The Ku Klux Klan (also known as the KKK or the Klan) is a far-right organization that has existed since the War on Treason and has been a thorn in the American people's side for centuries and is the most active and powerful anti-Coalition non-state organization in the galaxy. Presidents, emperors and Supreme Directors have all tried and failed to crush the Klan.
History
The original Klan, or known as the "old Klan," was responsible for guerilla warfare, terrorist action and assassinations against the United States after the collapse of the Confederacy and was extremely active during the Great Emergency, forming the core of anti-government sentiment in the South. After the foundation of the American Empire and extreme crackdowns within the traditional United States, the Klan ran south to the more chaotic occupied territories. There they joined with croixists fleeing France and Great Britain and attempted to form "white enclaves" in the jungles, far from the eyes of Washington, D.C. There they adopted what the Klan would become infamous for: the drug trade. Desperate for funding their war against the "Yankee imperials" and the Latino populations around them, the Klan resorted to producing and distributing illicit substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and lysergide. This transition marked the rise of the "new Klan," an organization that was defined as much by its role in the drug trade as it was with reactionary white supremacy.
By the time of the Collapse, the Klan was extremely powerful within the southern portions of the Empire and had already spread throughout the stars along with the Imperial colonization program. They had replaced the old nationalists of those countries as the primary anti-Imperial organization in the region. Substance abuse was rampant throughout the Empire and emperors promised the final destruction of the Klan. However, the Klan was splintering, as the ideologues began to fight against Klan chapters that cared more about money and dealt with "inferior races." Their efforts were only successful in leaving thousands of soldiers dead in the jungles. Many believed that the Collapse had destroyed the Klan for good, but the Collapse only succeeded in splitting the Klan between the Earth-bound "Imperial" Klan and the interstellar Klan. The Klan became a major player in the American nationalist faction during the Endless War, but they just as often fought against the nationalists as they did alongside them. They also profited greatly from the impoverished and depressed populations desperate for an escape.
With the rise of the Coalition, the National Conservatives were extreme in their destruction of anti-government organizations such as the Klan, and they were largely forced into the ghettos and peripheral states. This created the major split between the "Coalition," "Val Verde" and "Republican" chapters of the Klan. The Klan in the New American Republic was the major right-wing party and largely abandoned drug dealing in favor of legitimate politics and claims that the "mongrel" Coalition would inevitably collapse and that they would claim the mantel of Manifest Destiny for themselves. Meanwhile, the Val Verde chapters fully embraced organized crime and became a major rival of the mafia. The Klan within the Coalition has become a full-blown terrorist organization, organizing bombings, hijackings and kidnappings in their never-ending war against the Yankee menace.