The United States has faced deep racial problems throughout its history. One of the most well-known racist groups in the nation has been the Ku Klux Klan, otherwise simply known as the KKK. The KKK believes white people are superior to other races, and that they should be in a dominant position in society. These types of ideas have existed throughout our history, but the KKK has gone through three waves of popularity since the 1800s.

THE FIRST KKK: 1860S
The Ku Klux Klan first sprang up in Pulaski, Tennessee, sometime near the beginning of 1866. The Civil War had just ended, and six soldiers from the Confederacy formed the group in reaction to the end of slavery and the beginning of Reconstruction. It was designed to be a brotherhood of white men who shared racist ideologies. For instance, they did not believe Black people should be allowed to participate in society. The KKK was not the only white supremacist group that appeared during Reconstruction, but it was one of the most influential and long-lasting.

Members of the Klan wore masks and robes; the costumes served to scare their victims and to protect their identities. They acted as a terrorist group, killing freed slaves and any Republican leaders who were trying to create laws to protect African Americans.

One of their biggest goals was to keep African Americans and Republicans from voting, because they wanted to maintain white Democrat rule in the southern states. To do this, they violently intimidated voters on their way to the polls during election seasons. For example, in Louisiana over 2,000 people were killed or injured in the few weeks before the 1868 presidential election.

Northern Republicans, as well as some southern Democrats, began to oppose the Klan and campaigned against their cruel treatment of African Americans. Soon Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which specifically protected people against the KKK. The Klan mostly disappeared by the mid-1870s, although a few smaller white supremacist groups still committed violence against African Americans in the South.

THE SECOND KKK: 1915 – 1920S
The second wave of the Ku Klux Klan started in 1915, in Atlanta, Georgia. That year, the film The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffiths, was released. It glorified the actions and legacy of the original Klan from the 1860s, and it inspired William Joseph Simmons to start a new Klan movement on Stone Mountain in Georgia. It stayed local for a while, but by the early 1920s it spread across the Midwest and reached a membership of 1.5 million people. This phase of the Klan was much more organized and structured than the first.

The Second Klan kept the overall vision of white American supremacy, but it also added a religious angle. Two-thirds of Klan members were white Protestant ministers. They wanted to maintain Protestant Christian morals, so they were against behaviors like divorce and drunkenness. But they also hated the many Catholic and Jewish immigrants who were coming to America during this time. They saw themselves and white Protestants as morally superior; however, all mainstream Protestant groups condemned their extreme views. In the South, the KKK still targeted Black people.

The Second Klan still wore gowns, this time white robes with masks and tall, cone-shaped hats — clothing inspired by the depiction of the Klan in Griffiths’ film. Another idea that the Klan had taken from the film was the practice of cross burning. They burned large wooden crosses in public and private meetings to emphasize their supposed commitment to Protestant morality.

This time, although there was still some violence (especially in the South), the Klan focused more on political actions. They pushed for legal prohibition of alcohol and opposed any non-Protestant immigration from foreign countries. Many Klan members were elected to local, state, and national political offices, where they enforced their white supremacist, nativist viewpoints.

Very shortly after its peak, the Second Klan began to dissolve for several reasons. In-fighting and the criminal behaviors of some Klan leaders also affected membership. Lists of Klan members in some communities were leaked, which led many other people to leave the group out of embarrassment and fear that their names would be smeared. States also began to pass laws against wearing the signature costumes, which also took away anonymity. Finally, when the Great Depression hit in the late 1920s, many members did not have the time or money to continue to participate.