First Klan

, 1874 The First Klan is a retronym which is used to describe the first of three distinct operational eras in the history of the Ku Klux Klan, a White supremacist domestic terrorist group in the United States. The First Klan, or the Reconstruction Klan, was followed by the Second Klan, which reached its peak in the 1920s, and the Third Klan, which has been extant since the 1960s. According to historian Carl N. Degler, "Aside from the name, about the only common trait that the three Klans possess is vigilantism." The first Klan was extant during the Reconstruction Era which followed the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. (There were numerous similar groups which operated under other names: Red Shirts, Knights of the White Camellia, the Black Cavalry, etc.) The goal of this Klan was to intimidate freedmen and reformers ("niggers, carpetbaggers, and scalawags") into surrendering their newly gained political and social power over what had once been the hegemonic White system of the Old South. According to a report published in 1976¹, "The extent of these Klan activities will never be known. Nor can it ever be determined the extent of fear that such activities engendered in their targets.…

, 1874 The First Klan is a retronym which is used to describe the first of three distinct operational eras in the history of the Ku Klux Klan, a White supremacist domestic terrorist group in the United States. The First Klan, or the Reconstruction Klan, was followed by the Second Klan, which reached its peak in the 1920s, and the Third Klan, which has been extant since the 1960s. According to historian Carl N. Degler, "Aside from the name, about the only common trait that the three Klans possess is vigilantism." The first Klan was extant during the Reconstruction Era which followed the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. (There were numerous similar groups which operated under other names: Red Shirts, Knights of the White Camellia, the Black Cavalry, etc.) The goal of this Klan was to intimidate freedmen and reformers ("niggers, carpetbaggers, and scalawags") into surrendering their newly gained political and social power over what had once been the hegemonic White system of the Old South. According to a report published in 1976, "The extent of these Klan activities will never be known. Nor can it ever be determined the extent of fear that such activities engendered in their targets. Although it is known that close to 1,000 murders were committed by Klansmen, this figure represents only a very small part of the Klan terror." Federal investigations and prosecutions such as the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials of 1871–1872 and legislation such as the Ku Klux Klan Act attempted to expose and to repress the group. Unlike the Second Klan, which was a national organization, the First Klan was primarily a regional entity, most active in those former slave states that had supplied the most manpower to the Confederacy. This group largely achieved its goals following the Compromise of 1877 and as a result, it slowly declined in significance.

Organization

As the Klan concept spread outward from Tennessee in 1867 and 1868, the basic structure of the Klan was State – Congressional District – County, reflecting their preoccupation with reserving representative democracy for themselves alone. State leaders were called Grand Dragons of the Realm, congressional district leaders were Grand Titans of the Dominion, and county leaders were Grand Giants of the Province. In Walton County, Georgia, a "typical" Southern county with a population of 11,000 in 1870, "there were three dens of Klansmen...each with approximately 75 to 100 members¹." The president of Spartanburg Female College in South Carolina estimated that roughly 80 percent of White male voters in Spartanburg County were in the Klan in 1870–1871. Between them they victimized 227 people¹, and killed four African-American members of the South Carolina State Militia. In Mississippi, there is evidence of collaboration between small-town Klans as both a means of operational security and as for increased manpower: "The Ku Klux Klan of Winona went to Grenada and were likewise aided by the Grenada Klan. In this way there was less chance of being recognized." and J.S. McFall (inset, top) and (Missouri Historical Society P0084-0799) The First Klan was often a flamboyantly-styled continuation of the antebellum slave patrol. Typically horse-mounted, well-armed, and functioning at the behest of Whites who rested atop any given region's socioeconomic ladder, the pre-war slave patrol begat the wartime bushwhacker begat the post-war Klan paramilitary. Per historian Michael Fitzgerald, the main "difference was that planters lost their financial motivation to protect slaves' lives. Little restrained self-appointed patrollers after the war." Horse-mounted hunters versus freedmen often without the means to afford proper shoes was a succinct visual summary of the power dynamic at work. As Walter Johnson wrote about escaped slaves, "Beginning with the idea of the horse as a tool that converted grain into policing, one might define the several dimensions of horse-borne slaveholding power...More than that, as the historian Rhys Isaac long ago observed, a slaveholder (or patroller) on horseback visually commanded the landscape; traveling several feet above 'eye level' vastly expanded the immediate field of slaveholding power." One Alabama survivor of slavery, "Nancy Pugh, decades later, mixed the Klan and prewar patrols together indiscriminately in her memory."

Historiography

The distinction between the First, Second, and Third Klans dates back to the 1960s. Perhaps moreso than with later Klan organizations, relatives of first-generation Klansmen often claimed association after the fact. For instance, a Childress of Tennessee wrote in 1960, "It was also at Pulaski that my father [John Whitsitt Childress Jr.] became one of the organizers of the original Ku Klux Klan. (For the complete and true story of the Klan, see its history in the Ridley book. This gives the only true history of its beginnings, its operations, and its end, and could have been written only by one who knew the story personally.) I could never get father to admit his membership, for the Federal laws against it were never repealed; but there can be no doubt that he was one of the boys who started the KKK in 1867, when he was living in Pulaski. All Klansmen were young Confederate officers and the original group got together as a club or fraternity for fun only. The later KKK activities were brought about for protection against outrages of the scalawags and carpetbaggers who were exciting the Negroes to crimes."

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377585392 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.