Review: They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group

They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating look into the Reconstruction era KKK - Act I and the birth of this terroristic body. The rejuvenated, 20th Century and even modern form of the Invisible Empire is highlighted, but Nathan Bedford Forrest's group borne from a small group of imaginative Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee is the focus here. The story is largely told from the material of born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, the WPA project to capture oral history from the last survivors of slavery and the testimony and journalism arising from the U.S. governement destruction of the first Klan. (In 1870 a federal grand jury determined that the Klan was a "terrorist organization". It issued hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism. Klan members were prosecuted, and many fled from areas that were under federal government jurisdiction, particularly in South Carolina.)

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