Summary
Overview
This episode explores the second Ku Klux Klan's rise and fall in 1920s America, revealing how it became a mass movement of millions combining family-friendly festivals with violence and bigotry. The story culminates in Indiana, where the Klan's powerful leader D.C. Stevenson's sexual assault and murder of Madge Oberholzer led to the organization's collapse, exposing the corruption behind its facade of Protestant values.
The Kokomo Picnic and Klan as Family Entertainment
The July 4th, 1923 Kokomo picnic drew up to 200,000 people for a bizarre spectacle combining carnival attractions, acrobatic stunts, and Klan ideology. These events represented the Klan's transformation into mainstream American entertainment, featuring food, sporting events, and circus performers alongside burning crosses. The picnics served as massive recruitment drives, making Klan membership seem like a normal, family-friendly activity for white Protestant Americans rather than an extremist organization.
- The Kokomo picnic attracted between 50,000-200,000 people with special trains bringing attendees from neighboring states
- Events featured boxing rings, choirs, circus performers, films, and an acrobat performing stunts on a circling plane
- The picnic ended with a cross burning on a hilltop with searchlights and flares as a great spectacle
- These events were advertised in newspapers and promoted by Methodist ministers from the pulpit
- Kathleen Blee describes the Klan as becoming 'an ordinary, normal, taken for granted part of the life of the white Protestant majority'
" Kokomo may well boast that she has royally entertained the biggest crowd of 100% red-blooded Americans that ever assembled at any one place at any one time in the history of America to do homage to God, the flag, and the home. "
" With a myriad of weddings, baby christenings, family picnics, athletic contests, parades, spelling bees, beauty contests, rodeos and circuses, the Klan basically became an ordinary, normal, taken for granted part of the life of the white Protestant majority. "
Women in the Klan and Progressive Bigotry
Approximately half a million women joined the Klan, forming their own organizations like the Queens of the Golden Mask and Women of the Ku Klux Klan. These women weren't relegated to traditional roles—the Klan supported women's suffrage and right to work. The case of Daisy Barr, a former Quaker pastor who became Imperial Empress, illustrates how progressive activism and racist ideology could coexist, challenging simple political categorizations.
- About half a million women joined the Klan, often doing most of the organizational work
- The Klan supported women's right to vote and work, representing a form of modern feminism
- Daisy Barr was a Quaker pastor, YWCA founder, and president of Indiana War Mothers who became Imperial Empress
- Women organized picnics, transport, catering, and on election day would mind children so women could vote
" The Klan supported women's right to vote and to work. And actually, it's the modernity of Klan's women that's so striking. "
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