As the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum in the 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan—long thought to be in decline—returned with renewed force.

First formed in Tennessee after the Civil War, the KKK carried out a campaign of terror across the South before fading during Reconstruction. It resurfaced again in the 1920s at Stone Mountain, Georgia, fuelled in part by the release of The Birth of a Nation, growing to millions of members before once again losing influence within a decade.

Its third resurgence in the 1960s was expected—but its epicentre was not.

Klansville, U.S.A. explores how North Carolina, often viewed as one of the South’s more progressive states, became home to the largest Klan organisation in the country, surpassing all other Southern states combined.