Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian extremist, white supremacist, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction in the devastated South. Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. The group contains several organizations structured as a secret society, which have frequently resorted to terrorism, violence and acts of intimidation to impose their criteria and oppress their victims, most notably African Americans, Jews, and Catholics. A leader of one of these organizations is called a grand wizard, and there have been three distinct iterations with various other targets relative to time and place.