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Intolerance! Embracing the Ku Klux Klan:
The Ku Klux Klan explodes across Indiana's political landscape in the 1920s. Its heyday is brief, but its influence is strong.
Here, as elsewhere, the Klan spreads bigotry and hate. Building on fears of immigrants and people seen as "different," it terrorizes Catholics, African Americans, and Jews. Yet most Hoosiers who join the KKK see it primarily as a social organization. Sweetening its vicious message with seemingly innocent local programs and festive gatherings, the Klan spreads rapidly.
Indiana soon has a higher percentage of Klan members than any other Northern state. The KKK gains considerable political power, using bribery and voter fraud to help elect the Republican Ed Jackson governor in 1924. It declines rapidly after 1925, when its Indiana leader is convicted of murder. |