"R. J. Brunson of Pulaski, Tennessee, aged 82. He was part of the original Klan and is wearing an original robe," image published in 1924 (Tennessee Virtual Archive)
The First Klan is a neologism or retronym used to describe the first of three distinct operational eras of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist domestic terrorist group of the United States. The First Klan, or Reconstruction Klan, was followed by the Second Klan, which had its peak in the 1920s, and finally by the Third Klan, 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."[1]
The first Klan was extant during the Reconstruction Era following the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. (There were numerous similar groups operating 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 control of the Old South. Per a 1976 report, "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."[2] 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.[3]
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 1876 and slowly declined in significance.[2]
^Degler (1965), p. 435.
^ abKu Klux Klan: A Report to the Illinois General Assembly (PDF) (Report). October 1876. pp. 3–10.
^"Grant, Reconstruction and the KKK | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
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