The times in which the different Klans were created were very different from each other. In the time when the first Klan was created, the US was just coming out of the Civil War. This meant that even though there was peace, there was still much animosity in the states on both sides. Many white citizens in the US still looked at black people as a lower species who didn't deserve to have the same rights as themselves.
During the creation of the second Ku Klux Klan there was different tension between races in the United States. The rebirth of the Klan was during the Nadir of American Race Relations (Mercer). This was the period of time when racism in the US was at its worst, and Blacks lost many of their freedoms that they had won during the Civil War. One of the only things they retained was their fear of being hunted down. "I'd grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the Ku Klux Klan." (Thomas).