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THIS WEEK IN TEXAS HISTORY
The Violent Comeback of the Ku Klux Klan
The resurrected Ku Klux Klan launched a wave of terror and intimidation on Jan. 30, 1921, with the whipping, tarring and feathering of a Houston lawyer for the “crime” of defending blacks and petty criminals.
Coming out of mothballs in October 1920, the Klan spread like wildfire across the Lone Star State. More than 200,000 Texans -- roughly one out of every dozen white adults -- were suckers for the secret order’s sales pitch, that exploited their nostalgic reverence for the old Confederacy and vague desire for a moral housecleaning.
In pledging allegiance to the KKK, most members were willing to tolerate a certain amount of violence to keep blacks in line. What they did not count on was that their white friends and neighbors would be the nightriders’ favorite targets.
Beaumont Klansmen boldly boasted of their vicious attack on a doctor sus- pected of performing abortions. In a 4,000-word statement published in the local press, they gloated, “The eyes of the unknown had seen and observed the wrong to be redressed. The lash was laid on his back and the tar and feathers applied to his body.”
At Timpson in Shelby County, a man was badly beaten for leaving his wife. A woman in nearby Tenaha was stripped naked, whipped with a wet rope and tarred and feathered because she was rumored to be a bigamist.
A mob chased two freshly tarred and feathered victims up Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, and a Brenham resident was pummeled for speaking German. Alleged immorality earned the lash for a Mineral Wells constable and a Marshall clerk, while the tar-and-feathers cure was twice prescribed for a Fort Worth gambler who failed to see the light after the initial dose.
The Dallas chapter or Klavern, largest in the state with a membership of thirteen thousand, specialized in flogging. During the spring of 1922, 68 people were whipped to within an inch of their lives in the Trinity River bottoms.
Houston Klansmen were the most accomplished spies. They kept tabs on practically everybody by tap- ping telephones, reading telegrams and opening mail at the main post office. Their Denison colleagues combated premarital sex by patrolling the local lovers lane in white sheets.
Law enforcement at the municipal and county levels was honeycombed with KKK sympathizers and activists. Few Klan crimes were ever solved, and rarely did the culprits stand trial.
When Waco police arrested three Klansmen, the grand jury refused to indict despite an air-tight case. At Goose Creek outside Houston, a gang of cross-burners dragged a woman from her sickbed and mercilessly beat her and a male visitor. After 12 Klansmen got off with hundred-dollar fines for the savage assault, a KKK publication bragged, “It cost Goose Creek just $1,200 to clean up.”
While many politicians were careful not to offend the bloc-voting Klan, Sen. Charles Culberson and former lieutenant governor Martin Crane joined Congressman John Nance Garner in denouncing the bul- lies. Forty-nine state legislators risked reelection to lobby the uncooperative governor for an anti-mask law.
A judge in Wichita Falls jailed three Klansmen for contempt, and the mayor of Dallas criticized their sinister shenanigans. Chambers of commerce, Masonic lodges, American Legion posts and the state bar association were among the early opponents of the Klan rampage. The Houston Chronicle added its influential voice to the outcry with a sound piece of editorial advice: “Boys, you’d better disband.”
Dan Moody set the example for district attorneys throughout the state. After a traveling salesman was kid- napped, chained to a tree and flogged half to death in Taylor, the young prosecutor unmasked the perpetrators, including a minister and the police chief, and sent one to the penitentiary.
Authorities at Laredo pre- vented a Klan march by deputizing a hundred armed citizens and borrowing a machine-gun. Rocks and fists caused Klansmen to cancel similar plans in McKinney, and strict enforcement of an ordinance banning masked mobilizations rained on a proposed parade in San Antonio.
The so-called “visitation,” the Klan’s curious practice of interrupting a church service to lecture the captive congregation, began to backfire. Baptists in Denison and Austin forcibly ejected the intruders, and Corsicana Presbyterians supported their pastor’s courageous refusal to join the KKK.
Only two years after electing one of their own to the U.S. Senate, the Texas Klan was repudiated at the polls in 1924. Miriam A. Ferguson defeated Felix D. Robertson in a bruising guber- natorial battle and knocked the wheels off the Klan bandwagon.
The new legislature quickly passed a tough anti-mask law by lopsided votes in both chambers. The vast majority of Klansmen got the message and deserted the Invisible Empire leaving a handful of hateful diehards to crawl back under their rocks.
The resurrected Ku Klux Klan launched a wave of terror and intimidation on Jan. 30, 1921, with the whipping, tarring and feathering of a Houston lawyer for the “crime” of defending blacks and petty criminals.
Coming out of mothballs in October 1920, the Klan spread like wildfire across the Lone Star State. More than 200,000 Texans -- roughly one out of every dozen white adults -- were suckers for the secret order’s sales pitch, that exploited their nostalgic reverence for the old Confederacy and vague desire for a moral housecleaning.
In pledging allegiance to the KKK, most members were willing to tolerate a certain amount of violence to keep blacks in line. What they did not count on was that their white friends and neighbors would be the nightriders’ favorite targets.
Beaumont Klansmen boldly boasted of their vicious attack on a doctor sus- pected of performing abortions. In a 4,000-word statement published in the local press, they gloated, “The eyes of the unknown had seen and observed the wrong to be redressed. The lash was laid on his back and the tar and feathers applied to his body.”
At Timpson in Shelby County, a man was badly beaten for leaving his wife. A woman in nearby Tenaha was stripped naked, whipped with a wet rope and tarred and feathered because she was rumored to be a bigamist.
A mob chased two freshly tarred and feathered victims up Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, and a Brenham resident was pummeled for speaking German. Alleged immorality earned the lash for a Mineral Wells constable and a Marshall clerk, while the tar-and-feathers cure was twice prescribed for a Fort Worth gambler who failed to see the light after the initial dose.
The Dallas chapter or Klavern, largest in the state with a membership of thirteen thousand, specialized in flogging. During the spring of 1922, 68 people were whipped to within an inch of their lives in the Trinity River bottoms.
Houston Klansmen were the most accomplished spies. They kept tabs on practically everybody by tap- ping telephones, reading telegrams and opening mail at the main post office. Their Denison colleagues combated premarital sex by patrolling the local lovers lane in white sheets.
Law enforcement at the municipal and county levels was honeycombed with KKK sympathizers and activists. Few Klan crimes were ever solved, and rarely did the culprits stand trial.
When Waco police arrested three Klansmen, the grand jury refused to indict despite an air-tight case. At Goose Creek outside Houston, a gang of cross-burners dragged a woman from her sickbed and mercilessly beat her and a male visitor. After 12 Klansmen got off with hundred-dollar fines for the savage assault, a KKK publication bragged, “It cost Goose Creek just $1,200 to clean up.”
While many politicians were careful not to offend the bloc-voting Klan, Sen. Charles Culberson and former lieutenant governor Martin Crane joined Congressman John Nance Garner in denouncing the bul- lies. Forty-nine state legislators risked reelection to lobby the uncooperative governor for an anti-mask law.
A judge in Wichita Falls jailed three Klansmen for contempt, and the mayor of Dallas criticized their sinister shenanigans. Chambers of commerce, Masonic lodges, American Legion posts and the state bar association were among the early opponents of the Klan rampage. The Houston Chronicle added its influential voice to the outcry with a sound piece of editorial advice: “Boys, you’d better disband.”
Dan Moody set the example for district attorneys throughout the state. After a traveling salesman was kid- napped, chained to a tree and flogged half to death in Taylor, the young prosecutor unmasked the perpetrators, including a minister and the police chief, and sent one to the penitentiary.
Authorities at Laredo pre- vented a Klan march by deputizing a hundred armed citizens and borrowing a machine-gun. Rocks and fists caused Klansmen to cancel similar plans in McKinney, and strict enforcement of an ordinance banning masked mobilizations rained on a proposed parade in San Antonio.
The so-called “visitation,” the Klan’s curious practice of interrupting a church service to lecture the captive congregation, began to backfire. Baptists in Denison and Austin forcibly ejected the intruders, and Corsicana Presbyterians supported their pastor’s courageous refusal to join the KKK.
Only two years after electing one of their own to the U.S. Senate, the Texas Klan was repudiated at the polls in 1924. Miriam A. Ferguson defeated Felix D. Robertson in a bruising guber- natorial battle and knocked the wheels off the Klan bandwagon.
The new legislature quickly passed a tough anti-mask law by lopsided votes in both chambers. The vast majority of Klansmen got the message and deserted the Invisible Empire leaving a handful of hateful diehards to crawl back under their rocks.