The Ku Klux Klan. Cody Weber Honors American History Essay

The Ku Klux Klan Cody Weber Honors American History Period 8 The Ku Klux Klan took a stand against equal rights for African Americans in a negative and racial manner by assaulting and abusing them. By doing this, the KKK wanted to make them feel like a lesser race. The KKK was founded in 1865 by six college students in the small town of Pulaski, Tennessee. The fore fathers of the Klan were John Lester, James Crowe, John Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard Reed, and Frank McCord. These men were Confederate veterans, were well-educated, and came from wealthy families. The Klan was originally created by these men as a social organization with fun in mind. This group spread through rural areas and small towns but it didn’t flourish in urban areas because urban areas weren’t suffering the small hardships as the rural towns were. They wanted to create a social group to defy the laws being passed by the U.S. government to give African American the same rights as white people. As word of this group spread, different towns created different divisions that all followed a supreme leader or Grand Wizard. All the groups gathered for a meeting to decide who would be the Grand Wizard. Nathan Bedford Forrest, former Confederate general, was elected Gr and Wizard. During this time period the Ku Klux Klan was extremely powerful and influential. The Klan killed African Americans as a way to stop the new amendments that the government was trying to pass. This was the beginning