Beliefs and practices of the Ku Klux Klan?

Answer 1

The Ku Klux Klan was originally a social fraternity, organized by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Empire, in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The name probably came from the Greek word kukl meaning "circle." Klan was an alliterative version of "clan," thus Ku Klux Klan suggested a circle, or band, of brothers. The purpose of the KKK soon developed into a paramilitary force used to oppose the Republican governments set up in the old Confederate States and used to stop Freedmen (ex-slaves) from voting, attempting to register to vote, and from trying to hold elective offices in the southern states. When the KKK became too violent, Forrest ordered it disbanded, but the violent element in the KKK continued, until the government passed the Force Acts and the Klan was extinguished in 1872.

In 1915, William Simmons founded the twentieth-century version of the KKK after viewing the film, Birth of a Nation, which glorified the history of the Klan. The new Klan was not only anti black, but anti Jewish, anti foreign, and anti-Catholic. The Klan actually became a respected part of the Democratic Party and reached its peak of political power in the 1920s, when membership may have been as high as 4.5 million, including many prominent business and political leaders. The Klan declined in power when the Grand Dragon, was found guilty of second degree murder in the death of a young women whom he had taken to Chicago with him. In an attempt to lessen his sentence, Grand Dragon David Stephenson turned over evidence to the government revealing the corruption of the Klan, the names of politicians the Klan had bribed, and other illegal activities of the organization. In the 1960s, the KKK briefly rose again to try and oppose the Civil Rights Movement. After numerous deaths and disappearance of civil rights workers in the South, and the burning of black churches, and the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, the Klan fell apart. Today, there are small splinter groups of the KKK but no one large national organization.