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Nathan Bedford Forrest - Confederate General, KKK Founder [1]
['Robert L. Glaze', 'The Editors Of Encyclopaedia Britannica', 'Article History']
Date: 2025-05
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Forrest’s postwar business career was not as lucrative as his antebellum ventures. He had exhausted his fortune during the war, and with the abolition of slavery he lost one of his most valuable avenues for making money. After serving as the president of the Selma, Marion and Memphis Railroad, he settled on managing a plantation manned by convict labour.
Forrest’s notoriety only increased when, in 1867, he became the first grand wizard of the original Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a secret hate organization that employed terror in pursuit of its white supremacist agenda. Although the extent of Forrest’s influence in the KKK is disputed, at the very least his prestige served to expand membership rolls. The KKK embarked upon a campaign of intimidation and violence against Southern Blacks and Republicans until Forrest ordered the organization disbanded in 1869. Nevertheless, local chapters of the KKK continued to be active, and Forrest was ordered to appear before a congressional hearing in 1871. In his sometimes contradictory testimony, he denied membership in the organization. A combination of age, exhaustion, and a conversion to Christianity seem to have caused Forrest’s fiery temper and racial attitudes to moderate in his later years.
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[1] Url:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nathan-Bedford-Forrest/Postwar-life-and-the-Ku-Klux-Klan
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