The second Ku Klux Klan movement generally arose in 1915 around the same time that the film "Birth of a Nation" glamorizing the original Klan began to spread across theaters in the United States. That film came to Champaign-Urbana in February of 1916 to the approval and applause of local audiences (including local political leaders).
The first significant Klan gathering in Champaign County was 8/5/1922 and reported by local papers as involving 4,000 to 6,000 attendees, "high officials from a number of states," and a number of religious leaders. The Urbana Daily Courier noted that event was held on the Richmond farm between Mahomet and Fisher, included an automobile procession, a band, and hundreds of initiations.
By at least early 1923, this would evolve into the Zenith Klan No. 56 of the Realm of Illinois Ku Klux Klan. Soon they would be visiting local churches in full regalia, getting support from local religious leaders and sometimes have open gatherings with and without masks at local parks:
There was also a campus Ku Klux Klan inter-fraternity organization variously described as having been established in 1906 or 1908. This society changed its name to distinguish itself from the national Klan organization in April of 1923. More information on this organization is available here.
The headquarters of the local Klan in Champaign County was the Illinois Theater in Urbana, IL. Picture with description in the 2/13/1925 issue of "The Fiery Cross" Klan newspaper of the giant electric "fiery cross" on the roof:
A great modern overview of the history of the second Ku Klux Klan movement itself is available in Linda Gordon's "The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition." For a great book on the original Klan with a lot of primary sources and direct accounts of both perpetrators, victims and bystanders, I strongly recommend "White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction" by Allen W. Trelease.
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