Ku Klux Klan

====Creation and naming====
[[File:Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon.jpg|thumb|A [[cartoon]] threatening that the KKK will [[lynching|lynch]] [[scalawag]]s (left) and [[carpetbagger]]s (right) on March 4, 1869, the day [[Ulysses S. Grant|President Grant]] takes office. [[Tuscaloosa, Alabama]], ''Independent Monitor'', September 1, 1868.{{efn|An analysis of this cartoon can be found in {{harvnb|Hubbs|2015}}}}]]

Six [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] veterans from [[Pulaski, Tennessee]], created the original Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, shortly after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], during the [[Reconstruction Era in the United States|Reconstruction]] of the South.{{sfn|Horn|1939|p=9|ps=: The founders were John C. Lester, John B. Kennedy, James R. Crowe, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, and J. Calvin Jones.}}{{sfn|Fleming|1905|p=27}} The group was known for a short time as the "Kuklux Clan". The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in [[New Orleans]] (1865) and the [[Knights of the White Camelia]] (1867) in [[Louisiana]].{{sfn|Du Bois|1935|pp=679–680}}

Historians generally classify the KKK as part of the post-Civil War [[insurgent]] violence related not only to the high number of veterans in the population, but also to their effort to control the dramatically changed social situation by using extrajudicial means to restore white supremacy. In 1866, Mississippi governor [[William L. Sharkey]] reported that disorder, lack of control, and lawlessness were widespread; in some states armed bands of Confederate soldiers roamed at will. The Klan used public violence against Black people and their allies as intimidation. They burned houses and attacked and killed [[Black people]], leaving their bodies on the roads.{{sfn|Du Bois|1935|pp=671–675}} While racism was a core belief of the Klan, antisemitism was not. Many prominent [[Jews in the Southern United States|Southern Jews]] identified wholly with southern culture, resulting in examples of Jewish participation in the Klan.{{sfn|Lindemann|1991|p=[https://archive.org/details/jewaccusedthreea0000lind/page/225/mode/2up 225]}}

[[File:Anti-kkk-cartoon.jpg|thumb|This Frank Bellew cartoon links the Democratic Party with secession and the [[Confederate States of America|Confederate cause.]]<ref>[https://elections.harpweek.com/1868/cartoon-1868-Medium.asp?UniqueID=9&Year=1868#qmitemhl0_13_3 Harper's Weekly] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803051551/https://elections.harpweek.com/1868/cartoon-1868-Medium.asp?UniqueID=9&Year=1868#qmitemhl0_13_3 |date=August 3, 2020 }}.</ref>|alt=]]

At an 1867 meeting in [[Nashville, Tennessee]], Klan members gathered to try to create a hierarchical organization with local chapters eventually reporting to a national headquarters. Since most of the Klan's members were veterans, they were used to such military hierarchy, but the Klan never operated under this centralized structure. Local chapters and bands were highly independent.

[[File:NathanBedfordForrest.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] in Confederate military uniform ]]
Former Confederate brigadier general [[George Gordon (Civil War General)|George Gordon]] developed the ''Prescript'', which espoused white supremacist belief. For instance, an applicant should be asked if he was in favor of "a white man's government", "the reenfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/kkk.html |title=Ku Klux Klan, Organization and Principles, 1868 |publisher=[[State University of New York at Albany]] |access-date=February 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303192240/http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/kkk.html |archive-date=March 3, 2016 }}</ref> The latter is a reference to the [[Ironclad Oath]], which stripped the vote from white persons who refused to swear that they had not borne arms against the Union.

Confederate general [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] was elected the first [[Grand Wizard|grand wizard]], and claimed to be the Klan's national leader.<ref name=autogenerated1 /><ref>{{cite book |title=A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest |last=Wills |first=Brian Steel |year=1992 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/battlefromstart00bria/page/336 336] |isbn=978-0060924454 |url=https://archive.org/details/battlefromstart00bria/page/336 }}</ref> In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest stated that the Klan's primary opposition was to the [[Loyal Leagues]], [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] state governments, people such as Tennessee governor [[William Gannaway Brownlow]], and other "[[carpetbagger]]s" and "[[scalawag]]s".<ref>''The Sun''. "Civil War Threatened in Tennessee". September 3, 1868: 2; ''The Charleston Daily News''. "A Talk with General Forrest". September 8, 1868: 1.</ref> He argued that many Southerners believed that Black people were voting for the Republican Party because they were being hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues.<ref>[[s:Interview with Nathan Bedford Forrest|Cincinnati ''Commercial'', August 28, 1868]], quoted in {{harvnb|Wade|1987}}</ref> One Alabama newspaper editor declared "The League is nothing more than a nigger Ku Klux Klan."{{sfn|Horn|1939|p=27}}

Despite Gordon's and Forrest's work, local Klan units never accepted the ''Prescript'' and continued to operate autonomously. There were never hierarchical levels or state headquarters. Klan members used violence to settle old personal feuds and local grudges, as they worked to restore general white dominance in the disrupted postwar society. The historian Elaine Frantz Parsons describes the membership:

<blockquote>Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of anti-Black vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime [[guerrilla]] bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of Black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]], was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen.{{sfn|Parsons|2005|p=816}}</blockquote>

{{Wikisource|Interview with Nathan Bedford Forrest}}
Historian [[Eric Foner]] observed: "In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the [[planter class]], and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the Black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.{{sfn|Foner|1988|pp=425–426}} To that end they worked to curb the education, economic advancement, [[voting rights]], and [[right to keep and bear arms]] of Black people.{{sfn|Foner|1988|pp=425–426}} The Klan soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a reign of terror against Republican leaders both Black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman [[James M. Hinds]], three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions."{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=342}}