Historians generally classify the KKK as part of the post-Civil War insurgent violence related not only to the high number of veterans in the inhabitants, but also to their effort to regulate the dramatically modified social state of affairs by utilizing extrajudicial means to revive white supremacy. From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games (1 ed.). The Ku Klux Klan was certainly one of quite a lot of secret, oath-certain organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans (1865) and the Knights of the White Camelia (1867) in Louisiana. In addition to its energetic membership, the Klan has an "unknown variety of associates and supporters". A 2016 report by the Anti-Defamation League claims an estimate of just over 30 active Klan teams present within the United States. From September 1923 there have been two Ku Klux Klan organizations: the one founded by Simmons and led by Evans with its strength primarily in the southern United States, and a breakaway group led by Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson primarily based in Evansville, Indiana with its membership primarily in the midwestern United States.

In 1866, Mississippi governor William L. Sharkey reported that disorder, lack of control, and lawlessness were widespread; in some states armed bands of Confederate soldiers roamed at will. As an illustration, the Red Shirts are credited with helping elect Wade Hampton as governor in South Carolina. In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest acknowledged that the Klan's primary opposition was to the Loyal Leagues, Republican state governments, individuals equivalent to Tennessee governor William Gannaway Brownlow, and other "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags". Much of the Klan's power went into guarding the house, and historian Kathleen Blee says that its members wished to guard "the interests of white womanhood". As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to revive white supremacy by threats and violence, together with homicide. The first Klan had combined results when it comes to achieving its targets. However, it precipitated a sharp backlash, with passage of federal laws that historian Eric Foner says have been a hit when it comes to "restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of Southern Republicans, and enabling Blacks to train their rights as residents".

In 1870 and 1871, the federal authorities passed the Enforcement Acts, which were intended to prosecute and suppress Klan crimes. It preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, calling Sex Chat Up Lines For Free strict morality and better enforcement of Prohibition. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold "Christian morality", Christian denominations extensively denounce them. In 1923, Simmons was ousted as chief of the KKK by Hiram Wesley Evans. The KKK had no organizational structure above the chapter degree. Since many of the Klan's members have been veterans, they were used to such military hierarchy, but the Klan never operated beneath this centralized structure. The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a nationwide and state structure. Beginning in 1921, it adopted a fashionable business system of utilizing full-time, paid recruiters and it appealed to new members as a fraternal organization, of which many examples have been flourishing on the time. It grew quickly nationwide at a time of prosperity.

The group was recognized for a short time because the "Kuklux Clan". The name was most likely formed by combining the Greek kyklos (κύκλος, which implies circle) with clan. New teams of insurgents emerged in the mid-1870s, native paramilitary organizations such as the White League, Red Shirts, saber clubs, and rifle clubs, that intimidated and murdered Black political leaders. The phrase had previously been used for other fraternal organizations in the South comparable to Kuklos Adelphon. However, there have been related groups throughout the South that adopted related objectives. After the Klan was suppressed, comparable insurgent paramilitary teams arose that were explicitly directed at suppressing Republican voting and turning Republicans out of workplace: the White League, which started in Louisiana in 1874; and the Red Shirts, which started in Mississippi and developed chapters within the Carolinas. The Klan attacked Black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated Southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau staff. Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of anti-Black vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, unlawful whiskey distillers, coercive ethical reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of Black competition, employers making an attempt to enforce labor self-discipline, widespread thieves, neighbors with a long time-outdated grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own.