Ku Klux Klan

Inspired by D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, which romanticized the Klan's clandestine exploits, William J. Simmons restarted the Klan in 1915, staging a dramatic kick off atop of Stone Mountain, the future site of the Confederate Memorial Carving. Simmons, who called himself a Colonel although he had never received the military rank, burned a cross atop of the mountain and started to solicit membership in the reborn Klan. This new version of the Klan prospered, bringing in thousands of members, including the first chief sculptor of the carving, Gutzon Borglum and the owner of the mountain, Samuel Venable. Because of their deep involvement with the early carving, Klansmen, along with the United Daughters of the Confederacy were able to influence the ideology of the carving, and they strongly supported the UDC's vision of an explicit Confederate memorial.

