The author of Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era KKK (Oxford University Press, 2013), Cunningham is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Brandeis University. Before discussing the most pressing questions people tend to have about the KKK, let me add some background for basic context. The Ku Klux Klan was first formed in 1866, through the efforts of a small band of Confederate veterans in Tennessee.