Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan: The First Era
With the ending of the Civil War in 1865, the period of American history known as the Reconstruction began. It was during this era that the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, spunoff from the freemasons, first came to power. The Freemasons usually tended to attract people in the upper-middle class, while the KKK and Knights of Labor, another racist group, attracted the working class. The KKK was formed mostly to restore the “peculiar institution” of slavery to America and to reinstate the Caucasian race as the most superior race in the world. A former Confederate general and Freemason, Nathan Bedford Forrest, founded the Klan in 1866 because Negroes ...
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shall leave it.” (1)
The bare facts about the birth of the Ku Klux Klan and its revival a half century later are baffling to most people today. Little more than a year after it was founded, the secret society thundered across the war-torn south, sabotaged Reconstruction governments, and imposed a reign of terror and violence that lasted three or four years. And then, as rapidly as it had spread, the Klan faded into the History books. After World War I, a new version of the Klan sputtered to life and brought many parts of the nation under its paralyzing grip of racism and bloodshed. Then, having grown to be a major force for the second time, the Klan again receded into the background. This time it never quite disappeared, but it never again commanded such widespread support. The origin of the Ku Klux Klan was a carefully guarded secret for years, although there were many theories to explain its beginnings. One popular notion held that the Ku Klux Klan was originally a secret order ...
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to come up with something unusual and mysterious. Being well-educated, they turned to Greek. After tossing around a number of ideas, Richard R. Reed suggested the word “kuklos”, from which the English words “circle” and “cycle” are derived. Another member, Captain John B. Kennedy, had an ear for alliteration and added the word “clam”. After tinkering with the sound for awhile, the group settled on calling itself the Ku Klux Klan. The selection of the name, chance though it was, had a great deal to do with the early success of the Klan. Something about the sound of the name aroused curiosity and gave the fledgling club an immediate air of mystery , as did the initials KKK, which ...
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"Ku Klux Klan." Essayworld.com. April 17, 2011. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Ku-Klux-Klan/98105.
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