William Joseph Simmons (May 7, 1880 – May 18, 1945) was an American preacher and fraternal organizer who founded and led the second Ku Klux Klan from Thanksgiving evening 1915 until being ousted in 1922 by Hiram Wesley Evans.

[3] While recovering in 1915 after being hit by a car, Simmons decided to rebuild the Klan which he had seen depicted in the newly released film The Birth of a Nation directed by D. W. Griffith.

On Thanksgiving eve, November 25, 1915, they climbed Stone Mountain to burn a cross and inaugurate the new group, with fifteen charter members.

Initially portraying itself as another fraternal organization, the group was opposed to the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe—who were mostly Jews and Roman Catholics—and anybody else who was not a native-born Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Protestant.

Davis, as a high ranking Klan leader, played a key role in encouraging members to abandon Evans and remain loyal to Simmons in their new order.

[13] The Klan started to decline after a peak of membership and influence in 1925, particularly because of the scandal in which D. C. Stephenson, one of its top leaders, was convicted of raping, kidnapping and murdering Madge Oberholtzer.