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1865 BCE
1865-The Cause
After the Union won in the Civil War, the process of rebuilding began to occur in the South with 4 million slaves now free. The current president, Andrew Johnson, passed restrictive 'black codes' that controlled the previous slaves' life. The northerners were furious and began to support the republican party's idea of a new law. -
1866-The Beginning
In Pulaski, Tennessee confederate veterans created the group, Ku Klux Klan; a.k.a. the KKK. The name came from the Greeks. The group was founded after the Civil War, when the republican party voted for the Great Reconstruction. -
Summer of 1867-The Great Convention
In the summer of 1867, a convention was held where it named Nathan Bedford Forrest its first grand wizard, and formed a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclopes. It coincided with the beginning of the second phase of the post-Civil War Reconstruction. 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 slaves and enacted universal male suffrage. -
1867-After the Great Convention
After the convention the Ku Klux Klan began an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters and restore white supremacy in the South. They did this because they wanted to reverse the policies of the Radical Reconstruction. The Klan was not organized well and did not have a clear leadership. -
1870-Reaching Out
In 1870 the KKK had nearly a branch in every state. The government became desperate for local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan or declined to take action against it. It even became difficult to find witnesses willing to testify against them. So in 1870 Republican state officials with the help of the Congress passed the three Enforcement Acts, the strongest of which was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Crimes committed by KKK members would be federal offenses. -
1871-An Attack
In South Carolina, 500 men with faces hidden in white masks attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight black prisoners. Democratic would accredit it to poorer southern whites. -
1871-Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the first to use the act, it was due to the Klan activity in South Carolina. -
1876-Progression
Support for Reconstruction began to end and by 1876 the entire South was controlled by the Democratic party once again.
