The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan
When the civil war ended, the Republican Party developed the Reconstruction program, which threatened to turn the south upside down. The Reconstruction was developed with the intention of giving blacks the chance for a new and better life. Upon being freed some blacks stayed with their old masters, yet many left in search of opportunities in education and land ownership. There were many things that stood in their way of these tasks. There were the “black codes” which required black to carry identification and even have a curfew. Labor contracts even bounded the “freed” slaves to their respective plantations. There was even the Jim Crow Laws which directly undermined the status of black by placing them under unfair restrictions. In 1866, six veterans of the confederate army formed a secret society named the Ku Klux Klan, from the
Greek word Kuklos, meaning circle.
When the Ku Klux Klan was in its infancy, they were organized like a social group. They would help citizens, one of whom was reported in the Franklin View, a Nashville paper as follows: “The Franklin Review of yesterday related that the Ku Klux a few nights since visited the home of a poor widow whose two sons had fallen in the Confederate service, leaving on her doorstep a package containing one hundred dollars and a quantity of domestics, calicoes and other dry goods. A widow lady of Williamson County, with three children dependent on her for support, was the grateful recipient of a similar package, inside of which she found one hundred dollars in currency and a letter which stated that the writer was formerly an intimate companion and fellow-soldier of her only son who was killed while a member of a Confederate regiment.”
(Horn) The Klan soon outgrew this knightly behavior and began to take on their new gruesome acts. Although, they committed many violent acts, some stated on how they would be treated with courtesy. One of them was a carpetbagger who was whipped
Greek word Kuklos, meaning circle.
When the Ku Klux Klan was in its infancy, they were organized like a social group. They would help citizens, one of whom was reported in the Franklin View, a Nashville paper as follows: “The Franklin Review of yesterday related that the Ku Klux a few nights since visited the home of a poor widow whose two sons had fallen in the Confederate service, leaving on her doorstep a package containing one hundred dollars and a quantity of domestics, calicoes and other dry goods. A widow lady of Williamson County, with three children dependent on her for support, was the grateful recipient of a similar package, inside of which she found one hundred dollars in currency and a letter which stated that the writer was formerly an intimate companion and fellow-soldier of her only son who was killed while a member of a Confederate regiment.”
(Horn) The Klan soon outgrew this knightly behavior and began to take on their new gruesome acts. Although, they committed many violent acts, some stated on how they would be treated with courtesy. One of them was a carpetbagger who was whipped
Bibliography: Horn, Stanley F., Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan The River (Riverside Press 1939) Ingalls, Robert P., Hoods, The Story of the Ku Klux Klan (New York: Putnam 1979) Chalmers, David M., Hooded Americanism, The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Duke University Press 1987) Wormser, Richard, The Rise & Fall of Jim Crow Accessed June 15, 2013 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_kkk.htm