The Ku Klux Klan is founded
Six bored Tennessee men form a club that would become infamous for racial hatred
As Christmas 1865 approached, the town of Pulaski, Tennessee was not a happy place. Bitterly divided between supporters and opponents of slavery, Tennessee had nevertheless sided with the Confederate South in the American Civil War. Pulaski itself, on a major crossroads near the border with Alabama, was a slave-holding town, surrounded by “splendid plantations”. And since newly liberated slaves made up perhaps half of its population, the mood among the town’s white citizens was a toxic mixture of anger and fear. Even as Christmas approached, there were reports that it had become a magnet for ‘roughs’ from the local counties.
Among the men gathering in Pulaski that winter were six former soldiers in their mid-twenties, all of whom had fought bravely for the Confederacy. These young men were far from mindless thugs; one later became a state legislator, another edited the local newspaper and the others went on to become lawyers. But not only were they downhearted by the South’s defeat, they were bored. There were no jobs and no opportunities. As one, John Lester, put it: “There was nothing to relieve” the emptiness that “followed the excitement of army scenes and service.”
It was Lester who first suggested that to give themselves something to do, they should “start a club of some kind”. The exact date is probably unknown, but legend has it that the first meeting was held on Christmas Eve 1865. The six men devised an elaborate costume – a long white gown, decorated with occult symbols – as well as an intricate, pseudo-mystical hierarchy. At first, though, their club had no overt political purpose. Their aim, one said later, was “purely social and for our amusement”; the point was to “have fun, make mischief and play pranks on the public”. The name of their new club was the Ku Klux Klan.