This history of the Ku Klux Klan traces the evolution of the organization from its 1865 founding to the present, drawing extensively on contemporaneous media reports.

The Ku Klux Klan tells the story of America’s oldest and largest homegrown terrorist organization. It is a revealing look at the philosophies and methods of a secret society that used religious symbols, secret codes, and the cloak of anonymity to bind its members together in the cause of violent racial warfare.

The Ku Klux Klan encompasses the organization’s entire history, from its post-Civil War founding by Nathan Bedford Forrest, to its high watermark in the early 20th century, with membership swelling to four million and its founders portrayed as heroes in the film, Birth of a Nation to its resurgence in the Civil Rights era, to more recent attempts by David Duke and others to put a benign face on the Klan in order to gain elective office.

A rich collection of primary sources, including dozens of newspaper, magazine, and Internet reports of Klan-related events and personalities

Photographs spanning every era of Ku Klux Klan activity, from the Reconstruction to the Civil Rights era to the present

Includes a riveting glossary of Klan terminology

The complete index allows readers to find specific names and events in Klan history