  by Susan Campbell Bartoletti  They Called Themselves the
K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group Summary
Extended Summary  Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s They Called
Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group
is an overview of the Ku Klux Klan’s early history written for a
young adult audience. Bartoletti explains that the Ku Klux
Klan’s origins can best be understood within the context of the
American Civil War and Reconstruction. The Civil War led to
Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” as well as the
passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery in
America. However, the South’s plantation economy relied on
slavery. Furthermore, Southerners believed that God had created
blacks to serve whites. When the Northern armies defeated the
South, they united the country and nominally freed the slaves,
but they also disrupted the economic and social customs of the
South.  President Abraham Lincoln famously intended that
Reconstruction take place with “malice toward