KKK

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is an American far-right, white supremacist organization founded after the U.S. Civil War. Established in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, the group began as a social club by Confederate veterans but quickly evolved into a secret society that used intimidation and violence to resist Reconstruction and maintain white dominance in the South.

During Reconstruction, the First Klan conducted night riding, lynchings, and other terror against African Americans, freedmen, and white Republicans. It sought to influence politics and law enforcement and worked to suppress Black civil rights. Federal measures known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870–1871) helped dismantle it, and federal troops eventually suppressed many of its organizations by the early 1870s.

A revival of the Klan began in 1915, led by William J. Simmons, emphasizing nativism, Protestant fundamentalism, and anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic targets. The Second Klan spread across much of the United States in the 1920s, growing into millions of members and exercising political influence in some states. The organization was later plagued by internal disputes and scandals, and its membership declined in the following decades.

A renewed wave emerged in the 1950s and 1960s in response to the civil rights movement, focusing on opposing desegregation and threatening Black communities. The Klan has since remained a loosely organized network of quasi-autonomous chapters, with activity varying by region. In contemporary times, it is generally considered a hate group by civil rights organizations such as the SPLC and the ADL and is subject to law enforcement scrutiny when involved in criminal acts.