Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, characterizes Ancona's group as "sort of the big dog" of the Ku Klux Klan now.

Pitcavage is a former military historian who began researching militia minutemen and later right-wing extremism. He characterizes the Klan as "group of hard-core white supremacists that are motivated by a belief that the white race is in danger of extinction."

He says white supremacy is composed of five main movements: Neo-Nazis, traditional white supremacist groups, racist skinheads, racist prison gangs and Christian Identity, whose religious adherents believe they are descended from lost tribes of Israel.

The current Klan is not one cohesive group, and is considered to be one of the traditional white supremacist groups, which emerged in the the civil rights era.

"The situation that existed in the 1950s and '60s simply does not exist. The white supremacists are no longer in charge. They are now fighting for the very survival of the white race, and they have to fight to protect," said Pitcavage. "This is a fundamental difference of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s and today in the 21st century."

In the past 60 years, several chapters of the Klan have made efforts to be involved in more civic-minded projects, such as adopting highways.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan -- the Harrison, Arkansas, group that David Duke once led -- tried doing it. There was also a group in Missouri that won a lawsuit to adopt a highway, and most recently, the North Georgia group that was denied the permit.