It begins with a loss. The South was economically, emotionally, and psychology broken after they lost the Civil War. Their way of life was over forever. Reconstruction was enacted by the federal government. In the eyes of the white southerners it was put in place to punish them for their part in the war and to give more power to all the freed slaves. It was in this climate that six educated but restless men in Pulaski, Tennessee began the KKK or Ku Klux Klan. Although it started as a social club, it quickly became a terrorist group who targeted recently freed slaves. Members included doctors, lawyers, police officers, land owners, and poor whites. The KKK beat and killed African-Americans, and the white people who supported them, at will with almost full immunity from the authorities. The book is an unsettling account of how the KKK began and grew in America. It includes first-hand accounts from people that experienced it first hand and other primary sources.