The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the winter of 1865-66. The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word ‘kyklos,’ meaning circle, and the English word clan.
Dressed in robes and sheets, intended to prevent identification by the occupying federal troops, the Klan quickly became a terrorist organization in service of the Democratic Party and white supremacy.
Between 1869 and 1871 its goal was to destroy Congressional Reconstruction by murdering blacks – and some whites – who were either active in Republican politics or educating black children. The Klan burned churches and schools and drove thousands of people out of their homes.
William J. Simmons, a former Methodist preacher, organized a new Klan in Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1915 as a patriotic, Protestant fraternal society. This new Klan directed its activity against not just blacks, but immigrants, Jews, and Roman Catholics. The Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly from there and had more than two million members throughout the country by the mid-1920s.
Eventually the organization was weakened by disagreements among the leadership and because of public criticism of Klan violence. By 1944 the Ku Klux Klan had lost most of its influence and membership.
It was revived during the Civil Rights era and continues today as a small organization that continues to stage demonstrations in favor of white supremacy and fundamentalist Christian theology.
Source: PBS