The Ku Klux Klan was originally a social fraternity, organized
by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand
Wizard of the Empire, in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The name
probably came from the Greek word kukl meaning "circle." Klan was
an alliterative version of "clan," thus Ku Klux Klan suggested a
circle, or band, of brothers. The purpose of the KKK soon developed
into a paramilitary force used to oppose the Republican governments
set up in the old Confederate States and used to stop Freedmen
(ex-slaves) from voting, attempting to register to vote, and from
trying to hold elective offices in the southern states. When the
KKK became too violent, Forrest ordered it disbanded, but the
violent element in the KKK continued, until the government passed
the Force Acts and the Klan was extinguished in 1872.
In 1915, William Simmons founded the twentieth-century version
of the KKK after viewing the film, Birth of a Nation, which
glorified the history of the Klan. The new Klan was not only anti
black, but anti Jewish, anti foreign, and anti-Catholic. The Klan
actually became a respected part of the Democratic Party and
reached its peak of political power in the 1920s, when membership
may have been as high as 4.5 million, including many prominent
business and political leaders. The Klan declined in power when the
Grand Dragon, was found guilty of second degree murder in the death
of a young women whom he had taken to Chicago with him. In an
attempt to lessen his sentence, Grand Dragon David Stephenson
turned over evidence to the government revealing the corruption of
the Klan, the names of politicians the Klan had bribed, and other
illegal activities of the organization. In the 1960s, the KKK
briefly rose again to try and oppose the Civil Rights movement.
After numerous deaths and disappearance of civil rights workers in
the South, and the burning of black churches, and the passage of
the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, the Klan fell apart. Today,
there are small splinter groups of the KKK but no one large
national organization.