On this day, the modern Ku Klux Klan was officially chartered by the Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia. This marked the formal rebirth of the white supremacist organization, which had been originally founded during the Reconstruction era. Revived at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915, the second Klan was inspired in part by the racist film The Birth of a Nation and positioned itself as a defender of “Americanism.”
Throughout the 1920s, the Klan spread rapidly beyond the South into states like Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and California, claiming millions of members at its peak. It used intimidation, violence, and political influence to promote white supremacy and anti-Black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-immigrant ideologies.
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