Of the many excuses Hugo Black later gave for joining the Klan, the one that seemed most outlandish was probably the most accurate: The hooded brotherhood of white supremacists was also the liberal insurgent wing of the Democratic Party. The Klan was the flawed consummation of the have-nots' long flirtation with power, which had begun with the signal political phenomenon of the post-bellum South: Populism.
Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001, with 2012 Afterword), p. 17.
