First Klan

The First Klan is a neologism or a retronym which is used to describe the first of three distinct operational eras in the history of the Ku Klux Klan, a White supremacist domestic terrorist group in the United States. The First Klan, or the Reconstruction Klan, was followed by the Second Klan, which reached its peak in the 1920s, and finally, it was followed by the Third Klan, which has been extant since the 1960s. According to historian Carl N. Degler, "Aside from the name, about the only common trait that the three Klans possess is vigilantism."^[1]

The first Klan was extant during the Reconstruction Era which followed the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. (There were numerous similar groups which operated under other names: Red Shirts, Knights of the White Camellia, the Black Cavalry, etc.) The goal of this Klan was to intimidate freedmen and reformers ("niggers, carpetbaggers, and scalawags") into surrendering their newly gained political and social power over what had once been the hegemonic White system of the Old South. According to a report which was published in 1976, "The extent of these Klan activities will never be known. Nor can it ever be determined the extent of fear that such activities engendered in their targets. Although it is known that close to 1,000 murders were committed by Klansmen, this figure represents only a very small part of the Klan terror."^[2] Federal investigations and prosecutions such as the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials of 1871–1872 and legislation such as the Ku Klux Klan Act attempted to expose and to repress the group.^[3]

Unlike the Second Klan, which was a national organization, the First Klan was primarily a regional entity, most active in those former slave states that had supplied the most manpower to the Confederacy. This group largely achieved its goals following the Compromise of 1876 and as a result, it slowly declined in significance.^[2]