In 86 years, the KKK killed an estimated 3,446 black people. Most often these were hangings and were not legal executions because there were no trials. Many people now call these acts a form of terrorism because the KKK used fear to control African Americans and take away their political rights. After reaching its height of political influence, the second Klan began to decline. There was a number of scandals, a great deal of internal feuding and people getting tired of their violent image. In the 1920s they had reached a peak of about 5 million members. By the 1930s they were down to about 30,000. They survived another 14 years before disbanding in 1944. This was after they had been prosecuted for failure to pay federal income taxes.