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Felt 14 th Amendment kept many Southern leaders from holding political office
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Many whites had their land and property taken away because they couldn’t pay taxes
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Many carpetbaggers and scalawags accepted money in exchange for political favors
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Southern whites could not accept the idea of former slaves voting and holding office

•Formed in 1865 in Pulaski, TN
-Named after the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle
•Founded as a social club for former
Confederate soldiers… evolved into a terrorists organization
•May 1866- Memphis Massacre: white civilians and police kill 46 blacks and injured many more, burning 90 houses, 12 schools and four churches
•July 1866- Police Massacre: Police in New Orleans storm a
Republican meeting of blacks and white killing more than 40 and wounding more than 150

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Southern whites resort to fierce physical intimidation and violence to stop the movement towards white and black equality.
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Former Confederates were angered by Blacks in public office when they themselves were forbidden from running.
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At first, the federal government was able to arrest many Klansmen, eventually the north’s interest in reconstructing the south lessens and the power of the KKK (and similar groups) increases, especially when former confederates regain the right to vote.

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By 1868 Klan starts to organize heavily
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Adopt white costumes: robes, masks & conical hats
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Most operating in small towns where people still knew faces when they attacked; most attacks at night
• Members called “The Invisible Empire of the South”
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First leader is Nathan Bedford Forest, a former
Confederate general named the “Grand Wizard”

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Klan members terrorized members of the black community by whipping, beating, and intimidating them, by taking their guns, and by breaking up their religious gatherings.
• The Klan also attacked Freedmen’s Bureau agents, military officials, state state legislators and other white people associated with the Republican Party of protection of blacks.
• The KKK’s violence and intimidation reached their peak in the months leading to the November 1868 election. In the three months before the election, the governor’s office received reports of more than 200 murders.

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Across the South, the Klan and other terrorist groups used brutal violence to intimidate Republican voters.
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In Kansas, over 2,000 murders were committed in connection with the election.
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In Georgia, the number of threats and beatings was even higher.
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And in Louisiana, 1000 blacks were killed as the election neared.
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In those three states, Democrats won decisive victories at the polls.

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1870-1871, Congress passed the Enforcement Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with registration, voting, office holding, or jury service of blacks.
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In 1871 Congress also passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which allowed the government to act against terrorist organizations.
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In 1882 the US Supreme Court declares KKK unconstitutional