Ku Klux Klan

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

● The Origin of the Ku Klux Klan

● Ku Klux Klan as the Perpetrators of Violence
● The Generations of Ku Klux Klan

Let’s know more about

FACT FILE
Ku Klux Klan!

The second generation Ku Klux Klan in their standardised white costumes and with the burning cross

The Ku Klux Klan (also called KKK or Klan) is the oldest white supremacists’
terrorist organisation and American hate group that became prominent during the
Reconstruction Era. It was founded in 1866 and by 1870, had spread to most of
the Southern states as a resistance mob against Reconstruction policies.
Congress sought to deal with the KKK through the Force Acts and the Ku Klux
Klan Act of 1871 which made their activities illegal. There have already been
three generations of the KKK, with the third generation existing in present-day
America.
 The Origin of the KKK

● Confederate army soldiers led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest founded

the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee.
● The first two words of their name come from the Greek word “kyklos”
which means circle.

General Nathan Bedford A statue of General Nathan Bedford in a park in Memphis, Tennessee

● The KKK had outlandish titles such as “grand wizard” or “grand cyclops”.
● The leader, General Nathan, was called the Grand Wizard and presided over
grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclops.

● The locally
organised groups
acted
independently but
for a common
objective.
● During a regional
convention in the
first year of the
clan, they met and
established an
“Invisible Empire
of the South.”
Advertisement for the Ku Klux Klan
 KKK as the Perpetrators of Violence

● The Ku Klux Klan, with all its acts of violence, is in no doubt a terrorist
organisation and a threat to civil liberties.
● Since it “functioned as the unofficial paramilitary arm of Southern
segregationist governments”, it allowed the KKK members or Klansmen to
“kill with impunity” and “eliminate activists by force without alerting
federal authorities” (Head 2020).

● Upon the failure of Andrew

Jackson’s lenient Reconstruction
policies implemented from 1865
to 1866, Congress passed the
Reconstruction Acts over a
Presidential veto.
● The South got divided into five Section 1 of the 14th Amendment
military districts and were
required to ratify the Fourteenth
The period after 1867 radically
Amendment that granted equal
transformed African-Americans’
protection of constitutional
participation in political and social
rights to the African-Americans.
spheres in the South.

For the first time, African-Americans were able to vote and successfully vied for
elective posts in the local government and Congress.

The first African-American vote

● The Klansmen were in bids to restore white supremacy.
● They dedicated themselves to undercover violence in the South, against
black people, and Republican supporters disparaged as scalawags and
carpetbaggers.

● The KKK disguised themselves in

their costumes, attacking only at
night.
● At the time, they claimed to be the
ghosts of the Confederate soldiers.
● It is estimated that they undertook
approximately 3,500 lynches
between 1865 – 1900.
● They were joined in their violent
campaigns by the White Camelia
and White Brotherhood which were
also militia groups.

A noose dangling from a Klansman's car

● During the wake of their

violence, seven black
legislatures were murdered, and
symbols of black emancipation
such as schools and churches
were attacked.
● Black businesses were also
attacked, and white people who
conducted business with blacks
were also attacked by the KKK.
● The KKK thrived in regions
where blacks were a minority
such as South Carolina, where in
January 1815, eight black
prisoners were killed by
Klansmen in the county jail.
Klansmen simulating the lynching using a dummy
 ● After 1870, the Enforcement
● Local law enforcement in the
Acts, including the Ku Klux
South also sympathised with the
Klan Act of 1871, were enacted.
KKK and did very little to
● The Acts classified the KKK
counter their actions.
crimes as federal offences.
● Accused Klansmen were often
● Furthermore, the Acts gave the
acquitted due to a supposed lack
President the power to set aside
of sufficient evidence and lack
the writ of habeas corpus and
of witnesses to testify against
arrest accused individuals
them.
without charge.

The President also had the powers to send federal forces to suppress the KKK in
the face of reluctance from state agencies.

● By the end of 1876, the

entire South was under
Democrats due to the
KKK.
● They would kill or threaten
Republican officials or
politicians.
● During campaigns,
Republicans were not able
to hold meetings or public
rallies to talk to voters out
of fear.
● The KKK and other white
supremacists voted for
literacy tests and other
legal mechanisms to
suppress the black vote.
Enforcement Acts including the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871

● Over time, the Reconstruction period ended, and so did the measures
against the KKK.
● However, the KKK attitude was later embodied in the Jim Crow Laws that
established racial segregation.
 The Generations of KKK

First Generation Second Generation Third Generation

of Ku Klux Klan of Ku Klux Klan of Ku Klux Klan

● The first generation of

KKK began in the 1860s to
the 1870s.
● It flourished in the South
during the Reconstruction
to overthrow the
Republican state
governments through voter
intimidation and targeted
violence against African-
American leaders.
KKK in the 1860s

● Klansmen from this generation wore

“gigantic animal horns, fake beards,
coonskin caps, or polka-dotted paper
hats… Some Klansmen wore pointed
hats suggestive of wizards, dunces, or
Pierrots; some wore everyday winter
hoods, pillowcases, or flour sacks on
their heads” (Kinney 2016).
● These were designed to frighten and
hide their identities.

First generation costume of KKK

First Generation
of Ku Klux Klan
Second generation KKK
● This second generation KKK
resisted the Roman Catholics,
Jews, foreigners and organised
labour using cross burnings and
mass parades to intimidate
others.
● They also popularised the
standardised white hoods and
the burning cross known of the
KKK today.
Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman
Second Generation Third Generation
of Ku Klux Klan of Ku Klux Klan
● The second generation emerged
in the 1920s to 1940s, inspired
by Thomas Dixon “The
Clansman” and D.W. Griffins
“The Birth of a Nation.”
● They peaked and reached more
than 4,000,000 members;
however, their numbers dropped
by the 1930s during the Great
Depression.
● The burning cross idea dates
back to medieval Europe when
“Scottish clansmen would set
fire to hillsides as a statement of
military defiance or call to
action for soldiers ahead of
battle” (Dundon 2017).
● Dixon was inspired by the “fiery
cross” and uses it as a scene in
his pro-KKK book titled “The
Clansman”. The idea of cross
burning, however, did not
became widespread after the
book’s publishing.
● When Dixon sold the film rights to
Griffin to create “The Birth of a
Nation”, it became a national
phenomenon.
● Soon enough, the KKK used the
burning cross as their symbol.

A scene from The Birth of a Nation Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation

First Generation Second Generation Third Generation

of Ku Klux Klan of Ku Klux Klan of Ku Klux Klan

● The Ku Klux Klan still exists in

present-day America in the form
of the third generation KKK
which started in 1946.
● This generation focuses on
opposing the civil rights
movement by using violence
like murdering activists.

Today, the Southern Poverty Law

Center (SPLC) estimates about 5,000-
8,000 Klansmen worldwide split
Third Generation KKK during an initiation
between factions.
 THINK ABOUT THIS! ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 11-14

PHOTO COLLAGE. Grab photos of the Ku Klux Klan to

1 create a collage. Provide captions for each picture.

ENUMERATION. The Ku Klux Klan were known to be

2 perpetrators of violence. From the resource, enumerate some of
the things they did as part of the organisation’s agenda.

KKK as the ●
Perpetrators of Violence
●

Note: Use a separate sheet of paper for your answer where necessary
 SUMMARY. The Ku Klux Klan has existed for generations.
3 Create a summary of each generation of the KKK.

First Generation Second Generation Third Generation

KKK KKK KKK

REASONING. Why was the Ku Klux Klan formed and what

4 was their objective? Explain your answer using historical facts
to prove your claims.

OPINION. Using your answer in activity 4 as a guide, form

your own opinion regarding the formation and toleration of the
5 Ku Klux Klan through the years. Were their acts justifiable?
Why or why not?
 THINK ABOUT THIS! ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 14-16

ANALYSING PHOTOS. Look at the Ku Klux Klan

1 recruitment poster below. Analyse it using the guide questions
that follow.

Guide Questions:
● What does the poster say?
● How was the poster able
to recruit members?
● How did it show racism?

SOURCE A

INFERENCING. James Acorn pointed out slavery in his letter

to Elihu Washburne. Read an excerpt of it below. What pro-
2 slavery views can we infer from his words? What does the Ku
Klux Klan have to do with what the blacks are going through?

"Can it be possible that the Northern people have made the negro free,
but to be returned, the slave of society, to bear in such slavery the
vindictive resentments that the satraps of Davis maintain today towards
the people of the north? Better a thousand times for the negro that the
government should return him to the custody of the original owner,
where he would have a master to look after his well-being, than that his
neck should be placed under the heel of a society, vindictive towards him
because he is free” (Acorn, no date).

SOURCE B
 ANALYSING TEXTS. Read an excerpt below from Tom
3 Head’s article about the Ku Klux Klan. Analyse it using the
guide questions that follow.

“The Ku Klux Klan was and is undeniably a terrorist

organization—but what made the Klan an especially insidious
terrorist organization, and a threat to civil liberties, was that it
functioned as the unofficial paramilitary arm of Southern
segregationist governments. This allowed its members to kill
with impunity and allowed Southern segregationists to eliminate
activists by force without alerting federal authorities. Although
the Klan is much less active today, it will be remembered as an
instrument of cowardly Southern politicians who hid their faces
behind hoods, and their ideology behind an unconvincing
facade of patriotism” (Head, 2020).

SOURCE C
Guide Questions:
● Why is the KKK labelled as an “insidious” terrorist
organisation?
● How does the South treat the KKK?
● Why does the last sentence relate the Klansmen to the
“cowardly Southern politicians”?

VIEWING COMPREHENSION. D.W. Griffins’ film “Birth of

a Nation” inspired the second generation of Ku Klux Klan in the
1920s. Watch a clip from the film in the link given below. How
4 was a black man interpreted in the film and how was this able to
encourage the whites to join the Ku Klux Klan considering that
the organisation reached its peak in membership around the
release of the film?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYCaob7MDA8

SOURCE D
 SOURCING. Read and analyse the Ku Klux Klan’s
organisation and principles. Though the group claims that they
5 aren’t a white supremacist group, rather a Christian and patriotic
organisation, how do their principles say otherwise?

a. Are you opposed to Negro equality both social and political?

b. Are you in favor of a white man's government in this country?
c. Are you in favor of constitutional liberty, and a government of
equitable laws instead of a government of violence and oppression?
d. Are you in favor of maintaining the constitutional rights of the
South?
e. Are you in favor of the re-enfranchisement and emancipation of
the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern
people to all their rights, alike proprietary, civil, and political?
f. Do you believe in the inalienable right of self-preservation of the
people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power?

SOURCE E
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