Ku Klux Klan titles and vocabulary
The sources of the rituals, titles and even the name of KKK may be found in antebellum college fraternities and secret societies such as the Kuklos Adelphon.
[1] Earlier source material, however, states, The ceremony of initiation was borrowed from some of the features of the introduction of candidates of the long defunct Sons of Malta and other like societies, and was calculated to, and did provoke, much amusement for most of those, if not all, who were present, according to the 1907 Cyclopedia of Fraternities.
[2] J.C. Lester, one of the original members of the group, stated that the Klan rituals were modeled on and embraced the leading features of the rituals of an order which has long been popular in many colleges and universities under various names such as the Sons of Confucius or Guiasticutus but always styled Ancient and Honorable and Mirth-Provoking.
Walter L. Fleming stated in a footnote to Lester's text that the contemporary (early twentieth century) Southern college fraternity that most nearly mirrored the early Klan was known as Alpha Sigma Sigma and the institution of snipe hunting.
[3] The original prescript of the Ku Klux Klan was adopted by a convention in Nashville, Tennessee in April 1867.
The questions asked included: are you now or have ever been a member of the Radical Republican Party, Loyal Leagues or Grand Army of the Republic?
Members were bound to participate in the activities of the order, even if it meant leaving the "embraces" of their wife.
[32] An attempt was apparently made to make Ghoul titles for other officers in Maury County, Tennessee in 1867 and early 1868, but the result was only confusion.
[33] In some early reconstruction Klan units there was also a Lictor, whose role as a guard of the den was later subsumed by the Nighthawks.
[28] The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc. which existed from 1915 to 1944, elaborated on the original prescript in its Kloran and in the constitution and by-laws adopted in 1922.
Some titles and jurisdictional designations were carried over from the Reconstruction prescripts intact or slightly modified, and others were original with Imperial Wizard Simmons.
A Klokann of three members, each one named a Klokan, filled this role at the local levels and a Klokann of four members at the Imperial level, in which they served as a Supreme Board of Auditors and Special Advisers and was led by a Chief Imperial Klokan.
[55] The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan created some innovations in their organization including a bicameral Klongress with an upper house Klonvokation and lower Klanburgess.
[56] In the late 1970s, David Duke's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan dropped the Imperial Wizard title; the leader was called national director.
[58][full citation needed] Aside from titles and geographical designations, a distinctive vocabulary has grown around the Ku Klux Klan organizations.
There are terms related to membership and non-membership:[62][63] Groups of Klansmen that were commissioned for "special activities": Two KKK codes for dates and times have been developed, the Ku Klux Register in the original prescripts and the Kalender developed by William J. Simmons.
The First Reign of our Incarnation and Incantation was the period between the Revolution and the establishment of the original Klan, which was reckoned to May 6, 1866 in this scheme.
