"[They] told me the law- their law, that whenever I met a white person, no matter who he was, whether he was poor or rich, I was to take off my hat." The words spoken by a KKK member, to a freed black man. The Ku Klux Klan, with its mystique and its long history of violence, is the most dishonorable and oldest of American hate groups. Although blacks have typically been the Klan's primary targets, it also has attacked Jews, immigrants, and Catholics. Klan has typically seen itself as a Christian organization, although in most minds the KKK is the least Christian organization in our history.

(1865-1871)

A name, adapted from the Greek word kuklos meaning "circle", the original Ku Klux Klan, was organized by six former confederate army officers. During the Pulaski, Tennessee winter, of 1865 to 1866. The organization used violence and intimidation to keep blacks segregated...