'The term political correctness was coined in 1988 by John O'Sullivan III, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was making an after dinner speech complaining about how Black Americans were being allowed to take the jobs traditionally reserved for the white majority because of a wave of political correctness.
Proof that this particular claim is a lie can be found here, where the term "political correctness" is used on June 19th, 1983. I urge Freepers interested in this term to do some searches on Google Groups, which stores messages sent across the Usnet through the early 1980s. You'll notice that the term "politically correct" is used frequently by leftists until they lose control of it because the truth is, that's the source of the term.
Fascinating look at old NNTP headers and net addresses.