The Ku Klux Klan fizzled out after Reconstruction in the South because the old Planter leadership was able to regain control and no longer needed a terrorist organization to resist Federal occupation. But the stress following WWI, the flu pandemic, mass unemployment, shocking social changes, and xenophobia brought out the worst in people. The KKK was reorganized and reached its peak in the 1920s. In Erath County this hysteria led to the removal of the graves of African-American pioneers/slaves from West End Cemetery to near St. John’s Church in 1922. That same year, in June, according to the Stephenville Tribune, 5000 Ku Klux Klansmen gathered between Dublin and Stephenville to vent their frustrations.