Klan Women

White nationalist organizations are often extremists in defense of idealized men and manhood, but also idealized gender roles in defense of nationalism, the purity of the white race and white Western civilization. Local women played a large role in the second Ku Klux Klan movement nationally and locally as well. For the national Klan history, I strongly recommend this brief overview at JSTOR, Linda Gordon's book and others).

The local Women's Klan auxiliary was not shy about their efforts as seen in this 8/11/1925 Urbana Daily Courier article:

Many times they were only mentioned as dutiful wives at larger events, like the 11/20 advertisement and 11/23/1923 coverage for the two day convention where the Imperial Wizard of the national organization and Illinois Grand Dragon attended events. The issues of gender roles put on the ultimate display as the convention culminated in the wedding of the Exalted Cyclops' daughter surrounded by Klan, fiery crosses, and giant white K's:

 

At other large events the initiations of new members included separate initiation ceremonies of women into their auxiliary group. Courier coverage from 8/29/1924:

Local women, however, had also been organizing locally for quite some time. Locally there were already Home Leagues, Women's Christians Temperance Unions, and various women's auxiliaries to various fraternal orders like the Knights of Pythias (Pythian Sisters) or Masons (Eastern Star). Even with less press coverage of their activities, Klan Women engaged in many of the same activities as the primary men's group, and publicly. Visiting churches in regalia with donations such as in this 2/10/1924 News-Gazette article:

Sometimes the donations were flags or Bibles (especially to schools), but a lot of the time it was straight up cash. Along with some theatrics. From the 2/10 News-Gazette and 2/11/1924 Courier coverage of their visit to the local Plymouth Community Church:

And again at the Champaign Dunkard Church as reported in the Courier on 2/18/1924:

 

Christmas and other events involved more work by both men and women of the Klan. The Courier printed the Women's Klan's own press release on 12/26/1924 to help highlight their charitable efforts:

Just as with the men's group, the organization was multi-level and there were often visits and conventions with regional and national officers. From the News-Gazette coverage of the women's convention (related to the women's parade above) on 8/11/1925 and another reported 11/29/1925:

Other rare references mostly centered on the men, and what they may have been doing for the "Ladies of the Klan" as opposed to the work they often did behind the scenes for most of the functions of fraternal organizations. From the News-Gazette 2/13/1927 coverage of another "Klorero" regional convention:

Unfortunately, a lot of references in the press and other research tend to only mention the wives and daughters of the Klan in passing reference to the men's activities, weddings, or as the Mrs. You could be forgiven if you didn't know the first name of the Exalted Cyclops' wife over decades of news articles. She was in the news and did her own organizing in other groups as well, but was almost always referred to as Mrs. J. J. Reynolds, as was formal custom at the time. Beyond giant Klan weddings when the Imperial Wizard was in town, other Reynold's daughters and family members attended other large events. Mary got national news coverage that came back to the Courier on 9/14/1926:

Klan membership could sometimes be secretive, or at least a little cryptic and evasive in admitting one was a member versus simply supportive. For many, however, it was a family affair. Often with the masks off and for the whole world to see.

Klan Raiders

A more well known bit of Southern Illinois history is "Bloody Williamson" where Ku Klux Klan raiders went to war with with anti-Klan bootleggers and Knights of the Flaming Circle. Various law enforcement found themselves on either side of the battle lines. Klan Raider S. Glenn Young would eventually have the Sheriff and Mayor arrested and briefly become dictator of the little town of Herrin. An army of Klan members with handmade stars cut from tin cans would hold the town until National Guard units (some from the Champaign County) assumed authority. The story is incredible and even crazier than it sounds. At one point the Sheriff of Williamson, along with others, were held in the Champaign County jail for their own protection. From the 2/11/1924 News-Gazette:

This page doesn't get into the whole story of Williamson, which is bettered covered by the book linked above and other sources. That tale is complicated and it can be difficult to know who or if there are any "good guys" in the story. Before S. Glenn Young went to Williamson, he spent several months raiding bootleggers right here in Champaign County alongside local police. His extremely pro-Klan biography gives a shoutout to Urbana and the Champaign County Sheriff:

As a general rule, it's probably not a good sign when an extremely pro-Klan book has to assure the reader that you aren't a Klansman, just really splendid by Klan standards. Sheriff Gray would return the sentiment, however, becoming close friends with the notorious Klansman during their work together in Champaign County. He would go on to speak highly of his friend, criticizing the press coverage of him, and amplify concerns about foreigners and outsiders in defense of Young:

Glenn Young became a Klan leader in East St. Louis after his raiding days in Williamson County. He did speaking tours to Klan gatherings here and elsewhere. His speaking events later included the bullet riddled car he and his wife were ambushed in, leaving both with permanent injuries. In Champaign, the Klan rally he spoke at included this, but also compliments to the County Sheriff and Urbana police departments. He seemed to imply that the Champaign police department fell short in some way:

The bullet-riddled car he displayed had been a new vehicle purchased for him by the Williamson Klan in gratitude for his efforts. 

This was in addition the salary the Klan had paid him for his services as a raider of bootleggers. The concept of "professional" policing was still in its infancy at this time in the early 1920s (The Mississippi Department of Education has a brief overview of the policing history timeline in the United States here). At it turned out, S. Glenn Young was no longer a prohibition agent, or an active federal agent of any kind anymore. Not just when he was freelancing for the Klan under that supposed authority. But even while he was raiding along side local law enforcement in Champaign County. From "Bloody Williamson:"

Young was exonerated by a coroner’s jury but indicted for murder by the Madison County grand jury. The Prohibition Unit suspended him on December 20, 1920, pending the result of its own investigation. On the ground that he was a federal officer at the time of the offense, the case was taken from Madison County and set for trial in the U.S. District Court at Springfield...

Young was a free man, but any elation he may have felt at his acquittal must have been dampened by the knowledge that he had no job. Two weeks earlier he had been dismissed as a prohibition agent, with the dismissal dated December 10, 1920, when he had been suspended. 

His discharge was the result of an investigation, conducted by two special agents, that the Prohibition Unit initiated after he killed Vukovic. In that case the agents concluded that Young had acted in self-defense, but that he did not exercise the caution and discretion to be expected of a government officer when he entered the house without a search warrant. In other instances of alleged improper or unlawful conduct the agents found Young guilty. He had, as charged, presented a fictitious claim for auto hire; he had inspired the East St. Louis Journal articles, which were held to be “improper newspaper publicity”; he had continued to represent himself as a prohibition agent after his suspension.

There were reports that Young's publicity stunts and methods had upset Klan leadership and led to his ejection from the organization, but his biographer, who published the book together with his widow disputed those reports. He quoted the Grand Titan of Illinois as saying that Young remained in good standing with the organization:

There's a theme of animosity against the press by Sheriff Gray, Young's biographers, and the Klan more generally. In the biography it is summed up as the result of a "Romanized-Judaized press" viciously attacking them with lies. There may be some parallels to the "Lügenpresse" rhetoric that emerged in Germany, but direct connections are harder to discern than many shared influences and international conspiracies of the age.

The biography assures us that Klan raiders, and certainly not Glenn Young, had no prejudice against other religions or races. In addition to these denials of hate or prejudice, however, they noted the indisputable reality and necessity for white supremacy in a section called "Klan Principles are American and Christian." Excerpt:

Sheriff John Gray would go on to become a local Postmaster and later Mayor of Urbana. He would be invited to be and act as a pallbearer for the Exalted Cyclops of the local Ku Klux Klan in 1935:

At his funeral former Sheriff and Mayor John Gray would be praised and described as despising "the very appearance of evil."

Editorial Context on Churches and the Klan

From time to time there will be additional contemporary editorial context to help shed light on the context of the statements being made in this period of time (and in related posts here). For example, how criticisms of the Klan tended to include justifications for the original Klan or an appreciation of their aims, original founders and/or their intentions.

The Urbana Daily Courier had a number of contemporary editorials throughout the 1920s focusing on the increased divisions, polarization, and fears during the 1920s. Some were specifically on the original and second Ku Klux Klan, others illustrated common beliefs at the time. The paper was unapologetically Republican in its ideology and partisanship by its own admission. They explained why that may not mean what exactly what a modern reader would assume at the beginning of the decade in an editorial on 1/30/1920:

The founders of the democratic party believed that the country was best governed when it was least governed. They wanted every man to be free to do as nearly as he pleased as was possible without jeopardizing the welfare of the rest. Their theory was that each man should have the greatest possible liberty of action, and that the government should interfere to the minimum extent with anyone's activities. For that reason they opposed a centralized government, advocated state rights, and as a matter of principle objected to interference by officialdom with individual action.

Under this theory of government there would be no government regulation of business; there would be no public utility commissions; no interstate commerce commissions; no anti-trust laws; no check on the excesses of capital or of labor. Natural laws were sufficient, it was held, to take care of any injustice that might develop. In this view it was more important that man should be free, tho he had difficulty in making ends meet, than to live in the lap of luxury and have his every activity supervised and determined by some one other than himself.

When the republican party was born it rallied around a somewhat different theory of government. It believed in the freedom of the individual, but not to the extent that the old democrats did, for the republicans held that individual rights were subservient to general rights, and that the welfare of all was best secured by the establishment and maintenance of a centralized government strong enough to step in and stop abuses that were sure to arise where the strong sought to take advantage of the weak. And so the republicans increased the prestige and power of the government. They started to regulate business; they passed anti-trust laws; they created the interstate commerce commission, and inspired numerous other devices designed to prevent excesses on the part of the strong, and to protect those unable to help themselves.

But the theory of the republican party does not go further than regulation. It believes in modified individualism, controlled in such a way that meritorious individual effort shall have the largest possible chance to develop, but recognizes that individualism unchecked sometimes becomes a curse instead of a blessing.

 

The full editorial is available here (click to enlarge) and was in the context of contrasting the two major parties with the threat of socialism during the height of the First Red Scare and Palmer Raids throughout the State of Illinois.

This period in United States history can complicate a lot of more simplified modern partisan mythologies. A lot of ideas and terminology associated with one group today often permeated both parties or factions within them at the time. A good example would be the Courier's 8/18/1921 editorial criticizing the Klan when it was beginning to surge throughout the North and middle America. A modern reader may hope for a strong rebuke. Instead we see prefacing the argument on the necessity of the original Klan and an appreciation for the second Klan's aims:

In the end it's more of a warning on the inherent problems with secret societies with corruption and imitation. Its big ask is for a name change to avoid some of the pitfalls of otherwise good intentions. This may sound similar to the St. Joseph Record editor's rebuke that inspired the Klan visit to his town from an earlier post:

For those wanting a stronger rebuke, there was a Letter to the Editor in the Courier following their call for a name change printed on :

The Courier would go on to publish a retrospective on the Klan in an editorial criticizing its flaws, but qualifying that with support for some of its aims:

In this retrospective, they highlight the explosion of local protestant support for the Klan and speculate as to why people were losing interest. The assumptions about the Klan's targets taking no offense and going about their business as usual ignores a great deal of local organizing and efforts to stay safe during this heavily segregated period in our local history. Future posts will highlight the two different realities described in local white newspapers and Black journals and newspapers circulating here at the time.

The Courier also highlighted the deep polarization between Protestants and Catholics locally as the local Klan was exploding locally in 1923. From a 12/3/1923 editorial titled "Good Indians":

For the full editorial, click the thumbnail to the right. 

In the contemporary news clippings, books, and other items within this research there will be a few ideas that may appear contradictory to a modern reader. One will be public and overt denials of racism or prejudice in defense of notoriously racist and prejudiced organizations. The other will be the apparent or overtly stated assumption that white supremacy is both an indisputable reality and thus does not imply any hatred, prejudice, or "bad" qualities of those who recognize that fact.

As pointed out in the Birth of a Nation post, this isn't peculiar to our locality at this point in history. White supremacist views permeated both the North and South at this time, both major parties, and often individual factions and ideologies. Revisionist views of Reconstruction were also popular in the North, where "scalawags" and Black people were the threat during Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan were initially essential to stabilize a normal and health white supremacist society again. For example, one popular textbook in the North and South, written by a Northerner after the turn of the century wrote in his "History of the United States of America" (1905):

The author, William H. Elson, was a Northern educator who also became the Superintendent of Schools in Cleveland. The book was eventually banned from many prominent Southern universities due to it listing slavery as one of the causes of the Civil War. His book also highlights other contemporary arguments that may sound familiar today, but difficult to mesh with this period of time:

and on the next page:

It's also worth pointing out that this is generally before the influence of the notorious "Dunning School" that is often associated with the white supremacist view of Reconstruction being popularized across the country (North and South) in the last century. While the Dunning School helped bring us into an era of more scientific and research based history, white supremacy was already endemic in both history and the early sciences. One of the Dunning School graduates became the head of the political science department of the University of Illinois here. W.E.B. Du Bois described him as more moderate of the bunch, for what that's worth given the context. More on that in this frustrating, yet fascinating, book on the Dunning School here.

Churches and the Klan

For specific Klan ministers (a work in progress):

• Reverend McMahan of Mattoon, the region, and the Klan campaign for Mattoon mayor.
• Reverend H. C. Bream of St. Joseph.
• Reverend O. K. Doney of Villa Grove and Urbana.
• Reverend J. F. Hollingsworth of Villa Grove and elsewhere.

Early signs of Klan organization locally were reported in cryptic articles in the local newspapers. Rumors without sources or from the local State's Attorney, but few details. From the 10/4/1921 Daily Illini and the 10/27/1921 Urbana Daily Courier:

 

The first significant and public Klan gathering, however, involved local religious leaders. It was held on 8/5/1922 on the Richmond farm between Mahomet and Fisher,  It was reported by local papers as involving 4,000 to 6,000 attendees, "high officials from a number of states," an automobile procession, a band, and hundreds of initiations. The News-Gazette had coverage on 8/6, the Courier on 8/7 and the Rantoul Weekly Press ran its own introduction to the News-Gazette coverage on 8/9/1922:

Soon area churches were receiving visits by hooded Klansmen in full regalia bearing donations of money and flags. The local ministers would generally accept the gifts and give either overt or tacit endorsement. One of the first of these was reported in St. Joseph at the Church of Christ with Reverend A.C. Bream. From the Sidney Times on 9/1/1922. The Courier offered two views of the incident on 8/28/1922:

The complaints of the Klan "desecrating" the religious service and terrifying children resulted in Church officials (from the Reverend himself to trustees and others) certifying a denial of any such controversy and ensuring the Klan was welcomed with enthusiastic applause. The Courier printed their statement on 8/29/1922:

 

The editorial that had preceded the Klan visit to the church criticized the Klan, but especially the clergy that had been reported to have attended the massive Klan rally on 8/5/1922 in the County. From the St. Joseph Record on 8/25/1922:

Bream would go on to invite the public to pro-Klan lectures from the pulpit. From the Courier 1/26/1923:

Villa Grove Christian church pastors Reverend Oliver K. Doney and Reverend Frank Hollingsworth also participated in Klan events and and pro-Klan lectures across Champaign County towns and cities. O.K. Doney was heavily involved in the early establishment of the local Klan and performed many public ceremonies with them. Reverend Hollingsworth was noted in the local papers addressing Klan gatherings in Sidney, St. Joseph, and elsewhere in the area. From the Courier 7/30 and 10/7/1924: 

Hollingsworth also led Klan gatherings and Klan weddings in Villa Grove itself. From the Courier on 7/11 and 9/11/1924:

Reverend O.K. Doney performed the massive Klan wedding of the Exalted Cyclops' daughter at the same two day convention attended by the national organization's Imperial Wizard at the time, Hiram Evans (documented in this previous post here). One notable ceremony for a local fallen World War veteran was officiated by O.K. Doney in an event full of Klan regalia and symbolism (including a fiery cross represented in flowers). The event was in coordination with local fraternal and veterans groups. From the 5/30/1932 News-Gazette:

Local churches like the First Baptist church of Champaign also received friendly visits and gifts from hundreds of fully robed Klansmen. From the News-Gazette 3/5/1925:

Similar Klan visits and donations occurred at the Grace M.E. church and Emmanuel Mission church as well. Examples from the Courier on 9/5/1922 and the News-Gazette on 1/5/1925:

 

One minister that deserves special note is Reverend J.F. McMahan, pastor of the Christian church of Mattoon who popped up all over the area recruiting and propagandizing for the Klan. He received a special mention in one of the first large gatherings at the Klan's local headquarters at the Illinois Theater by the Courier on 1/31/1923:

There is a separate post on Reverend J.F. McMahan given the extent of his efforts on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan across the county in towns big and small (e.g. Pesotum, Philo, Rantoul, Tolono, etc). There were other religious issues and ceremonies, especially funerals, where the Klan was also on display and working with Klan friendly clergy, but those will be covered by future posts.

A post on Editorial Context on Churches and the Klan helps highlight some contemporary political and religious views of the time.

A page will be dedicated to all of the research materials on the various Klan church visits and engagements throughout the 1920s soon.