From the cover of The Black Mask magazine, June 1, 1923

The Gumshoes Who Took On the Klan

In the pages of Black Mask magazine, the Continental Op and Race Williams fought the KKK even as they shared its love of vigilante justice.
A man displays a Ku Klux Klan cross tattooed onto his arm

How White Supremacy Is Like a Drug

Four researchers found that identifying with a hate group can produce pleasurable sensations in the brain.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Klu_Klux_Klan,_3-18-22_LOC_npcc.05904.jpg

A German Klan in the Weimar Republic

The little-known story of how the vicious American hate group spawned a counterpart in 1920s Germany.
Women in the KKK

A Brief History of the Women’s KKK

The Women’s KKK, an affiliated-but-separate racist organization for white Protestant women, courted members through an insincere “empowerment feminism.”
Burning of an 80 ft. cross by the KKK, 1925

How 1920s Catholic Students Fought the Ku Klux Klan

There are few traces today of college students' resistance to anti-Catholic threats, but the ones that remain are powerful.
blackkklansman

BlacKkKlansman in Context

A new film tells the story of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer who infiltrated the KKK in 1972. What was the context for this odd moment in history?
Birmingham trainyard

A Precedent for Today’s Political Violence

Illegal violence has always been a political tool, often serving the interests of the powerful. A historian looks at the case of 1930s Birmingham, Alabama.
KKK members parade in Virginia, 1922

The History of the KKK in American Politics

In the 1920s, during what historians call the KKK's “second wave,” Klan members served in all levels of American government.
FDR delivers the nominating speech for Alfred E. Smith at the Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY. June 26, 1924. This speech is often considered FDR's first major gesture of re-entry into national politics after recovering from the onset of polio.

A Really Contested Convention: The 1924 Democratic “Klanbake”

The convention was also notable because hundreds of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan attended as delegates.
Leading the Klu Klux Klan parade which was held in Washington, D.C.

The Ku Klux Klan Used to Be Big Business

At the height of its business operations, in 1923, the Klu Klux Klan was worth roughly $12 million dollars.