The First Generation Of The Ku Klux Klan

The First generation of the KKK, formally known as Klu Klux Klan, was originally found by six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee on December 24, 1865, while the South was going through a reconstruction after the Civil War. Ku Klux Klan was derived from the Greek word kyklos, meaning "circle," and the Scottish-Gaelic word "clan," which was chosen for the sake of alliteration. Controlled by a number of philosophized white racial superiority, the group employed violence which led to pushing the Reconstrution back and its enfranchisement of African Americans. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who's a Former Confederate General, was the KKK's first grand wizard. During 1869, Forrest tried to end the Ku Klux Klan after he obtained knowledge of the
Klan's excessive violence, but failed to disband it.

In counties where they were prominent, the KKK were involved in terrorist raids against African Americans and white Replubicans at night, providing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to accomplish its aims and influence in upcoming elections.
Republicans organized militia units in a few Southern states to break up the Klan. The Ku Klux Act was passed in 1871 by congress, giving President Ulysses S. Grant the authority to use military force to suppress the KKK. The Ku Klux Act resulted in nine counties in South Carolina placed under martial law and thousands of members placed under arrest. By 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act as an unconstitutional Act, but by that time Reconstrution had ended and the KKK had faded
away.

The second generation of the KKK was founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1915 by William Joseph Simmons, who was inspired by the original Klan's Prescripts which was written in 1867 by Confederate veteran George Gordon.
Most of the founders for the second KKK came from a small organization called the Knights of Mary Phagan. In 1921, the Ku Klux Klan started to develop a modern business system of recruiting and grew across the nation at a time of prosperity. Its membership grew fast in cities, and spread out in the South to the Midwest and West. The second generation of the KKK preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, which led to calling for strict morality and better enforcement of prohibition. By the 1920's, the KKK developed a women's support group that involved in many activities such as parades, cross lighting, lectures, rallies, and boycotts of local businesses owned by Catholic and Jews. In 1921, the KKK bought a struggling Baptist university in Atlanta called Lanier University. Doing this gave hope to the KKK to preach its "pure 100 percent Americanism," but shortly after its beginning, enrollment was dismal, and the school closed after the first year of Klan ownership Their official rhetoric focused on the threat of the Catholic Church. This klan also participated in burning a Latin cross to show a symbol of intimidation. The cross became a representation of the Klan's Christian Message. From 1924-1930 the second KKK
membership started to fall due to civic groups publishing Klan membership lists and many groups and leaders, including Protestant ministers such as Reinhold Niebuhr in Detriot, speaking out against the Klan, gaining national attention. Membership also declined after D.C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan, was convicted for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer who was a white schoolteacher. This event destroyed the image of the KKK as upholders of law and order.

The third generation of the KKK was founded in the beginning of the 1950's. Around this time, there were individual klan groups in Birmingham, Alabama, who began to resist social change and black's attempts to improve their lives by bombing houses in black neighborhoods. Klan groups in Birmingham were close to police officers because of the connection and friendship between the Ku Klux Klan and police commissioner of Birmingham Bull Connor. During the time Connor was police commissioner of Birmingham, Connor gave Klan members fifteen minutes to attack civil rights activists Freedom Riders before sending police to stop the attack. The federal government established effective intervention when local and state authorities failed to protect the Freedom Riders and activists. From 1951 to 1967, the klan participated in numerous of attacks on civil right activists and leaders including the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four African American girls.

The third generation of Ku Klux Klan still thrives today with many small groups living in different countries across the world with the biggest klan organization living in Zinc Arkansas.