Ku Klux Klan titles and vocabulary
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) nomenclature has evolved over the order's nearly 160 years of existence. The titles and designations were first laid out in the original Klan's prescripts of 1867 and 1868, then revamped with William J. Simmons's Kloran of 1916. Subsequent Klans have made various modifications.
1920s Kloran, setting out KKK terms and traditions. Like many KKK terms, this is a portmanteau term, formed from Klan and Quran.
Grand Dragon (later Grand Wizard) Dr. Samuel Green in Atlanta, Georgia, July 24 1948, being flanked by two children during the initiation ceremony at stone mountain.
Imperial Klazik, British Columbia, 1925. The name is derived from Klan and Cazique.
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, the Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets, at various times and places, have been African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.
Depiction of Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1870, based on a photograph taken under the supervision of a federal officer who seized Klan costumes
KKK rally near Chicago in the 1920s
The "Ku Klux Number" of Judge, August 16, 1924
A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) on March 4, 1869, the day President Grant takes office. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, September 1, 1868.
