They Called Themselves the K.K.K.
The Reconstruction Acts also guaranteed Southern black men the right to vote in elections for state constitutional conventions and in subsequent elections. To white Southerners, this was pure hypocrisy, since at this time only five Northern states granted black men the right to vote. (Women would not win the right to vote until 1920.)
Furthermore, the acts stipulated that no Southern state would gain readmission to the Union or become part of the United States again until it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment entitled all persons born or naturalized in the United States to citizenship and equal protection under its laws. Until three-fourths of the Southern states approved the Fourteenth Amendment, military rule would continue.
In March 1867, the Reconstruction Acts divided the South into five military districts, each under the command of a general.
Map by Rachel Newborn
By the time Congress passed the first two Reconstruction Acts that spring, most Confederates had already taken the loyalty oath or had been pardoned personally by President Andrew Johnson. But the Reconstruction Acts continued to bar some Confederate leaders from voting until the Southern states ratified their new state constitutions. These men and other white Southerners watched angrily as black men registered to vote. Some disenfranchised Confederates vowed to vote anyway.
President Johnson pardons Rebels at the White House. Within a few short months after taking office, Johnson granted more than seven thousand special pardons to the most important Confederates. By 1867, few Confederates remained disenfranchised, but to white Southerners, even a few was too many.
Harper’s Weekly, October 27, 1866; Library of Congress
Men such as famed Confederate calvary general Nathan Bedford Forrest argued that the federal government had overstepped its bounds. “I do not think the Federal Government has the right to disenfranchise any man,” said Forrest. “But I believe that the legislatures of the States have.” In other words, state governments should have the power to decide who should and should not vote.
Many white Southerners felt betrayed by the Reconstruction Acts. At surrender, they had believed that their political and voting rights were guaranteed. “They considered that good faith had not been kept with them,” explained a former Confederate soldier from South Carolina.
A former slave trader and slave owner, Nathan Bedford Forrest rose to the rank of general during the war. Under his command at Fort Pillow in Tennessee, Confederate soldiers slaughtered black Union troops and their white commander. In an official dispatch, Forrest said, “It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” Never punished during or after the war, Forrest was later pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. Today, historians don’t agree on exactly what happened at Fort Pillow: some say the massacre took place after the Union commander surrendered; others say he never surrendered. Most historians agree, however, that, surrender or not, a massacre took place, in every sense of the word.
Library of Congress
Furthermore, the sight of Yankee soldiers on Southern streets angered many white Southerners, who saw no reason for military rule during peacetime. But a former Union general who traveled throughout the South to assess postwar conditions noted much anger and resentment. “The incorrigibles,” he wrote in his report, “still indulge in the swagger and still hope for a time when the Southern Confederacy will achieve its independence.”
President Johnson and a white Southerner watch angrily as a freedman casts his vote.
Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, March 16, 1867; American Social History Project
The general further warned of another class of white Southerners: “Those whose intellects are weak but whose prejudices and impulses are strong and who are apt to be carried along by those who know how to appeal to the latter.”
As tempers were reaching a boiling point in Washington, the Klan continued to grow rapidly throughout Tennessee. In April 1867, just one year after the formation of the first den, the Grand Turk or master of ceremonies of the Pulaski dens stopped by the editorial office at the Pulaski Citizen.
“Our visitor appeared to be about nine feet high with a most hideous face, and wrapped in an elegant robe of black silk,” reported Frank McCord, now an editor at the newspaper. “He wore gloves the color of blood, and carried a magic wand in his hand with which he awed us into submission to any demand he might make.”
According to McCord, the Grand Turk commanded him to publish a notice written by the Grand Cyclops. The notice asked the public not to jump to conclusions regarding the secretive nature of the Klan. “Time will fully develop the objects of the ‘Kuklux Klan,’” promised the Grand Cyclops. “Until such a development takes place, ‘the public’ will please be patient.”
Little did the Pulaski Citizens readers know that the Grand Cyclops of the Pulaski dens had invited all other Klan dens to send delegates to a secret meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.
After the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, newspaper articles such as this one appeared regularly in the Pulaski town newspaper. The newspaper was published by Luther McCord, brother of founding Klansman Frank McCord.
Pulaski Citizen, April 19, 1867.
“First time dey come to my mama’s house at midnight and claim dey sojers done come back from de dead. Dey all dress up in sheets and make up like spirit. Dey groan ’round and say dey been kilt wrongly and come back for justice. One man, he look jus’ like ordinary man, but he spring up ’bout eighteen feet high all of a suddent. Another say he so thirsty he ain’t have no water since he been kilt at Manassas Junction. . . . Dey tell us what dey gwine do iffen we don’t all go back to our massas.”
—Lorenza Ezell, age eighty-seven in this 1937 photograph. Ezell was seventeen when he and his family left their former master’s plantation in South Carolina to work elsewhere.
Library of Congress
CHAPTER 4
“Worms Would Have Been Eating Me Now”
In April 1867, Klan leaders from all over Tennessee checked in to the Maxwell House, a fancy new hotel in Nashville. Within a few days, nearly every important Tennessee Democrat also arrived in town for the state convention to nominate candidates for the coming fall local and state elections. The seemingly coincidental timing allowed for great secrecy. As the Democrats checked in to Nashville city hotels, no outsiders would know which important party leaders also wore the robes and hoods of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Maxwell House Hotel, shown here circa 1865, served as the meeting place for the Klan’s secret reorganization gathering in spring 1867.
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Historians agree that the timing of these two meetings was significant. It suggests that Southern Democrats wanted to ally with the Ku Klux Klan in order to create a secret empire powerful enough to overthrow Republican rule and battle Reconstruction policies. No longer was the Ku Klux Klan a social club. With this secret meeting, they became a paramilitary organization.
In Nashville, Klan leaders called the meeting to order, and busied themselves with the first item of business: to develop the principles that would guide all dens. The Ku Klux Klan outlined its principles in a secret constitution of its own, called a Prescript.
In their creed and preamble, the Klan dedicated themselves to God and to their country, writing, “We, the * * [Ku Klux], reverently acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being, and recognize the goodness and providence of the same. We recognize our relations to the United States Government, and acknowledge the supremacy of its laws.”
Klan leaders were so secretive that the words “Ku Klux” do not appear anywhere in the Prescript. Instead, asterisks (* *) signify the two words.
Reprinted in KKK Report, Miscellaneous and Florida p. 35
A scripture lesson is for white children only in this satirical cartoon by Thomas Nast. The cartoon appears in an 1868 book, Ekkoes from Kentucky, by David Ross Locke, who comments on the hypocrisy of white su
premacists.
Library of Congress
The creed sounds patriotic, but the Ku Klux Klan maintained that America was founded by the white race and for the white race only. In the eyes of the Klan, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution didn’t include people of other races. The words “All men are created equal” meant white men, not all men. God intended for white people to exercise authority over other races. Therefore, the Klan considered any laws that granted citizenship and the rights and privileges of citizenship to nonwhites unconstitutional and against God’s plan. In other words, American rights and citizenship were intended for white people only.
In cryptic newspaper notices, Klan leaders used these code words, called a register, to signify months, days, and hours. For example, an order dated “Dismal Era, Fourth Green Day, Lost Hour” means “January, fourth Monday, twelve o’clock.” The register was listed in the Klan’s Prescript.
Reprinted in KKK Report, Florida and Miscellaneous, p. 41
Klan leaders understood that the Klan’s strength depended on absolute loyalty and secrecy. Each member swore never to reveal any information about the order, including its secrets, signs, handshakes, and passwords, and the identities of its members. Klan leaders also created their own mysterious code to represent the months, days, and hours so that no outsider would find out their meeting times.
With its official Prescript complete, the Ku Klux Klan dubbed itself the “Invisible Empire.” Clearly expecting the Klan to spread throughout the South, the leaders divided the empire into realms, dominions, and provinces. These boundaries were other words for states, congressional districts, and counties. In essence, the Ku Klux Klan became a country within a country, a shadow government with its own constitution, leaders, laws, and police—all dedicated to the principle that white people only should control all aspects of government and society.
To rule the new boundaries, Klan leaders added more leadership positions with mysterious-sounding titles. A Grand Dragon led each realm (state), assisted by eight Hydras; a Grand Titan headed each dominion (congressional district), assisted by six Furies; and a Grand Giant led each province (county), assisted by four Goblins.
A province or county might have several dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops, who had two Night Hawks as assistants. Each den had a Grand Magi and Monk, who were second and third in command; a Grand Scribe, or secretary; and a Grand Exchequer, or treasurer. Ordinary Klan members were called Ghouls.
The April 1867 reorganization pleased founding Klan members such as John Lester, who admitted that some newer dens had gotten out of hand, committing terrible acts or outrages that the Klan did not condone. He blamed bad men who had somehow gained membership. “[The Klan leaders] desired on one hand to restrain and control their own members,” said Lester. “On the other, to correct evils and promote order in society.”
At the convention’s end, the Klan delegates returned home. The Klan’s Prescript was printed secretly in a small printing office, possibly in Nashville, and copies were forwarded to the Grand Cyclops of each den. Dens were charged $10, about $145 today, for each copy of the Prescript.
By now the Invisible Empire had grown so large, it needed a strong leader. “We chose General Forrest,” said James R. Crowe, a founding Klansman.
And so it was said that Nathan Bedford Forrest—the same Nathan Bedford Forrest who believed that the federal government had overstepped its bounds—agreed to command the Invisible Empire. Described as an intimidating man “incapable alike of sympathy or fear,” Forrest earned the nickname “Wizard of the Saddle” by his fellow soldiers for his cavalry exploits. Now, as the highest-ranking Klansman, Forrest assumed the office of Grand Wizard, a title no doubt spun from his war days. A council of ten Genii served as his advisors.
These three homes illustrate the different economic classes of white Southerners: a wealthy planter’s house on the Mississippi River, a farmer’s house in Arkansas, and a white laborer’s slab hut in Mississippi. Some labor historians argue that wealthy white Southerners welcomed the Klan’s violent methods in order to prevent the lower classes—poor whites and blacks—from banding together for higher wages and other opportunities.
Library of Congress
Later, Forrest would deny his role, but he would explain the need for a vigilante group such as the Ku Klux Klan to restore order to the war-torn South, even though it meant taking the law into their own hands. “There was a great deal of insecurity felt by the Southern people,” said Forrest. “Many Northern men were going down there, forming leagues [Republican political clubs] all over the country. The negroes were holding night meetings; were going about; were becoming very insolent; and the Southern people all over the state were becoming very much alarmed.”
With Forrest as Grand Wizard, the ranks of the Klan filled with former Confederate soldiers, including generals and cavalrymen who had shared a common bond during the war. The Klan drew members from all classes of men—wealthy planters, small farmers, and poor laborers; doctors and lawyers; judges and sheriffs; merchants; clergy and church members; educated men and illiterate men. These men from diverse backgrounds were united by their belief in limited government, white supremacy, and a fear that white people would suffer personal loss if black people enjoyed the same rights and privileges. They wanted to restore the South to the proper hands.
Forrest insisted that Klan membership was selective: “They admitted no man who was not a gentleman and a man who could be relied upon to act discreetly,” said Forrest, “nor men who were in the habit of drinking, boisterous men, or men liable to commit error or wrong, or anything of that sort.”
In actuality, the Klan wasn’t as selective as Forrest made it sound. “Pretty nigh everybody in our neighborhood belonged to the organization,” said W. P. Burnett, a twenty-seven-year-old Klansman from South Carolina who could neither read nor write. “[The leaders] pushed the poor people into it, and made them go [on raids]. I was induced to join, because they came to my house and told me if I didn’t, I’d have to pay $5 and take fifty lashes.”
Throughout the summer of 1867, the newly reorganized Klan held a series of rallies and parades to show their strength and intimidate the freed people and others who disagreed with their politics.
In Athens, Alabama, Daniel Coleman—the same Daniel Coleman who had seen the Klan at the moonlight picnic—had just stepped off a horse-drawn city streetcar when he spotted nearly one hundred disguised horsemen parading down the street with the precision of a well-disciplined military cavalry.
He liked what he saw. “It was thought that the mystery connected with the organization would produce more terror to [law-breakers],” said Coleman, “and that by riding at night and appearing to be a sort of miraculous persons—spirits and ghosts, and things of the kind—it would have a good effect. That object seemed good.”
Local newspapers published flattering accounts of the parades and rallies, describing the ghoulish horsemen as pranksters, and nothing to be taken seriously. The stories made their way to Northern newspapers, stirring the imaginations of the readers. One writer described Klansmen who held dark séances “in caves in the bowels of the earth,” where they were surrounded by “rows of skulls, coffins, and their furniture, human skeletons.”
Another newspaper romanticized the mysterious Klansmen as caped crusaders, vigilante-type heroes committed to fighting evildoers. “Wherever a petty tyrant or a great one oppresses the people, there the K.K.K. rears its head,” wrote a reporter for the New York World. “The idea put forth is that the dead Confederate rises at midnight, and forming into a Pale Brigade, rides forth to redress the wrongs inflicted on those for whom he died.”
Outspoken newspaper editor and Klan leader Ryland Randolph, shown here, wrote of the “galling despotism that broods like a nightmare over these southern states” and the Republicans’ intention to “degrade the white man by the establishment of Negro supremacy.”
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Some Southern newspapers carried dire warnings known as “coffin notices” to victims. To outsiders, the notices sounded like nonsensical threats:
The Sergeant and Scorpion are Ready
Some Shall Weep and Some Shall Pray.
Meet at Skull
For Feast of the Wolf and
Dance of the Muffled Skeletons.
—————
The Death Watch is Set
The Last Hour Cometh.
The Moon is Full.
—————
Burst your cerements asunder
Meet at the Den of the Glow-Worm
The Guilty Shall be Punished
But there was nothing nonsensical about the Klan’s very real threats. An Alabama Cyclops bragged about the impact his notice had in Tuscaloosa. “The very night of the day on which these notices made their appearance,” said Ryland Randolph, “three notably offensive negro men were dragged out of their beds, escorted to the old bone-yard, and thrashed in the regular ante-bellum style until their unnatural nigger pride had a tumble, and humbleness to the white man reigned supreme.”