Klux Klan has had a markedly up-and- down history. It was founded in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War by six former Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee. The six young men, four of whom were budding lawyers, saw themselves as merely a circle of like-minded friends-thus the name they chose, "kuklux," a slight mangling of kuklos, the Greek word for "circle." They added "klan" because they were all of Scotch-Irish descent. In the beginning, their activities were said to be harmless midnight pranks-riding horses through the countryside while draped in white sheets and pillowcase hoods. But soon the Klan evolved into a multi- state terrorist organization designed to frighten and kill emancipated slaves. Among its regional leaders were five former Confederate gen- erals; its staunchest supporters were the plantation owners for whom Reconstruction posed an economic and political nightmare. In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant spelled out for the House of Representa- tives the true aims of the Ku Klux Klan: "By force and terror, to pre-   vent all political action not in accord with the views of the members, to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms and of the right of a free ballot, to suppress the schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely allied to that of slavery." The early Klan did its work through pamphleteering, lynching, shooting, burning, castrating, pistol-whipping, and a thousand forms of intimidation. They targeted former slaves and any whites who sup- ported the blacks rights to vote, acquire land, or gain an education. Within barely a decade, however, the Klan had been extinguished,