by a group of six former Confederate soldiers in a lodge near Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 (the exact date is uncertain), the club's title came from the Greek word kuklos, meaning 'circle'. In 1867, the group quickly spread, engaging in scare tactics: members would dress in white sheets with hoods designed to scare superstitious African-Americans. Originally conceived of as a fun but harmless diversion, participants quickly realized the Klan's potential to reimpose white supremacy across the defeated South. (Wiecek 2006)

Structure

White Southerners already had a long history of using violence in the exercise of political, social and economic power. Beginning in the 1600s, the white South passed laws and implemented slave patrols designed to keep African-Americans in an enslaved status. Free blacks as well were circumscribed in their actions by the sanction of law and custom. With the end of slavery, white Southerners successfully reinstated the plantation regime through a bewildering set of laws known as the Black Codes, backed by the threat and use of violence. In April 1867, the Klan convened in Nashville, Tennessee to draft a new constitution and elect a new leader, former Confederate general and slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest. Led by a group of former plantation owners, Confederate officers, attorneys and politicians, the Klan established itself in 12 states and gained half a million members over the next two years. Their targets were those in the South who represented the federal government, the Union Army, Northern industrial interests and active members of the Republican Party. Their most venomous attacks, however, were directed at African-Americans who attempted to learn to read, establish a school or business, buy land and, worst of all, vote or run for political office. Using guns, swords, arson and knives, Klan members intimidated, bribed and drove Republicans from power across the former Confederate states plus Kentucky. The Southern Democratic Party, eager to regain control, sheltered and encouraged Klansmen to carry out through violence what they could not achieve peacefully. Nonetheless, by January 1869, news of Klan exploits in gang rapes and out of control burning and looting sullied the organization's reputation, and Forrest called for an ...