The original Ku Klux Klan was organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the winter of 1865-1866,
by six former Confederate army officers who gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word
kuklos ("circle"). The name, rituals, and some of the attitudes of the original Klan were adopted by
a new fraternal organization incorporated in Georgia in 1915. The official name of the new society,
which was organized by a former preacher, Colonel William Simmons, was ‘Invisible Empire,
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan‘. Membership was open to native-born, white, Protestant males,
16 years of age or older. Blacks, Roman Catholics, and Jews were excluded and were
increasingly made targets of defamation and persecution by the Klan.
Forest Whitaker, U.S.A