Learn about African American history with these old magazine articles. Find information on Black Civil Rights violations in the 1920s.
A two page article reporting on the growth of the KKK throughout the United States in the early Twenties, it’s general rise in popularity and the resolve of elected officials at both the state and Federal levels to contain the Invisible Empire.
Interesting comments can be read by a reformed Klansman named H.P. Fry, who authored a cautionary memoir titled, The Modern Ku Klux Klan
A couple of years after the membership lists of the Ku Klux Klan had swelled to record levels, and just seven years after a chic Hollywood film director made a movie that ennobled their crimes,the Administrative Committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America issued a statement which served to distance the Protestant churches from that hate-filled organization.
From Amazon: Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930
Attached is a two-page article about that day in 1928 when the KKK stood before Judge W.H.S. Thomson in a Federal Court in Pittsburgh:
A Daniel has come to judgment, in the opinion of many a newspaper writer, when a Federal judge in a formal opinion read the bench delivers a denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan in terms as strong as any of the private enemies of that organization have ever used. Federal Judge W.H.S. Thomson, in concluding that complicated KKK trial, remarked that the Klan was an ‘unlawful organization’ coming into court ‘with filthy hands after open and flagrant violation’ of the law…
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
The zeal of the Ku Klux Klan to ‘support the Church’ has been displayed by many signs, and intimations multiply, we are told, that certain Protestant ministers are in its confidence and would seem on occasion to be directing it’s activities. But to some ministers the Klan’s mark of approval appears to be embarrassing, a favor which they would much prefer to do without. Scarcely a Sunday passes without the publication of the news that a Klan has visited a church in a body, simply to signify approval, or to remain decorously through the service.
A collection of remarks made by Klansmen in their own defense as well as a smattering of similar statements made by newspaper editors and various other high-profiled swells of the day:
This editor has repeatedly affirmed privately and publicly that he is not a member of the Ku Klux or any other secret organization. But when it comes to secret societies, he sees no difference absolutely between the Ku Klux and many others, the Knights of Columbus, for instance…
Click here to learn about the origins of the term Jim Crow.
Written on the heels of the 1924 election, this article listed who among KKK candidates won or lost their respective contests. The journalist collected a number of opinions pulled from as many as twenty mid-western newspapers, including two Klan-owned papers: The Oklahoma Fiery Cross and The Illinois Kourier.
The Ku Klux Klan victories in Texas and Oregon, where the influence of the hooded organization is said to have elected a United States Senator in one instance and a Governor in the other, indicates to The Nation that
the Ku Klux Klan has now passed out of the amusing stage and has entered the domain of practical politics to challenge our existing parties.
A few of the members of the Hooded Order down Alabama way got some unexpected news in 1927 when they discovered that their standard maneuvering tactics, so often relied upon to skirt the law, had failed them utterly. Three separate set-backs in as many months had resulted in the criminal convictions of thirty-six members of the Ku Klux Klan; so surprising was this event to the local residents, the Alabama press corps and those ink-stained wretches way up North at the THE LITERARY DIGEST, that soon the nation found everyone was discussing it. This article is essentially a collection of assorted opinions gathered from across the United States concerning this stunning defeat for the Alabama Klan.
An article by one of the KKK‘s most outspoken enemies in the press, Stanley Frost (author of Challenge of the Klan), who reported on the political dust-up that took place in the Oklahoma state government when the Klan made serious attempts to be a dominate factor in Oklahoma politics.
THE OUTLOOK sent Stanley Frost to Oklahoma to study the amazing political conflict which has taken place in the state. The forces at odds in the state may have a far-reaching influence upon national politics.
