The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History
An A & E Documentary Production
Name________________________________________Date_______________Period______
1. According to historians, what was the original founding purpose of the KKK?
2. The Klan was founded in what city and what state, and in what year?
3. The original Klansmen claimed to be ghosts of whom?
4. Shortly after the passage of the Reconstruction Act, what became the Klan’s new/transformed purpose?
5. Under Nathan Bedford Forrest, what pledge did new Klansmen have to take?
6. What did General Forrest do in January 1869, and why?
7. What did most whites believe was “the proper social order” in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
8. What happened in 1915 at Stone Mountain, in Georgia?
9. What did the film Birth of a Nation portray blacks as? The Ku Klux Klan as?
10. How did this film help the cause of the KKK?
11. What “patriotic” slogan did the Klan adopt shortly after its revival in 1915?
12. What is the other name for the Ku Klux Klan?
13. What is particularly ironic about the Klan’s hatred of Jews, and its adoption of the most sacred symbols
of Christianity?
14. What purposes does the Klan’s use of costumes, masks, made-up exotic sounding names and titles for
its officers and rituals, and its elaborate rituals serve?
15. What former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was a member of the KKK?
16. Why did so many politicians, law officers, and judges in the South join the KKK?
17. What was happening in the early 1900s (through 1930) in terms of immigration to America that helped
fuel Klan membership?
18. Why does the Klan hate blacks?
19. Why does the Klan hate Jews?
20. Why does the Klan hate Catholics?
21. Why was the Klan able to operate with impunity in much of the South?
22. In what state did the Klan actually achieve its dream of attaining complete political power?
23. What happened in Washington, D.C. on August 8, 1925?
24. What happened to the Klan between 1925 and 1928?
25. What did the IRS do to the Klan in 1944?
26. What changed, organizationally, for the Klan, in 1946?
27. What happened, nationally, in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas?
28. Who were the Freedom Riders, and what did they do?
29. What was Birmingham, Alabama’s infamous nickname?
30. What was Birmingham’s importance in the struggle for civil rights?
31. Why was the 16th Street Baptist Church targeted by the Klan?
32. What happened at the 16th Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963?
33. Who was killed in the bombing (if not the names, then the sex and approximate ages of the victims)?
34. What did the killing of the three civil rights workers (Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew
Goodman) in 1964 in Mississippi show the world about the Klan?
35. What charge was the FBI forced to use to prosecute Klan members for the murders of civil rights
workers?
36. Why did the Klan particularly hate President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), despite the fact that
Johnson was himself a Southerner from Texas?
37. What is jury nullification?
38. Why did the Klan kill Viola Liuzzo?
39. Why was the FBI able to solve her murder so quickly (within one day)?
40. What was special about David Duke?
EXTRA CREDIT:
a) What is the Southern Poverty Law Center, and what is its main purpose?
b) Who was actually the President of the USA during the real case on which the film “Mississippi
Burning” is based?
c) Give the full name of the following organizations, the date they were founded, and their purpose:
NAACP, CORE, and the SCLC