![]() ![]() This special section on the KKK was created by Trevor Griffey and includes an online short book on the History of the KKK in Washington State by Trevor Griffey and article length essays by Brianne Cooke and Kristin Dimick. And there is evidence that the Klan in Bellingham helped pioneer intimidation practices that paved the way for anti-communist witch-hunts in the 1940s. In the 1930s, some prominent leaders in the region’s KKK went on to become involved in the facist Silver Legion, or “Silvershirts,” a national movement that, while small, was quite active in Washington State. And though most of the State’s Klan chapters collapsed in rancor following the defeat of their anti-private school initiative, a strong presence persisted in Whatcom and Skagit Counties throughout the 1930s. They put forward a ballot initiative in 1924 to prohibit Catholic schools that voters soundly defeated. While they publicly disavowed violence, Klan members participated in violent intimidation campaigns against labor activists and Japanese farmers in Yakima Valley and probably elsewhere. The State Klan organized a series of massive public rallies in 19 that ranged from 20,000 to 70,000 people. The Washington State KKK during the 1920s was founded by organizers from Oregon, which had one of the strongest Klan chapters in the country at the time. Klan members’ hoods, white robes, and burning crosses made them icons of American white supremacy and terrorism, and their legacy haunts us to this day. The second KKK also helped train some of the leaders who later formed the third KKK, a mainly Southern organization that rose up in the decades after World War II to murder and terrorize people in African-American communities, particularly civil rights movement activists. The first KKK’s violent “night riding”– in which hooded vigilantes used lynchings, whippings, and torture to intimidate recently freed slaves and their white allies – played a crucial role in the disenfranchisement of African Americans at the end of the Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s and laid a foundation for the rise of Jim Crow segregation in the 1890s and 1900s. The second KKK was a mass movement that invoked the memory of and built upon the first KKK, which was a terrorist organization founded by white supremacists in the U.S. Following immigration restriction and a series of leadership scandals, the second KKK collapsed and was largely moribund by 1928. Though short-lived, it was a powerful anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-radical, white supremacist organization that promoted “100 percent Americanism.” The second KKK claimed over 4 million members across the country briefly dominated state legislatures of Colorado, Indiana, and Oregon and in 1924 shaped presidential politics and helped pressure politicians to pass the most severe immigration restriction in the history of the United States. The second KKK was founded in 1915 and gained significant membership immediately following World War I. The Washington State Klan during the 1920s was part of the second of three waves of KKK activity in America. This special section of the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project documents the history of Washington State’s 1920s chapter of the most infamous white supremacist organization in American history, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Photo courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society. Ku Klux Klan Gathering, Crystal Pool (2nd and Lenora) in Downtown Seattle, WA. (Click the image above to go to a gallery of articles from The Watcher on the Tower.) Courtesy of the Washington State Archives. The center features Uncle Sam, flanked by American Presidents, and wearing a Klan robe. Photo courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society.įront cover of the Washington State KKK monthly publication, The Watcher on the Tower, circa 1923. Photo courtesy of the Skagit River Journal.Ī forty-foot electric cross displayed at a KKK rally outside Seattle in 1923. "KKK Wedding" in Sedro Wooley, Washington, June 16, 1926. Photo courtesy of the Whatcom County Historical Society. The float was barred from the city's Tulip Festival, but Whatcom County continued to be a strong base of support for the State KKK through the 1920s. (Click the image above to go to a gallery of rare photographs of Northwest Klan activities.)Ī float in a KKK parade in Bellingham, WA in 1926. Photo from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, courtesy of the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. ![]() Unidentified Klansman in Seattle in 1923.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |