Who started the KKK
Executive summary
The Ku Klux Klan was first created as a post–Civil War fraternal and white-supremacist organization by a small group of former Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, in late 1865/early 1866; that original body quickly morphed into a terrorism network during Reconstruction [1] [2] [3]. A separate, much larger revival of the Klan was launched in 1915 by William Joseph Simmons, who drew on popular culture—especially the film The Birth of a Nation—and on romanticized memories of the Reconstruction-era Klan to rebuild a national “Invisible Empire” [4] [5].
1. Origins in Pulaski: six Confederate veterans and a name drawn from “kuklos”
The earliest incarnation of the Klan began in Pulaski, Tennessee, when a handful of former Confederate soldiers organized what contemporaneous and later historians describe as a social club that adopted secret rituals and a name likely derived from the Greek kuklos, meaning “circle,” with “Klan” added for alliteration; most sources date this founding to late 1865 or the spring of 1866 and identify the founders as six young Confederate veterans [1] [2] [6].
2. From frat club to terror network during Reconstruction
Although the organization began with fraternal trappings, it rapidly transformed into a coordinated campaign of political intimidation and violence aimed at suppressing Black suffrage and reversing Reconstruction gains: by 1868–1870 the Klan operated across much of the South, carrying out whippings, lynchings, arson and murder to intimidate Black citizens and white Republican allies [1] [7] [8].
3. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s disputed but consequential role
Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest is widely cited as having been chosen as the Klan’s first “grand wizard” in 1867 and his prestige undoubtedly swelled the group’s ranks, though historians debate how directly he commanded or organized Klan actions; some accounts say he ordered the organization disbanded by 1869 because of its excesses, even as local violence persisted and federal enforcement later curtailed the group [9] [10] [3].
4. Federal response and the Klan’s 19th‑century decline
The scale and brutality of Klan violence prompted federal intervention: Congress passed the Enforcement Acts and the Ku Klux Klan Act (Force Acts) in 1870–71, enabling prosecutions that substantially weakened the original Klan’s national power and drove it into dormancy by the early 1870s [11] [1].
5. The 1915 revival: William J. Simmons and the second Klan
The Klan was not a single, unbroken organization; in 1915 William Joseph Simmons refounded a new national Klan in Georgia, explicitly inspired by Thomas Dixon’s novel and D. W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation, and he used theatrical rituals (cross‑burning, robes) and modern publicity to grow membership into the hundreds of thousands and later millions during the early 1920s [4] [5].
6. Multiple “founders,” evolving incarnations, and historiographical cautions
Answering “Who started the KKK” therefore requires distinguishing between iterations: the original Klan was created by a small band of Confederate veterans in Pulaski (the factual origin most primary and scholarly sources record), while the more famous nationwide Klan of the 20th century was effectively launched by William J. Simmons and his publicity partners—each incarnation had different leaders, symbols, and organizational reach, and historians caution against collapsing these distinct movements into a single continuous entity [2] [4] [5]. Sources differ on details—dates, exact number of founders, and the scope of Forrest’s leadership—so some specifics remain contested in the literature and depend on which Klan (Reconstruction-era or the 1915 revival) is being described [10] [12].