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The '''Ku Klux Klan''' ("KKK") had three incarnations in the USA, all by racistDemocrats. The Klan Two very prominent Democrats were members of the 1860s KKK: Democrat [[Robert Byrd]], who was a violent effort by white Southern U.S. Senator from [[DemocratsWest Virginia]] to fight for more than 50 years and who had led his local KKK chapter, and Democrat [[ReconstructionHugo Black]]; it , who was suppressed appointed to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] by [[FDR]] and became the federal governmentJustice most hostile to [[classroom prayer]] and [[Christianity]] in public life.

The Klan of the 1860s was a violent effort by white Southern [[Democrats]] to fight [[Reconstruction]] after the [[Civil War]]. Reconstruction was ended as a political compromise to resolve the exceedingly close presidential election of 1876. The second Klan flourished nationwide for a few years in the 1920s as state and district organizers profited handsomely by signing up millions of members, selling them distinctive white-robe costumes. The Klan voiced strong support for prohibition, opposed sexual immorality and promoted racism, liberalism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and immigration restriction. Dramatic scandals inside the organization and lack of organizational structure caused the Klan to collapse quickly in the late 1920s. By 1928 it was practically defunct.

The first KKK was an unorganized movement of white Southerners who opposed [[Reconstruction]] . It was founded in the late 1860s by 1866 to inflicting violence against black leaders and white Republicans. Local Klans were entirely separate; there was no organization or coordination above <ref>http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan</ref> One of the county levelfounders, and no county or state officersthe first "Grand Wizard," was former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Klan was broken up by President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] and the U.S. Army using the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act). It had disappeared by 1872, although similar violent groups persisted in some localities around the South.

[[David Duke]] was a [[Democrat]] at the time of his official membership with the Klan. He has ties to white supremacist organizations like the NAAWP, which he founded. After leaving the klan, Duke was elected as a Republican to the Louisiana state legislature. The [[Republican National Committee]] disavowed Duke and repudiated his racist views when Duke made an unsuccessful bid for governor.<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1176548.html RNC Condemns Ex-Klansman Duke], ''[[Washington Post]]'', February 25, 1989.{{dead link}}</ref>

* [http://reactor-core.org/original-kkk.html The History of the Original Ku Klux Klan] - by an anonymous author sympathetic to the original Klan{{dead link}}