Video: 'Rebirth of Hate: The Ku Klux Klan's 1915 Revival | SLICE EXPERTS'

(Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 25, 1915) — A new version of the Ku Klux Klan, targeting blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants, was founded tonight by William Joseph Simmons, who proclaimed himself the Imperial Wizard of the group as he staged a cross-burning on Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.

Various historians have characterized the Klan as America’s first terrorist group.

The group is typically structured as a secret society containing several different organizations, that have historically resorted to terrorism, violence and acts of intimidation to impose their criteria and oppress their victims, most notably African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.

A leader of one of these organizations is called a grand wizard, and there have been three distinct iterations with various other targets relative to time and place.