KU-KLUX-KLAN. – This strange name originated in America in 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee, one of the Southern states, where a group of young men wishing to form an association among themselves and debating over a name to choose, one of them, with some knowledge of Greek, proposed the word *kuklos* (circle, meeting), and one of the others added the Gaelic word *klan* (group). Thus the name K. K. K. was formed.
The original purpose of the K. K. K. is not entirely clear. Some say the young founders had no other intention than amusement; others claim it was to defend themselves against the insolence of former black slaves, recently freed after the Civil War and favored by the federal authorities of the North against the former Southern masters.
The movement, which at first seemed harmless, soon developed, through the work of political agitators and imprudent measures by Northern authorities, into a society of whites aimed at intimidating and taking revenge on blacks. The members of the new organization, who were well acquainted with the childish nature and primitive mentality of their former slaves, knew how to adopt effective means to achieve their goal: nighttime meetings, long white robes, heads covered by a peaked hood with only two holes to see through, and extravagant names given to their leaders—all designed to impress the poor blacks. The designated victims were then abducted at night, taken into the forests, stripped naked, rolled in hot tar and feathers, or mercilessly flogged with whips made of damp leather strips, or branded with a red-hot iron bearing the three letters K.K.K., and sometimes hanged or riddled with bullets. The crimes committed were so numerous and horrific that the federal government had to intervene effectively, and between 1870 and 1871 the association appeared to collapse, only to re-emerge later in a more active form.
While the first K. K. K. targeted only blacks and carried out its terrorist acts solely in the Southern states, the second K. K. K. spread to many other states and took on an anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-foreign character. In 1915, after the outbreak of the European War, the evangelical minister G. J. Simmons, under the pretext of fostering nationalism and distinguishing genuine Americans from others, promulgated the program of the new K. K. K., which stated, among other things: “Only white men born in America, those who believe in the doctrines of the Christian religion, who are not subject to any foreign religious or political power, and who are affiliated with some sect, may be members of the society.” The new association resembled the previous one, though somewhat more cautious in applying corporal punishment; it also adopted the methods of the Know-Nothings (v.), systematically and relentlessly defaming all those they considered not to be 100 percent American, especially Catholics, to prevent their election to public office.
This time, however, Jews—wealthier and more powerful than Catholics—also became targets, and the campaign against the K. K. K. became more effective; its secret machinations were exposed to the public, its slanders refuted, and the unconstitutionality of its conduct revealed. For a time, the K. K. K. had to go underground. The dangerous society seemed extinct, until the outbreak of the new war in 1939 revealed that it still existed under the same name in some parts of the United States, and under the name of the “Black Legion” in Detroit, where the members had replaced the white robe with a long black garment and modified the top of the hood to include a piece of stiff fabric adorned with two crossed bones and a white skull. Although the strange clandestine uniform, the allure of secrecy, anti-Catholic sentiment, and Protestant fanaticism still attract some to the K. K. K., it can be said that, at least among serious people of standing, it now has no prestige, though it remains a danger in times of upheaval and political-religious agitation.