Andries Viljoen
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

The Klan was born as a by-product of the American Civil War, initiated by the southern states of the country, unhappy with the end of slavery. The struggle lasted four years, between 1861 and 1865, and ended with a Union victory over the insurgents, 625,000 dead and a vast, destroyed region, with a stagnant, poverty-stricken economy for lack of a development model that could quickly replace A slave labor force.
In 1866, six officers of the former Confederate Army founded a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee — Ku Klux is a corruption of the Greek kuklos, circle. The following year, the group was organized as “The Invisible Empire of the South” during a convention in Nashville. The organization was headed by a “great magician,” the general confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest, an officer general of cavalry during the war — and famous for the hatred of blacks and Southern collaborators of the Northern Army.
In practice, the Klan acted as a gang of vigilantes, defending the properties of whites. And it was not the only time. A similar organization emerged the same year in Louisiana: the Knights of the White Camellia. In a short time, what used to be a watch group began to stage night-time attacks to kill freed blacks and their white supporters. From a former Confederate general, the Prescript appeared, the status of KKK. In addition to the obvious racist element, the document preached resistance against some of the practices imposed by the winning side of the Civil War, such as denying the right to vote for people who refused to swear that they had not fought against the Northern troops.

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