“THE KU KLUX KLAN OF THE 1920S HAD SIX ANCESTORS, each of them long embedded in American history. Each of them contributed one of the Klan’s six main ideological components: racism, nativism, temperance, fraternalism, Christian evangelicalism, and populism. The first parent, obviously, was the original Klan. This lineage was familial as well as organizational: Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Imperial Wizard of the first Klan, was the grandfather of Nathan Bedford Forrest II, Grand Dragon of the Georgia realm of the second Klan. That Simmons wanted to appropriate the Ku Klux Klan name for his new venture resulted from both lack of imagination and filial pride. He continued not only the Klan’s name but also its alias, the Invisible Empire.”
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