What did the KKK really want?

The KKK was founded in 1866 by six Confederate veterans. This group started off as a fun and innocent way of socializing. Not long after the start of the KKK, other branches or "dens" of the KKK were being started. Many white southerners felt that the men of these various clans were following their duties and they were good men, and that all these men wanted to do was to protect their families. These men wanted more than that, though. They did not want black men being educated or owning their own land. Black men were not supposed to have the chance to become anything like white men. Whites who were not educated did not want blacks in school, while farmers/planters at this time wanted these ex-slaves back working in their fields. "Each student meant one less laborer," it says on page 574, is exactly how the whites felt during this time. Their ex-workers were taken away from them, educating themselves, and now the whites had to find people to do work on their farms or do it themselves, and they felt too good for that. In some places of Alabama, people felt that the Klan was only for blacks who didn't work, or who's bosses complained about their work. Not only did the Klan terrorize ex-slaves and some whites who they felt broke the "Old South's racial code," but they attacked Republican leaders and voters as well. They took control of poll elections, and took out the ones they did not want there on election day. If a black man held a position in office he would be terrorized and sometimes killed. This terrible between 1868 and 1871 violence reached horrible levels, and finally around 1870 Federal Intervention took place. The Acts of 1870 and 1871 started an end to a lot of the KKK's power, but the acts didn't take care of everything because other groups in the South still continued on their rampage of violence and terror.

Discussion Questions:
1. The KKK started in 1866 and didn't start dying down until around 1870. Why do you think it took the Federal Government four years to finally do something about this horrible problem that was happening to FREEDmen?
2. Besides blacks becoming possible more educated than whites, and planters loosing their workers in their fields, what could be some other solid potential reasons that triggered the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan?