Ku Klux Klan Essay Example

The Ku Klux Klan is a group of terrorizing whites who use violence to strike fear into their enemies. The name Ku Klux Klan is a mixture of Greek and Scottish, and the name is supposed to mean "family circle." Another name for the Ku Klux Klan is the KKK. The Klan was first founded in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee by Nathan Forrest. They were founded right after the Civil War. The KKK was started by six young Confederate veterans, and then later on, other whites joined the Klan. The Klan was basically a secret society based on hatred and violence. They organized to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and also to maintain "white supremacy." They worked to keep blacks and white Republicans out of office. They would torture or sometimes even murder blacks, Catholics, Jews, white Republicans, and anyone else they thought were traitors to the white race. The first Klan took place from 1865 to the mid – 1870s. Then the Klan was reborn again in 1915 by William J. Simmons, because he wanted to start his own fraternal group. The night before Thanksgiving, Simmons, and 15 other followers lit a match on Stone Mountain in Georgia, and the Ku Klux Klan of the 20th century was born. Simmons clan was called the Invisible Empire. By the 1920's, the Klan was very effective in mostly southern states, such as Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey. Nearly 100, 000 people had enrolled in the Invisible Empire by the late summer of 1921. In 1922, Hiram Wesley Evans planned to dethrone Simmons. They had a full scale war that was a power struggle, and in 1924, Simmons agreed to cash a settlement. In 1939, James A. Colescott replaced Evans. Then, that ended in 1944 when the Infernal Revenue Service filed against the Ku Klux Klan for their back taxes on profits in the 1920s. In 1949, the Klan was fractured by internal disputes, and many Klansmen went to jail for their criminal acts. The Klan