KKK (Ku Klux Klan) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

KKK (Ku Klux Klan) - Essay Example It was said that the Klan's first leader is the famous general N.B. Forrest, the Calvary Confederate leader. He is called the 'Grand Wizard' or the 'Imperial Wizard'. This is the title given to the Klan's highest leader and was assisted by lower ranking officials of the group. The whole southern country was mapped, organized, and subdivided into several sectors down to the lowest ranks and individual members. 1 Later in 1869, the group became perpetrators of lawless violence and recklessness throughout the continent. Ku Klux Klan members were seen mostly at night, covered in white. They hold silent parades and covered their horses with the same white robes. People regarded the Klan as Confederate soldiers returning from the dead. The Ku Klux Klan spread terror all over the entire land. Their main targets are the blacks, the carpetbaggers, and the scalawags. They effectively kept black men from voting and from joining the electoral process, so as to control the polls, its results and politics in particular. They promote terror through whipping and lynching. And because the Klan became so powerful and uncontrollable, its leaders, headed by General Forrest, ordered and sought to disband the group. He resigned from his position as the Grand Wizard. But then, a lot of its off-shoots still functioned, and it continued on for the next few years.2 The Birth of the Second Ku Klux Klan It was 1915 when the Klan was revived, thus giving birth to the second Ku Klux Klan faction. This group was formed by William J. Simmons, who is a former minister and a popular fraternal order promoter. In October of the same year, he had prepared to reveal the campaign to form the group, together with friends of the same mindset. The second Klan is still focused on restoring the supremacy of the white race. It is promoting fundamentalism as a religion and had a hand in controlling politics during those time, although it professed that it is not a political group. Some of the Klan's noted members were elected as government officials, mostly congressmen and mayors. The Klan still continued on performing extreme measures to counter its assumed enemies, and most of these cases were unauthorized by their central leaders. 3 The most noted and remembered extreme activity undertaken by the second Ku Klux Klan is the murder of three civil rights workers in the summer of 1964, in Mississippi. It was the most horrible crime they committed in the entire regime of the second Klan - it was an execution, not merely an assassination. But in 1930, Ku Klux Klan experience a decline in its members, especially when state laws prohibited the use of masks and the propagation of secret societies. This decline of interest on its members is mainly due to the massive corruption, the wrong doings, and the amassing of wealth for personal gains by its leaders through the influence group.4 The Klan as Hate Group The major example of hate groups working with leaders of several or subsequent affiliations and at the same time working under a common name but covering a lot of distinct factions is none other than the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was a hate group which did one too many illegal acts of intimidation and violence. The Klan was known to be responsible for the arson of the Black South Caroline Group of Churches, which is a predominantly black institution. The Klan