This is a bibliography of the Ku Klux Klan. The bibliography concentrates on historical scholarship; a small number of works from sociology, economics, political science, and law are included where they bear directly on the history of the Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist organization that has appeared in three distinct forms over the course of American history. The first Klan was created in Pulaski, Tennessee, by six Confederate veterans at the end of the Civil War; its members engaged in terrorism during Reconstruction, and the organization disbanded once it became evident that Jim Crow laws would ensure the continuation of white supremacy in the South. The Klan was revived by white Protestants near Atlanta, Georgia, in 1915, and by 1925, when its followers marched in Washington, D.C., it had as many as four million members. After the Second World War various groups organized under the Klan name in reaction to the civil rights movement and school desegregation, and Klansmen were responsible for some of the most notorious acts of violence of the period, including the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, which killed four young African American girls, and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964.

Bibliography contains academic level English language books (including translations) and journal articles, published mainly post World War II. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful. These reference reviews also function as a resource to find other works on this subject.

Works listed here are cited in the notes or bibliographies of scholarly sources. Each is published by an academic or major trade press, written by a recognized expert, or substantially reviewed in scholarly journals; borderline cases are omitted. A selection of primary sources are included. Many of the books below carry their own bibliographies; see Further reading section for longer ones, and External links section for historical sites and museums.

Citations follow APA style. Books have citations to academic journals or mainstream published reviews when available. For books only partly about the subject, give relevant chapter or section titles where useful and available. Translators of the original-language edition are included when possible. In cases where a title or name has appeared with more than one English spelling, use the most recent published form is used and a footnote documents any earlier title under which the work appeared.

General works

Newton, M. (2014). White robes and burning crosses: A history of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. McFarland. Quarles, C. L. (1999). The Ku Klux Klan and related American racialist and antisemitic organizations: A history and analysis. McFarland.

The confederacy and the Klan

Brown, W. L. (1997). A life of Albert Pike. University of Arkansas Press. Eckert, R. L. (1989). John Brown Gordon: Soldier, southerner, American. Louisiana State University Press. Hurst, J. (1993). Nathan Bedford Forrest: A biography. Knopf. Ward, A. (2005). River run red: The Fort Pillow massacre in the American Civil War. Viking. Wills, B. S. (1992). A battle from the start: The life of Nathan Bedford Forrest. HarperCollins. Wills, B. S. (2014). The river was dyed with blood: Nathan Bedford Forrest and Fort Pillow. University of Oklahoma Press.

Reconstruction-era Klan

Bordewich, F. M. (2023). Klan war: Ulysses S. Grant and the battle to save Reconstruction. Alfred A. Knopf. Bradley, M. L. (2009). Bluecoats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina. University Press of Kentucky. Budiansky, S. (2008). The bloody shirt: Terror after Appomattox. Viking. Cardyn, L. (2002). Sexualized racism/gendered violence: Outraging the body politic in the Reconstruction South. Michigan Law Review, 100(4), 675–867. Emberton, C. (2013). Beyond redemption: Race, violence, and the American South after the Civil War. University of Chicago Press. Gugliotta, G. (2025). Grant's enforcer: Taking down the Klan. University of Georgia Press. Hurst, J. (1993). Nathan Bedford Forrest: A biography. Knopf. Lane, C. (2019). Freedom's detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the man who masterminded America's first war on terror. Hanover Square Press. Martinez, J. M. (2007). Carpetbaggers, cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan: Exposing the invisible empire during Reconstruction. Rowman & Littlefield. Nelson, S. R. (1999). Iron confederacies: Southern railways, Klan violence, and Reconstruction. University of North Carolina Press. Parsons, E. F. (2005). Midnight rangers: Costume and performance in the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan. Journal of American History, 92(3), 811–836. Parsons, E. F. (2011). Klan skepticism and denial in Reconstruction-era public discourse. The Journal of Southern History, 77(1), 53–90. Parsons, E. F. (2015). Ku-Klux: The birth of the Klan during Reconstruction. University of North Carolina Press. Robb, F. O. (2017). "Two men in Ku Klux Klan disguises": A photograph from Reconstruction Alabama. Alabama Review, 70(3), 222–246. Rosen, H. (2009). Terror in the heart of freedom: Citizenship, sexual violence, and the meaning of race in the postemancipation South. University of North Carolina Press. Severance, B. H. (2005). Tennessee's radical army: The State Guard and its role in Reconstruction, 1867–1869. University of Tennessee Press. Snay, M. (2007). Fenians, freedmen, and southern whites: Race and nationality in the era of Reconstruction. Louisiana State University Press. Wang, X. (1997). The trial of democracy: Black suffrage and northern Republicans, 1860–1910. University of Georgia Press. West, J. L. (2002). The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865–1877. McFarland. Williams, K. E. (2012). They left great marks on me: African American testimonies of racial violence from emancipation to World War I. New York University Press. Williams, K. E. (2023). I saw death coming: A history of terror and survival in the war against Reconstruction. Bloomsbury. Williams, L. F. (1996). The great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan trials, 1871–1872. University of Georgia Press. Zuczek, R. (1996). State of rebellion: Reconstruction in South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.

Second Klan (1915–1944)

Baker, K. J. (2011). Gospel according to the Klan: The KKK's appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930. University Press of Kansas. Barnes, K. C. (2017). Another look behind the masks: The Ku Klux Klan in Bentonville, Arkansas, 1922–1926. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 76(3), 191–217. Barnes, K. C. (2021). The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas: How Protestant white nationalism came to rule a state. University of Arkansas Press. Blee, K. M. (1991). Women in the 1920s' Ku Klux Klan movement. Feminist Studies, 17(1), 57–77. Blee, K. M. (1991). Women of the Klan: Racism and gender in the 1920s. University of California Press. Craig, J. (2014). Ku Klux Klan in western Pennsylvania, 1921–1928. Lehigh University Press. Feldman, G. (1999). Politics, society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915–1949. University of Alabama Press. Fox, C. (2011). Everyday Klansfolk: White Protestant life and the KKK in 1920s Michigan. Michigan State University Press. Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2012). Hatred and profits: Under the hood of the Ku Klux Klan. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(4), 1883–1925. Gordon, L. (2017). The second coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition. Liveright. Harcourt, F. (2017). Ku Klux kulture: America and the Klan in the 1920s. University of Chicago Press. Hernandez, M. (2019). The Ku Klux Klan and Freemasonry in 1920s America: Fighting fraternities. Routledge. Holley, D. (2001). A look behind the masks: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Monticello, Arkansas. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 60(2), 131–150. Horowitz, D. A. (Ed.). (1999). Inside the Klavern: The secret history of a Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Southern Illinois University Press. Jenkins, W. D. (1990). Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio's Mahoning Valley. Kent State University Press. Kendall, A. G. (2011). Freemasonry and the second Ku Klux Klan in California, 1921–1925. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 2(1), 123–143. Laackman, D. W. (2020). Selling hate: Marketing the Ku Klux Klan. University of Georgia Press. Laats, A. (2012). Red schoolhouse, burning cross: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and educational reform. History of Education Quarterly, 52(3), 323–350. Law, S. (2026). Peddlers of hate: How the Ku Klux Klan seized power in 1920s Oregon. Oregon State University Press. Lay, S. (1995). Hooded knights on the Niagara: The Ku Klux Klan in Buffalo, New York. New York University Press. Lay, S. (Ed.). (1992). The invisible empire in the West: Toward a new historical appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. University of Illinois Press. Lutholtz, M. W. (1991). Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. Purdue University Press. MacLean, N. (1994). Behind the mask of chivalry: The making of the second Ku Klux Klan. Oxford University Press. Madison, J. H. (2020). The Ku Klux Klan in the heartland. Indiana University Press. McDonald, J. (2023). "Watch Adair Kounty Klan grow": The second Ku Klux Klan in Kirksville, Missouri, 1923–1925. Missouri Historical Review, 118(1), 1–24. McVeigh, R. (2009). The rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-wing movements and national politics. University of Minnesota Press. Moore, L. J. (1991). Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921–1928. University of North Carolina Press. Pegram, T. R. (2008). Hoodwinked: The Anti-Saloon League and the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Prohibition enforcement. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 7(1), 89–119. Pegram, T. R. (2011). One hundred percent American: The rebirth and decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Ivan R. Dee. Pitsula, J. M. (2013). Keeping Canada British: The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan. University of British Columbia Press. Rawlings, W. (2016). The second coming of the invisible empire: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Mercer University Press. Rice, T. (2015). White robes, silver screens: Movies and the making of the Ku Klux Klan. Indiana University Press. Richard, M. P. (2009). "This is not a Catholic nation": The Ku Klux Klan confronts Franco-Americans in Maine. The New England Quarterly, 82(2), 285–303. Richard, M. P. (2015). Not a Catholic nation: The Ku Klux Klan confronts New England in the 1920s. University of Massachusetts Press.

Civil rights era and after (post 1945)

Ball, H. (2004). Murder in Mississippi: United States v. Price and the struggle for civil rights. University Press of Kansas. Belew, K. (2018). Bring the war home: The white power movement and paramilitary America. Harvard University Press. Bermanzohn, S. A. (2003). Through survivors' eyes: From the sixties to the Greensboro massacre. Vanderbilt University Press. Blee, K. M. (2002). Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement. University of California Press. Chalmers, D. M. (2003). Backfire: How the Ku Klux Klan helped the civil rights movement. Rowman & Littlefield. Cunningham, D. (2004). There's something happening here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI counterintelligence. University of California Press. Cunningham, D., & Phillips, B. T. (2007). Contexts for mobilization: Spatial settings and Klan presence in North Carolina, 1964–1966. American Journal of Sociology, 113(3), 781–814. Cunningham, D. (2013). Klansville, U.S.A.: The rise and fall of the civil rights-era Ku Klux Klan. Oxford University Press.