<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="http://bostonreview.net/race/michael-mccanne-when-klan-came-town?fbclid=IwAR04As6NJwJTc8r93ZgPEF_ZksDDu-poKYHaxnOBfZGv4dRLS8VnUajqHow#.W9DPQaDox9g.facebook">http://bostonreview.net/race/michael-mccanne-when-klan-came-town?fbclid=IwAR04As6NJwJTc8r93ZgPEF_ZksDDu-poKYHaxnOBfZGv4dRLS8VnUajqHow#.W9DPQaDox9g.facebook</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">When the Klan Came to Town</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Michael McCanne</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4 reader-show-element">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div id="detail-body">
<div id="detail-secondary-mobile">
<div>
<p>Oct 23, 2018</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="caption"> “The Great Army for Truth and
Americanism Makes Rome Tremble” (1928); Image: <a
href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Army_for_Truth_and_Americanism_Makes_Rome_Tremble.jpg"
target="_blank">Wikimedia</a> </p>
<p>History reminds us that firm and sometimes violent
opposition to racists is a time-honored American
tradition.</p>
<p>In Perth Amboy, New Jersey, members of the Ku Klux Klan
assembled to hear a xenophobic celebrity speak. An angry
crowd gathered outside the building and as the lecture
began inside, protestors interrupted the speaker and
tried to shout him down. Eventually the crowd outside
forced its way in. Scuffles broke out and several
Klansmen were attacked. Later, the Klansmen complained
that their constitutional rights had been violated and
promised to return in larger numbers, ready to fight it
out with their enemies.</p>
<p>It is worth remembering that Americans have a proud
tradition of confronting and exposing racist and
xenophobic movements.</p>
<p>The confrontation could have taken place during the
last year in Berkeley or Portland or any number of
cities where racists and anti-racists have clashed. But
the Perth Amboy riot was one of numerous confrontations
with the Ku Klux Klan that occurred during the early
1920s. The Klan was in a second ascendency, riding a
wave of anxiety about crime, immigration, and economic
unrest, and like the alt-right today, the Klan sought
out confrontations by rallying in unfriendly cities.</p>
<p>In response to white supremacist organizing in our own
time, radical voices on the left, notably Antifa, have
drawn on the tradition of European resistance to
fascists to declare that the appropriate response to
racist organizing is physical opposition, doxing
(publicly “outing” racists), and violent retaliation.
Liberal critics, on the other hand, have argued that
Antifa tactics break with U.S. traditions of free
speech, open debate, and civility. For the most part,
both sides of the debate fail to note that the United
States has a long history of homegrown militant
resistance to racist organizing. In the 1920s, when the
Klan sought to secure a place in the U.S. political
mainstream by organizing large public demonstrations and
mounting electoral campaigns, anti-Klan organizers
confronted the KKK using a range of techniques that
included open ridicule and violence. Their goals were
similar to anti-racists of today: expose the bigots and
deny them the ability to march or rally in public. This
all-but-forgotten story serves to remind that as long as
racist and xenophobic movements have mobilized in this
country, Americans have struggled to confront and expose
them using every option at hand.</p>
<p>The Klan did return to Perth Amboy three months after
the failed lecture, determined to show they would not be
intimidated. They rented an Odd Fellows hall downtown
and publicized their meeting. Perth Amboy was a
multiracial, working-class city but Klan membership was
strong in the surrounding countryside and 500 Klansmen,
in robes and masks, marched into the building, believing
their numbers, and the police, would protect them.</p>
<p>In response, 6,000 protestors surrounded the Odd
Fellows building carrying bricks. The police called in
the fire department to push them back with water but the
crowd slashed the fire hoses with knives and axes. The
police fired tear gas bombs, which did nothing to deter
the demonstrators, and the Klansmen had to flee out the
back door and fight their way through the streets. Most
were badly beaten and some had their cars overturned.</p>
<p>What seemed at first like organic anti-racist violence
was actually the fruit of organized resistance. In the
1920s, several groups formed to prevent the Klan from
gathering publically and to undermine the secrecy behind
which they hid. This resistance comprised disparate
communities—Catholics, Jews, African Americans,
bootleggers, union organizers—unified against the KKK’s
vision for the United States. Some organizations, such
as the American Unity League, used public shaming and
boycotts to counter the Klan’s influence, while a
shadowy group known as the Knights of the Flaming Circle
confronted the Klan more directly, blocking their
marches and attacking their rallies.</p>
<p>By the middle of the 1920s, the KKK was politically
mainstream. In some states, as many as a third of white
men paid dues.</p>
<p>The original Ku Klux Klan, formed by ex-Confederate
soldiers after the Civil War, all but died out by the
end of Reconstruction. Then, in 1915, inspired by D. W.
Griffith’s film <em>Birth of Nation</em>, a veteran of
the Spanish–American War named William J. Simmons
recreated the Klan as a fraternal society dedicated to
white supremacy<em>.</em> To inaugurate the new
organization, Simmons and some friends climbed to the
top of Stone Mountain, Georgia, and burned a
cross—something they had seen in Griffith’s film but
which had not been done by the original KKK.</p>
<p>The Klan grew rapidly, thanks to a range of factors
that included rising anti-immigrant sentiment, and the
social and economic tumult of the early 1920s.
Prohibition, universal suffrage, and rising crime caused
many white Protestants to feel that their country was
coming apart. The Klan capitalized on these anxieties.
Its official newspaper, <em>The Fiery Cross</em>,
detailed lurid crimes committed by foreigners and called
for restricted immigration. The Klan of the 1920s
especially targeted Catholics, playing on lingering
suspicions from World War I that Catholics maintained
dual loyalties and were part of a secret plot directed
from Rome. Klan newspapers derided the “Romans” and
“papists” in their midst. The Klan vigorously supported
Prohibition and saw its enforcement as a way to
terrorize immigrant communities—many Klansmen joined the
newly formed Prohibition Unit.</p>
<p>By the middle of the decade, the Klan was on the cusp
of integrating into the center of U.S. political life.
At its peak in 1925, it boasted between 2 and 5 million
members. In some states, such as Indiana, perhaps as
many as a third of white men were dues-paying KKK
members. The organization successfully ran candidates in
local and state elections and even caused a split
between pro- and anti-Klan delegates at the 1924
National Democratic Convention. The organization
downplayed its racism and emphasized patriotism,
Christian values, and what it called “100 percent
Americanism.” When its parades and rallies were
disrupted, the Klan claimed its constitutional rights
were being violated. After one anti-Klan riot, the KKK’s
Imperial Wizard released a statement lamenting that
“peaceable Americans banding themselves into a patriotic
organization are prevented from exercising the same
rights as Catholics, Jews and negroes.”</p>
<p>The Klan thrived on secrecy so politicians, public
officials, and anti-racist activists aimed to strip away
that veil.</p>
<p>This played well in smaller cities and rural counties
where most of the residents were native-born, white, and
Protestant. But in larger cities across the industrial
spine of the Midwest, where Catholics and immigrants
made up large majorities, the response was open
hostility. The Klan also ran into resistance in the
steel and coal regions of Appalachia, where organized
labor, especially the United Mine Workers Union, viewed
the Klan as a threat to the multiethnic coalition it had
built. African American organizations organized boycotts
of businesses that supported the Klan and turned
Emancipation Day celebrations into anti-Klan rallies. In
New York and New Jersey, African Americans organized
vigilance committees to defend their communities.</p>
<p>In bigger cities, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish
leaders spoke out against the Klan, as did the American
Legion and the Knights of Columbus. Some public
officials, especially Irish and Italian politicians,
took exception to the Klan organizing in their cities
and used their power to persecute its members. They
passed laws requiring organizations to make their
membership rolls public. They banned parading with
masks, and in some places banned the Klan outright,
despite the questionable legality of such a move. New
York’s mayor, John H. Hylan, dispensed with legal
niceties and ordered his police to crush the Klan, to
break up its meetings, and seize its membership lists.
When Chicago’s fire commissioner discovered that every
man at one firehouse had joined the Klan, he had them
split up and reassigned separately to Catholic and
African American neighborhoods.</p>
<p>In Chicago, a combative Irish Catholic lawyer named
Patrick O’Donnell decided to go on the offensive.
O’Donnell had been involved in Irish nationalist groups
and he used these skills to organize the American Unity
League (AUL), which was mainly made up of Catholics but
included African American ministers and rabbis in its
leadership. O’Donnell reasoned that the Klan thrived on
secrecy and, much like anti-racist activists today,
aimed to strip away that veil. He paid leakers for Klan
membership rolls and sent informers into the
organization. In some instances, the AUL broke into Klan
offices to get the names. The lists were printed in the
AUL newspaper, <em>Tolerance</em>, and in leaflets—a
form of proto-doxing. Once exposed, workers lost their
jobs and businessmen faced boycotts. In one prominent
case, the president of a Chicago bank had to resign from
his position.</p>
<p>The AUL also used mockery to diminish the power of the
Klan, whose bizarre lingo and silly titles provided easy
fodder. Klan meetings were “klonklaves,” a local chapter
was called a “klavern,” and the organization’s book of
rules was the Kloran. The head of the Klan was called
the Imperial Wizard, and local leaders were known as
Exalted Cyclops. The AUL dubbed the Klansmen “Kluxers”
and “Koo Koos.” It also published internal scandals of
klaverns, tales of graft and adultery, as well as
testimonies from Klansmen who had quit the organization.
The tactics caused great distress among Klan leadership.
The Klan’s paper decried the tactics of the “Un-American
Unity League” run by “Mad Pat O’Donnell.” The Klan even
mounted lawsuits against the AUL for slander and
defamation, which ultimately crippled <em>Tolerance </em>financially.</p>
<p>While the AUL battled the Klan in a publicity war,
another, more secretive, organization called the Knights
of the Flaming Circle emerged to confront the Klan.
Little is known about this organization, but the <em>New
York Times</em> reported that around the same time
as the second clash in Perth Amboy, the Knights of the
Flaming Circle was founded at a huge meeting in Kane,
Pennsylvania, at which participants wore robes and set a
thirty-foot-high circle on fire. In a letter to the
local newspaper, the Knights declared their bitter
opposition to the Klan and promised to “ring the earth
with justice to all” regardless of race or religion.</p>
<p>Opposition to the 1920s Klan often made for strange
bedfellows.</p>
<p>Although the historical record on the Knights of the
Flaming Circle is spotty, it seems they were committed
to using the Klan’s own methods against them. The press
dubbed them the “Red Knights” because they purportedly
wore red robes—although, unlike the Klan, they made a
point of not wearing masks. They burned circles of hay
or tires on Klansmen’s lawns. Like the AUL, the Knights
also stole membership rolls and donation records, which
they used to publically shame Klansmen, and organize
boycotts of Klan-owned businesses. The Knights main
function, though, was to disrupt Klan events and
organize counterprotests. If the Klan mounted a surprise
parade, the Knights would march the next day to voice
their opposition. When the Klan announced an event in
advance, the Knights would strive to block it in any way
they could. In Canfield, Ohio, the Knights of the
Flaming Circle scattered roofing tacks on the road to
flatten the Klansmen’s tires on the way to a parade.</p>
<p>When the Klan planned a march through Niles, Ohio, in
1924, the Knights of the Flaming Circle called a
counterdemonstration of thousands. The mayor had granted
a permit to the Klan—despite pleas from local
citizens—but refused a permit to the Knights. On the
morning of November 1, the Knights of the Flaming Circle
set up roadblocks outside Niles, stopping Klansmen’s
cars and seizing their regalia. Some of the cars were
overturned and the occupants beaten up. The ones who
made it through tried to march but scuffles devolved
into a riot, which lasted eighteen hours; the Klan
parade never took place.</p>
<p>While some of the Knights were motivated by the Klan’s
racism and xenophobia, others may have had different
reasons. The Klan often attacked local liquor rackets,
which in turn were more than willing to defend their
businesses and communities with violence, and may well
have played a significant role in the Knights. It is
also possible that the Knights of the Flaming Circle was
never a formal organization at all, but instead a name
used to claim victories or rally support by various
clandestine anti-Klan activists and bootleggers. In an
interview many years later, a member from Youngstown,
Ohio, said that the group was a “thrown-together outfit”
made up of local ethnic gangs and that the newspapers
invented the image of an organization. Jonathan Kinser,
who is completing a book on the Knights of the Flaming
Circle, speculates that wire services helped spread the
group’s legend across the country and inspired others to
take up the name: “People would read about the clashes
and say, ‘hey, let’s do it too.’”</p>
<p>In places such as southern Illinois, however, the
Knights seemed better organized—with meetings and
officers—and more prepared to defend themselves against
the Klan. In Williamson County, in what is known locally
as the Klan War, the Red Knights—with the backing of
miners, bootleggers, and the sheriff—battled with
Klansmen who enjoyed the support of prohibition agents
and local police. The tit-for-tat attacks left several
people dead and forced the governor to bring in the
National Guard to restore the peace.</p>
<p>For those who joined the Klan for a sense of belonging,
the risks started to outweigh the benefits.</p>
<p>Opposition to the 1920s Klan often made for strange
bedfellows. Democrats and Republicans both found
themselves battling to keep the Klan out of political
life. Immigrant communities that were at each other’s
throats, such as the Irish and Italians, joined forces
to smash up Klan parades. The Catholic Church found
itself on the same side as bootleggers. In short, the
Klan had grown so large and antagonized so many
communities that anti-Klan activity represented a
diverse swath of the country.</p>
<p>The Klan used violence and intimidation to achieve its
goals, but seemed overwhelmed when it was opposed by the
same tactics, particularly in the North and Midwest. The
violent disturbances tarnished the Klan’s reputation as
a respectable political organization and in many
instances forced the Klan to give up trying to rally and
organize in cities that were not dominated by
sympathetic residents. According to Kinser, the targeted
violence against Klansmen, especially by those with ties
to bootlegging, caused a precipitous decline in
membership in the Midwest. For those who joined the Klan
for a sense of belonging or were motivated by anger over
illegal alcohol or immigration, the risks started to
outweigh the benefits. By 1926 the Klan had lost all but
a symbolic presence in the North, and by the end of the
decade, the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan had
collapsed under the weight of public scandals, declining
membership, and external opposition.</p>
<p>The number of white supremacists organizing today is
nowhere near that of the 1920s. But their ranks have
increased since the 2016 election, and they are gaining
influence in the government and at the margins of
electoral politics, riding high on a wave of xenophobia
and perceived white victimization. Opposition to them is
also growing, but so far only on the hard left. This
history reminds us, though, that firm and sometimes
violent opposition to racists is a time-honored American
tradition, one that has in the past enjoyed support from
across the political spectrum, by citizens who may have
agreed on little else.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>