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Who specifically founded the Ku Klux Klan and what were their backgrounds?
Executive summary
The Ku Klux Klan was created twice in distinct forms: an original group founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865–66 by a small band of Confederate veterans, and a separate national revival organized in 1915 by William J. Simmons on Stone Mountain, Georgia [1] [2]. Sources identify the Reconstruction founders variously as “six Confederate veterans” (named in some state histories) and name Nathan Bedford Forrest as the Reconstruction-era Klan’s first prominent leader or “Grand Wizard”; William J. Simmons is consistently credited as founder of the 1915 (Second) Klan [3] [4] [2].
1. The Pulaski founding: a fraternal origin that turned violent
Contemporary encyclopedias and historians say the first Ku Klux Klan began in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865–66 when six young Confederate veterans organized a fraternal order—drawing ritual models from antebellum fraternities—and named it using kuklos (Greek for “circle”) plus the invented “Klan” for alliteration [1] [5]. State-level accounts give names for those six founders—James Crowe, Richard Reed, Calvin (Thomas) Jones’s son, John Lester, Frank McCord, and John Kennedy—placing the origin in a Pulaski law office sometime between late 1865 and mid‑1866 [3]. Initially social and secretive, the group rapidly evolved into a campaign of intimidation and violence against Black citizens and Republican officials during Reconstruction [6].
2. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s controversial leadership
Sources report that the Klan’s most prominent Reconstruction leader was former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is often called the organization’s first “Grand Wizard” after the group became an organized, terror‑oriented entity in 1867–68; Forrest later ordered the group disbanded in 1869 amid escalation of violence [1] [4]. Reporting and academic summaries note Forrest’s role as a public face and organizer of the Klan’s transformation from a local fraternity into what contemporaries called the “Invisible Empire,” while also stressing that the Pulaski founders and wider membership included many ex‑Confederate soldiers and a cross‑section of white Southern social classes [6] [4].
3. The 1915 revival: William J. Simmons and the rebranding of the Klan
A separate, national Klan was founded near Atlanta in 1915 by William J. Simmons, a preacher and recruiter for fraternal societies who was inspired by The Birth of a Nation and contemporary nativist sentiment; Simmons formally dedicated his new order with a Stone Mountain cross‑burning and adopted many of the uniforms and rituals that define the popular image of the Klan [7] [2] [8]. Sources portray Simmons as a charismatic promoter who later partnered with advertising operatives (notably Edward Young Clarke) to expand membership into the hundreds of thousands by the early 1920s [9] [10].
4. Who were the founders — social backgrounds and motives
Across sources, founders and early leaders come from Confederate military ranks, fraternal‑order organizing, and white Protestant civic life. The Reconstruction founders were predominantly young Confederate veterans who sought fraternal bonding and then used clandestine violence to resist Reconstruction policies [5] [6]. The 1915 founder, William J. Simmons, was a former Confederate soldier turned preacher and fraternal recruiter whose motivations combined nativism, Protestantism, and opportunistic mass‑mobilization techniques influenced by popular culture [7] [9].
5. Disagreements and ambiguities in the record
Sources disagree in emphasis: some state encyclopedias and advocacy groups stress the Pulaski “six founders” as the originators and identify named individuals [3] while other accounts highlight Nathan Bedford Forrest as the reorganizing leader and first national “Grand Wizard” of the Reconstruction Klan [4] [1]. Historians also debate the relative agency of the Pulaski six versus later leaders like Forrest in turning the group into a violent insurgency; available sources reflect both angles rather than a single uncontested “who founded it” narrative [3] [4].
6. Why the distinction matters today
Understanding two distinct foundations matters because the Reconstruction Klan and the 1915 Klan had different immediate origins, geographies, and framings: the first grew from Confederate veterans’ local networks and quickly became a terrorist organization aimed at blocking Black political participation, while the second was explicitly built as a mass‑membership, nativist, Protestant nationalist movement that borrowed imagery and rituals from popular culture to recruit widely [1] [7] [8]. Modern discussions and legal/police responses treat them as historically linked but separate waves; sources show the name and mythology were reused by Simmons in 1915 rather than an unbroken continuous organization [2] [8].
Limitations: primary documents from 1865–66 are sparse and historians reconstruct early leadership from later testimony and local records; some local histories provide names for Pulaski’s six founders while national summaries emphasize Forrest or Simmons depending on era and scope [3] [4]. Available sources do not mention a single, uncontested founding biography that settles all disagreements.