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March 3, 1865: Freedmen’s Bureau Created

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March 3, 1865: Freedmen’s Bureau Created

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The Freedmen's Bureau provided assistance for emancipated  African Americans.

Provided medical aid, housing, food, schooling, etc.

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April 15th, 1865: Abraham Lincoln is Assassinated

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April 15th, 1865: Abraham Lincoln is Assassinated

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Lincoln played a big part in slaves becoming free and people did not like it.

Lincoln was killed by a supporter of slavery. His Vice President who was a supporter of slavery then took his place.

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April 15th, 1865: Andrew Johnson Becomes President

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April 15th, 1865: Andrew Johnson Becomes President

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Johnson was the Vice President to Abraham Lincoln. He was a white supremasist.

Johnson was the first president to be impeached by a house of congress.

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Dec 6th, 1865: 13th Amendment is Ratified

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Dec 6th, 1865: 13th Amendment is Ratified

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The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the Union.

This was the first step to African Americans becoming "fully" free.

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Southern states made laws that restrict the rights of African Americans.

Laws included restrictions on things like marriage, ownership of property, etc.

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April 9th, 1866: Civil Rights Act of 1866

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April 9th, 1866: Civil Rights Act of 1866

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Rights were granted to all male citizens regardless of race.

President Johnson Vetoed the Civil Rights Act, but congress overrode the veto.

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White people killed 46 African American individuals.

White civilians destroyed 90 homes and schools as well as four churches.

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The KKK is a white supremacist organization that was formed to terrorize African Americans.

They hanged, killed, terrorized a multitude of people of color

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Table of Contents

1. Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

2. Ku Klux Klan Violence in the South

3. The Ku Klux Klan and the End of Reconstruction

4. Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

5. Great Depression Shrinks Klan

Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and Black Republican leaders. Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism, the organization saw its primary goal-the reestablishment of white supremacy-fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s.

After a period of decline, white Protestant nativist groups revived the Klan in the early 20th century, burning crosses and staging rallies, parades and marches denouncing immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans and organized labor. The civil rights movement of the 1960s also saw a surge of Ku Klux Klan activity, including bombings of Black schools and churches and violence against Black and white activists in the South.

Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The first two words of the organization's name supposedly derived from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle. In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention and established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." Leading Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the first leader, or "grand wizard," of the Klan; he presided over a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclopses.

The organization of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the beginning of the second phase of post- Civil War Reconstruction, put into place by the more radical members of the Republican Party in Congress. After rejecting President Andrew Johnson's relatively lenient Reconstruction policies, in place from 1865 to 1866, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over the presidential veto. Under its provisions, the South was divided into five military districts, and each state was required to approve the 14th Amendment, which granted "equal protection" of the Constitution to former enslaved people and enacted universal male suffrage.

Did you know? At its peak in the 1920s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million people nationwide.

Ku Klux Klan Violence in the South

From 1867 onward, Black participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction, as Black people won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both Black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. They were joined in this struggle by similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia (launched in Louisiana in 1867) and the White Brotherhood.

At least 10 percent of the Black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed. White Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and Black institutions such as schools and churches-symbols of Black autonomy-were also targets for Klan attacks.

By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every southern state. Even at its height, the Klan did not boast a well-organized structure or clear leadership. Local Klan members-often wearing masks and dressed in the organization's signature long white robes and hoods-usually carried out their attacks at night, acting on their own but in support of the common goals of defeating Radical Reconstruction and restoring white supremacy in the South. Klan activity flourished particularly in the regions of the South where Black people were a minority or a small majority of the population, and was relatively limited in others. Among the most notorious zones of Klan activity was South Carolina, where in January 1871 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight Black prisoners.

The Ku Klux Klan and the End of Reconstruction

Though Democratic leaders would later attribute Ku Klux Klan violence to poorer southern white people, the organization's membership crossed class lines, from small farmers and laborers to planters, lawyers, merchants, physicians and ministers. In the regions where most Klan activity took place, local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan or declined to take action against it, and even those who arrested accused Klansmen found it difficult to find witnesses willing to testify against them.

Other leading white citizens in the South declined to speak out against the group's actions, giving them tacit approval. After 1870, Republican state governments in the South turned to Congress for help, resulting in the passage of three Enforcement Acts, the strongest of which was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

For the first time, the Ku Klux Klan Act designated certain crimes committed by individuals as federal offenses, including conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to hold office, serve on juries and enjoy the equal protection of the law. The act authorized the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and arrest accused individuals without charge, and to send federal forces to suppress Klan violence.

This expansion of federal authority-which Ulysses S. Grant promptly used in 1871 to crush Klan activity in South Carolina and other areas of the South-outraged Democrats and even alarmed many Republicans. From the early 1870s onward, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South as support for Reconstruction waned; by the end of 1876, the entire South was under Democratic control once again.

Revival of the Ku Klux Klan

In 1915, white Protestant nativists organized a revival of the Ku Klux Klan near Atlanta, Georgia, inspired by their romantic view of the Old South as well as Thomas Dixon's 1905 book "The Clansman" and D.W. Griffith's 1915 film "Birth of a Nation."

This second generation of the Klan was not only anti-Black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor. It was fueled by growing hostility to the surge in immigration that America experienced in the early 20th century along with fears of communist revolution akin to the Bolshevik triumph in Russia in 1917. The organization took as its symbol a burning cross and held rallies, parades and marches around the country. At its peak in the 1920s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million people nationwide.

Great Depression Shrinks Klan

The Great Depression in the 1930s depleted the Klan's membership ranks, and the organization temporarily disbanded in 1944. The civil rights movement of the 1960s saw a surge of local Klan activity across the South, including the bombings, beatings and shootings of Black and white activists. These actions, carried out in secret but apparently the work of local Klansmen, outraged the nation and helped win support for the civil rights cause.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech publicly condemning the Klan and announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the murder of a white female civil rights worker in Alabama. The cases of Klan-related violence became more isolated in the decades to come, though fragmented groups became aligned with neo-Nazi or other right-wing extremist organizations from the 1970s onward.

As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League estimated Klan membership to be around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center said there were 6,000 members total.

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The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group founded in 1865. It became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans.

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The reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the former Confederate states, except for Tennessee, into five military districts.

Each state in the districts was required to make new constitutions as well as ratify the 13th Amendment  and the constitution also had to be approved by not just white men but black men as well. This was so that the rights of African American Individuals were protected.

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Jan 14, 1868: Southern Constitutional Conventions Including Freedman

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Jan 14, 1868: Southern Constitutional Conventions Including Freedman

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During the Constitutional Conventions, they were forced to let African Americans  help them rewrite the constitution.

This was a huge deal for African Americans at the time, and many whites were against it.

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July 21, 1868: 14th Amendment is Ratified

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July 21, 1868: 14th Amendment is Ratified

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Guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law for African Americans

In short, the 14th Amendment gave emancipated African American civil and legal rights.

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March 30, 1870: 15th Amendment is Ratified

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March 30, 1870: 15th Amendment is Ratified

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The 15th Amendment allowed men the right to vote regardless of race.

Both African American and white women were still not allowed to vote at this time.

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1875: Mississippi Plan or “Shotgun Policy”

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1875: Mississippi Plan or “Shotgun Policy”

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The Mississippi Plan was a plan to overthrow the Republican Party

The plan was also used to intimidate the African American population with different acts of violence.

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The compromise ended the dispute in 1876 over the presidential election that included Samual Tilden(D) and Rutherford B. Hayes(R)

The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between the North and the South that also ended the Reconstruction era and the beginning of Jim Crow laws.