Why did the KKK abuse black people?

All of your answers are incorrect are based on flawed recorded history. History is always written by the victor. The KKK was started by ex confederate soldiers after they returned from the Civil War. Because the South had lost the war, many "carpetbaggers and scalawags" from the North were coming down to "claim the spoils of war". The South had been decimated and many of these men were looting and destroying homes and raping the women. Forrest formed the KKK as a means of bringing to justice those that were "claiming the spoils" as it was referred to. The Southern men had no other means of handling the situation because the North had brought men to maintain order but who would not side with justice but against anything South due to the, still high, level of anger and hatred for each other. So the Southern men felt they had no recourse for the actions in laws and courts at that time as it was being ignored to the detriment of the women and homesteads. It was never against blacks. Blacks or even ex-slaves were not even mentioned in the first editions of the handbooks, of which I have seen and read. The Black people, despite the Northern history, were family to the white people of the South. A great many were free men and some actually owned their own slaves. The majority actually fought in the Civil War for the South of their own free will.