Ku Klux Klan Southern Poverty Law Center. , the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) puts it at 6,000 members total. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to America's "Anglo-Saxon" blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK. The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, sometime between December 1865 and August 1866 by six former officers of the Confederate army as a fraternal social club inspired at
1st Battalion Tennessee Light Artillery, Battery "A" Lick Bridge July 30. Smith's Shoals, Cumberland River, August 1. Ordered to Murfreesboro, Tenn., August; then to McMinnville September 5, and march to Chattanooga September 12–22. Garrison artillery at Chattanooga until March 1864. Reopening Tennessee River October 26–29, 1863. Battles of Chattanooga November 23–25. Garrison artillery at Decatur, Ala., March 1864 to January 1865. Skirmishes at Athens, Ala., October 1–2, 1864. Siege of Decatur October 26–29. Ordered to Pulaski, Tenn., January 16, 1865. Duty at Pulaski and in middle Tennessee on line of railroad until July. 1st Battalion Tennessee Light Artillery, Battery "A" Battery A, 1st Battalion Tennessee Light Artillery