The Klan; what started life as a small social group of confederate veterans in 1865, has since become the country's oldest and most recognized terrorist group. The group, which was formed on a December night in Pulaski, Tennessee, mostly due to boredom of small town life, quickly grew in numbers to the allure of the secrecy surrounding the group. Since the group's purpose was to curb the boredom the members originally faced all the ceremonies were developed with fun in mind. 1. The group in the earliest days was quite similar to a fraternity. Their name originates from the Greek word kuklos, which means circle or cycle. 2. Similarly fraternities also base their names on Greek letters. In addition to names being similarly related to fraternities, the Klan also had elaborate initiation ceremonies in which the member had to remain blindfolded while reciting oaths. After the original six members had formed the structure of their organization, they dressed in white sheets and rode their horses through town, simply as a prank. This caused such a commotion that they decided to adopt the white sheets as their official uniform, shortly there after they also added tall pointed hats for more effect.
             As the group began to expand and more and more people began to dress in white sheets and ride through the countryside, the black population became terrified with these people. The first pranks the Klan used against the blacks were knocking on their doors late at night acting like ghosts but what started out as pranks quickly turned to violence with the animosity that the Klansmen had for blacks after the war. 3. Blacks quickly began to fear these white faced armed nightriders who in many regards were similar to the slave patrolman the blacks were accustomed to before the war.
             By 1867 there were enough separate Klans that a centralized chain of command needed to be formed, Nathan Bedford Forrest became the Klan's first I...