Ku Klux Klan 1915-....

The Ku Klux Klan was formally incorporated under the laws of the state of Georgia on Dec. 4, 1915. The incorporated organization is a continuance of the earlier post Civil War Reconstruction Era unincorporated Ku Klux Klan and of the Knights of the White Camellia. Women of the Ku Klux Klan was incorporated at a late date as a separate entity. The stated purpose of the KKK was to promote an all White, Protestant United States, excluding all other races and religions.

The Ku Klux Klan is a classified hate group first established following the Civil War. It advocates a white supremacist, pro-nationalist, anti-immigration America, and historically has used terrorist and intimidation tactics. The first Klan largely died out in the 1870s. The group revived in the 1920s as nativist and anti-Communist, while the third Klan re-emerged following World War II to oppose the Civil Rights movement.

Newaygo County, Mich., branch of Ku Klux Klan, active during 1920s.

Organized in Georgia in 1915; took its name from the organization begun in 1866 and disbanded in 1869.

In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence in popularity. The first local units of the Klan (klaverns) in Iowa were organized in 1922. Klan membership increased across the state, reaching its peak in 1925/1926, when there were an estimated 40,000 members statewide, in more than 100 klaverns. During this period the Klan had its own newspaper published in Des Moines. Originally published as The Iowa fiery cross, the paper changed its name to the Iowa Klan kourier, then to The Iowa kourier.

Established by D.C. Stephenson in Evansville in 1920, the Ku Klux Klan became popular in Indiana during the 1920s. Klan influence reached its peak in 1924 with the elections of a sympathetic governor and majority of the Indiana state legislature, as well as countless mayors and city officials. Stephenson's and the Klan's power ended with the arrest and conviction of Stephenson for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer in 1925.

The Ku Klux Klan is a secret society committed to white supremacy in the United States. The KKK has existed in various forms since it was first organized in Tennessee by veterans of the Confederate Army after the end of the Civil War to restore white supremacy. In the 1870s, the KKK was suppressed by the federal government, but the organization resurfaced again in 1915. This revived Klan grew slowly during World War I, but in 1920 the secret order broadened its appeal across the nation with its militant advocacy of white supremacy, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and nativism. In the 1920s, the Klan became a great influence in American politics, but due to internal feuding the Klan soon entered a period of decline. The Klan disbanded in 1944 after being prosecuted for failure to pay their federal taxes. Later in 1944, Samuel Green from Atlanta, Georgia worked to restore the KKK in the form of the Association of Georgia Klans, with an emphasis on white supremacy and anticommunism. When Green died in 1949, several other Klan groups organized, making this new Klan movement fragmented without any central organization like it had in the past. Also, in contrast to the powerful Klan of the 1920s which drew much of its membership from the social mainstream, the Klans that formed in the late 1940s and later were typically small, fanatical groups whose members were often on the fringes of respectable society. With the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, the KKK became extremely violent in their efforts to resist desegregation. As a result of the KKK violence, federal authorities acted to suppress and disrupt Klan activities with some success, but the KKK has remained persistent and klans still exist to the present day.

Formed in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, the Ku Klux Klan (aka the White Camelia) state their objective initially was to protect Whites during disorder following the Civil War and to oppose the policy of the North towards the South. More recently their concerns have shifted to opposing equality and integration in the United States and defending Whites (defined as non-Jewish, heterosexual and Caucasian) as the majority there.

The KKK attained political and social power in Michigan and nationally in the early 1920s. Following politicial defeats in the 1924 election and financial and criminal investigations, the power and membership of the Klan decreased rapidly after 1924. For additional information see other related Klan collections at the Clarke Historical Library and Display Items (Artifacts).

The Ku Klux Klan of the twentieth century took its name from the terrorist organization that opposed black voting in the South during Reconstruction. A social and political force in the early part of the century, by the 1950s it had become a more divided group. In the 1960s, Tuscaloosa rubber worker Robert M. Sheldon, Jr., established leadership over the southern Klans as head of the United Klans of America .

Twentieth-century secret fraternal group held to confine its membership to American-born white Protestant Christians.

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism. Since the mid-20th century, the KKK has also been anti-communist. The current manifestation is splintered into several chapters with no connections between each other; it is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is estimated to have between 3,000 and 5,000 members as of 2012. The first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. Members adopted white costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be outlandish and terrifying, and to hide their identities. The second KKK flourished nationwide in the early and mid 1920s, and adopted the same costumes and code words as the first Klan, while introducing cross burnings. The third KKK emerged after World War II and was associated with opposing the Civil Rights Movement and progress among minorities.

The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, by six veterans of the Confederate Army. The name is probably from the Greek word kuklos which means circle, suggesting a circle or band of brothers. Although there was no organizational structure above the local level, similar groups arose across the South adopted the same name and methods. Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement during the Reconstruction era in the United States. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871, the federal government passed the Force Acts, which were used to prosecute Klan crimes. Prosecution of Klan crimes and enforcement of the Force Acts suppressed Klan activity. In 1874 and later, however, newly organized and openly active paramilitary organizations, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, started a fresh round of violence aimed at suppressing blacks' voting and running Republicans out of office. These contributed to segregationist white Democrats regaining political power in all the Southern states by 1877.

Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Ku Klux Klan." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 December 2012. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan ) 17 December 2012

From "A Ku Klux Klan Uniform," box 1, folder 2.

The Ku Klux Klan was formally incorporated under the laws of the state of Georgia on Dec. 4, 1915. The incorporated organization is a continuance of the earlier post Civil War Reconstruction Era unincorporated Ku Klux Klan and of the Knights of the White Camellia. Women of the Ku Klux Klan was incorporated at a later date as a separate entity. The stated purpose of the KKK was to promote an all White, protestant United States, excluding all other races and religions.