Who were the KKK and what did they do?
The Ku Klux Klan was a racist group established by people who believed that white people were better and wanted to see black people remain as enslaved people. It began in the southern states at the end of the American Civil War in 1865.
The movement was revived in 1915 by William J Simmons following the release of the film Birth of a Nation. It grew quickly and by 1921 it had over 100,000 members. By the mid 1920s the movement was at its strongest with 5 million members.
Only Refers to the group known as White Anglo Saxon Protestants. could join the Klan. The KKK discriminated against black people, Roman Catholics, Jews and Mexicans.
Members of the Klan often killed black people by hanging without trial (lynching) – Members of the Ku Klux Klan killed black people by hanging them without trial (lynching) and often took the law into their own hands.. Sometimes the local police could not protect the victims and even took part in the killings.
Those responsible were not brought to justice very often, and Klan members knew that their friends in the courts would not find them guilty.
It was difficult for the government to change the attitudes of white people in the south and politicians were scared of losing votes.
The membership of the Klan fell to a few hundred thousand by 1928.