The Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee, primarily aimed to:

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Use terrorism and violence to intimidate Black voters and white Republicans and restore white supremacy in the South. The Ku Klux Klan was founded by former Confederate soldiers in 1866 and quickly evolved into a terrorist organization dedicated to overthrowing Reconstruction governments and restoring white supremacy in the South. The Klan used violence, murder, arson, and intimidation to prevent African Americans from voting, holding office, or exercising their civil rights. They also targeted white Republicans  -  both "carpetbaggers" from the North and Southern "scalawags"  -  schoolteachers working with Black students, and anyone who supported racial equality. The Klan operated at night in disguise, creating a reign of terror across the South.

The Klan had no interest in promoting education or literacy  -  they frequently attacked schools for Black children and the teachers who staffed them. Peaceful reconciliation was the opposite of the Klan's methods and goals; they used extreme violence to achieve political objectives. The Klan actively opposed the Freedmen's Bureau and everything it stood for, viewing any institution that assisted formerly enslaved people as a threat to the racial hierarchy they sought to maintain.

The federal government responded to Klan violence with the Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871, sometimes called the Ku Klux Klan Acts, which made it a federal crime to use force, bribery, or intimidation to prevent citizens from voting. President Ulysses S. Grant used these laws to prosecute Klan members and even declared martial law in parts of South Carolina. These measures significantly reduced Klan activity by the mid-1870s, though other white supremacist organizations like the White League and Red Shirts continued the campaign of terror. The first Klan's legacy of racist violence established patterns that would be revived when the Klan was refounded in 1915 and that continued to plague American society throughout the 20th century.

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