Literary Notes6/3/10The Ku Klux Klan was first formed after the Civil War, in Pulaski, Tennessee, in an effort to prevent the movement of civil rights to grant rights to African Americans and free them. slaves. The Klan experienced its greatest growth "in the 1920s, [when] the Klan spread far beyond the South" (O'Malley). Three million members soon joined from the South, allowing the clan to gain political power in non-southern states. In an effort to end the rights of African Americans, they "tortured and killed black Americans and white sympathizers" who were acting in support of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the National Association for the Advancement of People of color (NAACP) (Simkin). Theodore Bilbo, governor of Mississippi at that time, was a Klansman who did everything in his political power to stop the civil rights movement and any laws passed to benefit African Americans and free slaves. gathered in Tommy's barbershop listening to the radio when they learned that Emmett Till, "a young black boy had been found trampled to death in Su...