The KKK began on Christmas Eve in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee. It started as a social club for six ex-Confederate soldiers but quickly transformed into a paramilitary group. Their goal was to overthrow Reconstruction and restore white supremacy by terrifying freed Black people and Southern Republicans.
: President Ulysses S. Grant used the Enforcement Acts to declare martial law and crush the first Klan by 1872. The Second Wave: The "Invisible Empire" Depraved Kkk
In 1915, the film The Birth of a Nation glorified the first Klan and inspired a massive resurgence. This version of the Klan moved beyond the South, gaining millions of members in the North and Midwest. The KKK began on Christmas Eve in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee