"The Ku Klux Klan" actually consists of dozens of separate organizations, each with varying goals, tactics, and quality of leadership. And, opposed to the media stereotype, few Ku Klux Klan groups today support illegal violence, though the Klan was originally founded after the Civil War as a guerrilla army which restored White majority rule and constitutional government to the occupied South. .
The Klan started in December 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee. A group of six men who had served in the Confederacy, disgusted with the outcome of the war, were well established. They began a close association not connected with their livelihoods and they discreetly agreed and resolved to serve as the "Public Persons" to "break the ice" in displaying a new organization, under the guise of a social club. So in the cleverest manner, one night in December 1865, the following, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, John B Kennedy, John C. Lester, James R. Crowe and James R. Crowe, in the house of Judge Thomas Jones, one of the six made a point of discussing the boredom of their daily lives. One of the six men suggested forming a social club. By general agreement of the six, the idea was accepted as a good one. They arranged for a meeting at the same place to "form up the club", and so they did meet again to formulate the "Clubs" table of organization. In the next few days they were enabled to use the house of Thomas Martin. In that house the detailed work of the yet unnamed organization, including it rank of authority, designed its rank and duties under weird titles. The difference between this lodge and older ones was that this group was being born for purposes tremendously different from those of typical lodges. Before the trusted six organizers ever finished the table of organization and term of rank, and before they began ironing out the strict details of admission to the order, and the complicated communication codes and system, they had already been contemplating a satisfactory name for the Organization.
