A secret terrorist organization that originated in the southern states during the period of .
Reconstruction following the American Civil War and was reactivated in the 20th century. The .
Ku Klux Klan believed in the innate inferiorityof black so therefore mistrusted adn resented the .
rise of former slaves to a status of civil equality and often to positions of political power. The .
lan became an illegal organization committed to destroying the Reconstruction governments .
from the Carolinas to Arkansas. Attired in robes or sheets and wearing masks topped with .
pointed hoods, the Klansmen terrorized public officials in effort to drive them from office and .
blacks in general to prevent them from voting, holding office, and otherwise exercising their .
newly acquird political rights. It was customary for them to burn crosses on hillsides and near .
the homes of who they wished to frighten. When such tactics failed to produce the affect they .
wanted, the victim would be flogged, mutilated, or murdered. These activities were justified by .
the klan as necessary measures in defense of white supremacy and the inviolability of white .
womanhood.
A secret convention of Klansmen, held in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1867, adopted a .
declaration of principles expressing loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and its government and .
declaring the determination of the Klan to "protect the weak, the innocent and the defenseless.: .
to relieve the injured and oppressed: and to succur suffering." The convention designated the .
Klan as an invisible Empire and provided for a supreme official, called Grand Wizard of the .
Empire, who wielded virtually autocratic power and who was assisted by ten Genii. .
From 1868 to 1870, while federal occupation troops were being withdrawn from the .
southern staes and radical regimes replaced with the Democratic administrations, the Klan was .
increasingly dominated by the rougher elements in the poulation.
