Ku Klux Kulture

by Felix Harcourt

61. New York Times, September 14, 1924.

  62. Henle, Sound and Fury, 261; Galveston Daily News, November 2, 1924; New York Times, November 16, 1924; Danville Bee, September 9, 1924; The Bookman, November 1924; Boston Transcript, “Sound and Fury,” in Knight and James, Book Review Digest: Reviews of 1924 Books, 278.

  63. The Klan also made a brief appearance in Lewis’s 1922 novel, Babbitt, as the “Good Citizens League.” This league was organized for the “great work” of controlling the “Undesirable Element.” As Virgil Gunch enthuses in the novel, it would “send a little delegation around to inform folks that get too flip that they got to conform to decent standards and quit shooting off their mouths so free” (Lewis, Elmer Gantry, 393–94; Lewis, Babbitt, 795).

  64. Widely recognized as a thinly disguised depiction of his hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

  65. Sheehan, Half-Gods, 430, 435–39, 449.

  66. Sheehan, Half-Gods, 436, 439, 441, 457; New York Times, May 21, 1961.

  67. New York Times, April 17, 1927; Oakland Tribune, May 1, 1927; Charleston Gazette, June 12, 1927; Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1927.

  68. Saturday Evening Post, September 23, 1922.

  69. Gordon, Ku Klux Ball, 117, 170; New York Times, September 5, 1926, November 7, 1926.

  70. McNeile, Black Gang, 279; Treadwell, Drummond Encyclopedia, 1; McClure’s, June 1923.

  71. New York Times, December 16, 1923; International Book Review, “The Black Gang,” in Knight and James, Book Review Digest: Reviews of 1923 Books, 331.

  72. Cullum, Saint, 171; New York Times, June 22, 1924; New York Herald Tribune, August 3, 1924; Bookman, July 1924.

  73. Fiery Cross, January 5, 1923; Hart, Popular Book, 215; Nye, Unembarrassed Muse, 38; Mencken, Prejudices: Third Series, 416.

  74. Beach, Mating Call, 91.

  75. At the novel’s climax, the local Klansmen do set out to whip a philandering husband, who is a Klansman himself, but the husband has already been shot by the father of his suicidal mistress, who is also a Klansman and the local judge (Beach, Mating Call, 280).

  76. Waterloo Evening Courier, September 13, 1927; New York Times, July 10, 1927; New York Herald Tribune, July 24, 1927.

  Chapter Six

  1. Variety, June 23, 1922.

  2. O’Neill, All God’s Chillun Got Wings; Rodgers, Mencken, 264; Bradley, Culture, 151.

  3. Searchlight, March 15, 1924, March 22, 1924; Minnesota Fiery Cross, March 28, 1924; Imperial Night-Hawk, April 2, 1924; New York Times, May 16, 1924, February 17, 1975; American Standard, October 15, 1924; Frank, “Tempest,” 79; Boyle and Bunie, Paul Robeson, 121; Black, Eugene O’Neill, 301; Gelbs, O’Neill, 552.

  4. Pittsburgh Courier, March 29, 1924; American Mercury, May 1924; Wisconsin State Journal, May 25, 1924; The Crisis, August 1924; Giordano, Dance Hall, 111; Frank, “Tempest,” 75; Gelbs, O’Neill, 551–52.

  5. The Sign, June 1928; Houchin, Censorship, 102–6, 109, 111–13; Savran, Highbrow/Lowdown, 158; Boyer, Purity in Print, 161–63; Lichtman, White Protestant Nation, 12; Frank, “Tempest,” 80–81; Sutton, American Apocalypse, 114.

  6. New York Times, September 29, 1921; Movie Weekly, July 14, 1923.

  7. Movie Weekly, July 14, 1923; Searchlight, December 1, 1923, March 22, 1924, April 26, 1924, May 31, 1924, June 7, 1924, August 9, 1924; American Standard, July 1, 1924, August 1, 1924; Dawn, October 13, 1923, December 29, 1923; El Paso Herald, November 17, 1921; El Paso Times, November 17, 1921; Minnesota Fiery Cross, March 28, 1924, May 2, 1924; Imperial Night-Hawk, October 1, 1924; Call of the North, August 10, 1923; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 93, 97, 259; Lay, War, Revolution, 77; White, Klan in Prophecy, 53; White, Heroes of the Fiery Cross, 10.

  8. Fellowship Forum, April 7, 1923, May 5, 1923, August 18, 1924; Fiery Cross, April 13, 1923, May 11, 1923; Searchlight, April 14, 1923, May 5, 1923, May 19, 1923; Imperial Night-Hawk, May 9, 1923, June 6, 1923, June 23, 1923; Dawn, February 2, 1924; Sandusky Register, May 2, 1925; Safianow, “Klan Comes to Tipton,” 217; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 64; Pegram, One Hundred Percent, 29–30; The Pilgrim, directed by Charlie Chaplin, 1923, in The Chaplin Review (Warner Home Video, 2004, DVD).

  9. Photoplay, April 1927; Life, September 21, 1922; Bradley, Culture, 136; Nash, Nervous Generation, 100; Seldes, Lively Arts, 147; Koritz, Makers, 42–43, 45, 56; Rodgers, Mencken, 319.

  10. Londre and Watermeier, North American Theater, 261–62, 265–66; Currell, American Culture, 47, 52; Mates, Musical Stage, 34–35; Canning, Most American, 201–3; Nye, Unembarrassed Muse, 160, 170, 195–97; Miller, Supreme City, 289.

  11. Fortune, October 1930; Sklar, Movie-Made America, 86, 149, 153; Cousins, Story of Film, 62–63; Currell, Culture, 103, 105–7; Fischer, Cinema of the 1920s, 15; Kyvig, Daily Life, 71; Hart, Popular Book, 228; Nye, Unembarrassed Muse, 377; Miller, Supreme City, 270–71; Fuller, Picture Show, 2, 19, 76, 90.

  12. The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, 1915 (Kino on Video, 2002, DVD).

  13. Rice, “Life after Birth,” 20, 35, 38, 40; Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 33; Slide, American Racist, 83–85, 87; Ramsaye, Million and One Nights, 638–39, 641–42; Wade, Fiery Cross, 132–33; Jackson, Klan in the City, 3–4; Louis Menand, “Do Movies Have Rights,” in Gillespie and Hall, Thomas Dixon Jr., 201.

  14. The best work on this includes Simcovitch, “Impact of Birth of a Nation”; Dessommes, “Hollywood in Hoods”; Inscoe, “Clansman on Stage and Screen”; Rice, “Life after Birth”; and Rice, White Robes, Silver Screens.

  15. Lowery, “Reconstructing the Reign of Terror,” 179; Prince, Stories, 247–48; Stokes, Birth, 172, 177, 206.

  16. Rice, “Life after Birth,” 1, 5, 11–12; Lehr, Birth of a Nation, 151, 187, 189, 227; Baldwin, “Our Newcomers,” in Brundage, Beyond Blackface, 166–67; Wood, Lynching, 149, 151–52, 167; Stokes, Birth, 108, 125, 205.

  17. Stokes, Birth, 88, 92, 131, 202–7; Cripps, Black, 96; Prince, Stories, 167, 177; Kibler, Ridicule, 21–22.

  18. Variety, August 6, 1924; Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 22; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 216.

  19. Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, February 5, 1932; Fiery Cross, August 10, 1923, November 2, 1923, August 23, 1924; Searchlight, January 14, 1922, February 16, 1924; Altoona Mirror, July 2, 1924; Fellowship Forum, April 3, 1923, December 27, 1924, February 11, 1925, June 27, 1925, November 14, 1925, January 9, 1926, January 30, 1926, May 15, 1926, July 25, 1926, September 18, 1926, February 19, 1927, March 17, 1928; Wisconsin Kourier, December 26, 1924, January 2, 1925; National Kourier, March 20, 1925; Boone, “A Kleagle and His Klan,” 46–47; Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 145–46; Jackson, Klan in the City, 76; Blee, Women of the Klan, 164–65; Minutes, March 13, 1924, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan No. 51, Mt. Rainier, Maryland Archives, 89–180, Box 1, Folder 2, University of Maryland Libraries; Minutes of the Women’s Klan, February 1, 1927, March 1, 1927, March 8, 1927, May 24, 1927, Senter Family Papers, WH988, Box 36, Folder 10, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library; Kolorado Klan Kourier, undated clipping, Senter Family Papers, WH988, Box 36, Folder 18, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library; Minutes, September 7, 1927, September 21, 1927, July 31, 1929, August 14, 1929, July 31, 1929, Women of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan 14 (Chippewa Falls, Wis.) Records, 1926–31, WIHV96-A393, Box 1, Folder 1, Eau Claire Research Center, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.

  20. Moving Picture World, December 11, 1920, December 25, 1920; Entertainment Trade Review, November 27, 1920; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 25.

  21. New York World, September 21, 1921, September 22, 1921; Denver Post, July 2, 1921, July 8, 1921; Eugene Morning Register, January 10, 1922; House of Representatives, Hearings on the Klan, 36; Fry, Modern Klan, 22; Goldberg, Hooded Empire, 14; Jackson, Klan in the City, 10, 194, 198; Sawyer, Truth about the Invisible Empire, 7, 10.

  22. Ramsaye, Million and One Nights, 642; Wade, Fiery Cross, 81; Searchlight, February 18, 1922, February 16, 1924, October 18, 1924, October 25, 1924, November 8, 1924; New York Times, December 3, 1922; Colorado Springs
Gazette, July 3, 1923, July 6, 1923; Kokomo Daily Tribune, September 5, 1923; Safianow, “Klan Comes to Tipton,” 209; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 30; Goldberg, Hooded Empire, 52, 152–53; Slide, American Racist, 195; Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 33, 35; Jackson, Klan in the City, 118, 200; Wade, Fiery Cross, 70; Shotwell, “Public Hatred,” 107–8; Newton, Klan in Mississippi, 83; Gerlach, Blazing Crosses, 117.

  23. Imperial Night-Hawk, August 6, 1924; Pierce County Herald, August 19, 1926; Fellowship Forum, August 14, 1926, February 12, 1927; Youngstown Citizen, February 26, 1925; Steubenville Herald-Star, July 26, 1924; Portsmouth Daily Times, July 26, 1924; Toledo Blade, June 15, 1994; Uniontown Morning Herald, November 13, 1925; Gettysburg Times, July 20, 1926, July 28, 1926; Slide, American Racist, 62; Cook, Fire from the Flint, 102; Minutes, December 11, 1924, December 23, 1924, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan No. 51, Mt. Rainier, Maryland Archives, 89–180, Box 1, Folder 2, University of Maryland Libraries.

  24. Searchlight, May 19, 1923, March 22, 1924; Imperial Night-Hawk, July 4, 1923; Indiana Fiery Cross, November 9, 1923; Fellowship Forum, November 17, 1923, March 29, 1924, October 17, 1925; Lawrence Daily Journal-World, February 14, 1925, Beatrice Daily Sun, September 20, 1925; Joplin Globe, February 21, 1943; Variety, February 25, 1925.

  25. New York Times, September 16, 1922; Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1922, December 24, 1922, January 1, 1923; Chicago Daily Journal, January 2, 1923; Dawn, December 9, 1922; Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 42; Jackson, Klan in the City, 118.

  26. Chicago Defender, October 28, 1922; Dawn, December 9, 1922, December 16, 1922, December 23, 1922, December 30, 1922, January 6, 1923, January 13, 1923; Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1922.

  27. Chicago Daily Journal, January 2, 1923; Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1922, January 1, 1923; Dawn, January 6, 1923.

  28. Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1923; Dawn, January 6, 1923, January 20, 1923, January 27, 1923.

  29. New York World, September 25, 1921; Oakland Tribune, December 29, 1927; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 190–91.

  30. Imperial Night-Hawk, August 22, 1923; Daily Northwestern, July 17, 1924; Fellowship Forum, March 5, 1927, March 12, 1927, March 26, 1927; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 240; Variety, June 24, 1925.

  31. Variety, June 23, 1922; National Kourier, May 1, 1925; Fellowship Forum, July 4, 1925; Davenport Democrat and Leader, September 14, 1925; Abilene Reporter, October 12, 1924; Hutchinson News, March 5, 1925, March 7, 1925; Xenia Evening Gazette, April 13, 1925; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 145; Munden, AFI Catalog, 236.

  32. The Toll of Justice, directed by Corey G. Cook, 1923 (University of North Carolina, Media Resources Center, 65-V7409, 1992, VHS); Fellowship Forum, October 20, 1923; Call of the North, January 25, 1924; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 197–98; Pegram, One Hundred Percent, 30–31.

  33. Exhibitor’s Herald, May 27, 1922; Sandusky Register, October 4, 1923; Coshocton Tribune, October 4, 1923; Movie Weekly, October 6, 1923; Pittsburgh Courier, October 13, 1923; Fellowship Forum, October 20, 1923; Indiana Fiery Cross, December 14, 1923; Call of the North, December 19, 1923, January 25, 1924; Ashland Times Gazette, February 19, 1924, February 20, 1924; Cambridge City Tribune, May 1, 1924, May 8, 1924; New Market Herald, July 24, 1924; Charleston Gazette, September 21, 1924, September 22 1924; Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, March 3, 1925, March 23, 1925; Variety, August 30, 1923, November 8, 1923.

  34. Fuller, Picture Show, 28, 30, 40.

  35. Coshocton Tribune, October 4, 1923; Fuller, Picture Show, 76, 88, 90–94.

  36. Munden, AFI Catalog, 9, 410; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 192, 241; Slide, American Racist, 174; New York Times, February 12, 1922; Davenport Democrat and Leader, March 9, 1923; Variety, February 1, 1923.

  37. Moving Picture World, January 22, 1921; New York Age, December 25, 1920, January 1, 1921; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 117; Stewart, Migrating to the Movies, 223; The Symbol of the Unconquered, directed by Oscar Micheaux, 1920 (youtube.com).

  38. Lisa E. Rivo, “Micheaux,” in Gates and Higginbotham, Harlem Renaissance Lives, 347; Robert Jackson, “Secret Life of Oscar Micheaux,” in Brundage, Beyond Blackface, 225–29; Chicago Star, October 1, 1921; Stewart, Migrating, 223–24; Chicago Defender, January 29, 1921; Baltimore Afro-American, July 17, 1926.

  39. It was also sometimes used to mean “Made In America For Americans.”

  40. Moving Picture World, December 1, 1923; Newark Advocate, December 17, 1923; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 198.

  41. New York World, April 14, 1923; New York Times, April 19, 1923; Fellowship Forum, April 21, 1923; Jasonville Leader, June 13, 1923; Indianapolis News, July 16, 1923; Kokomo Daily Tribune, July 26, 1923; Connersville News-Examiner, November 13, 1923; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 199, 201; Lutholtz, Grand Dragon, 289.

  42. Fellowship Forum, March 22, 1924; Searchlight, June 21, 1924; Call of the North, February 1, 1924; New York World, April 14, 1923; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 201, 206, 220.

  43. Call of the North, February 1, 1924; Logansport Pharos-Tribune, May 2, 1924; Logansport Morning Press, May 2, 1924; Imperial Night-Hawk, June 4, 1924; Searchlight, June 21, 1924; Fellowship Forum, June 21, 1924; Daily Northwestern, July 17, 1924; Sheboygan Press-Telegram, July 17, 1924; Badger American, August 1924; Decatur Review, August 8, 1924; Wisconsin Kourier, February 27, 1925; Tipton Tribune, May 9, 1925; Perry Daily Journal, May 22, 1925; Corsicana Sun, June 30, 1925.

  44. Lawrence Daily Journal-World, February 14, 1925; National Kourier, May 1, 1925; Movie Weekly, October 6, 1923; Perry Journal, May 20, 1925; Corsicana Sun, June 27, 1925; Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1922; United States Congress, House of Representatives, Hearings on the Klan, 147; Chicago Tribune, December 11, 1921, January 8, 1922; Syracuse Herald, December 17, 1921, December 25, 1921, December 26, 1921, December 28, 1921; Variety, January 6, 1922; Billboard, January 7, 1922, February 4, 1922; New York Tribune, August 16, 1922; New York Times, August 20, 1922, December 10, 1922; Imperial Night-Hawk, April 4, 1923; Shotwell, “Public Hatred,” 151.

  45. Exhibitor’s Herald, September 10, 1921, November 12, 1921; Motion Picture News, January 13, 1923; Exhibitor’s Trade Review, December 1, 1923, January 5, 1924.

  46. Variety, September 30, 1921, June 28, 1923, February 28, 1924.

  47. Lawson, Processional, v; Fisher and Londre, Modernism, 384; Horne, Final Victim, 28, 30, 32; The Bookman, March 1925.

  48. Chambers, New Technique, 51–53; Lawson, Processional.

  49. The King Kleagle also announced that “the entire Congress of the United States joined the Ku Klux Klan last night” (Lawson, Processional, 183).

  50. Lawson, Processional, 182–83, 186; New York Times, February 1, 1925.

  51. Lawson, Processional, 212–16.

  52. New York Graphic, January 13, 1925; New York Sun, January 13, 1925; New York Times, January 13, 1925, January 18, 1925; Life, February 5, 1925; Chambers, Messiah, 64–66; Horne, Blacklist, 33.

  53. The Dial, April 1925; Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1925; New York Times, January 13, 1925, February 1, 1925; The Bookman, March 1925; Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1926; Theatre Arts Monthly, March 1925.

  54. The Bookman, March 1925; New York Sun, January 19, 1925; New York World, February 15, 1925; Vanity Fair, May 1925; Chambers, Messiah, 66–68; Horne, Blacklist, 32–33; Beverle Bloch, “Searching for ‘The Big American Play’: The Theatre Guild Produces John Howard Lawson’s Processional,” in Gerwitz and Kolb, Theatre of the 1920s, 9.

  55. New York Sun, February 26, 1925; St. Paul Minnesota Pioneer Press, February 12, 1925; Bloch, “Searching,” 7–8; Chambers, Messiah, 68; Savran, Highbrow/Lowdown, 16–18.

  56. Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1922, January 10, 1926; Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1924; Harrisonburg Daily News Record, December 10, 1926.

  57. Rice, “Life after Birth,” 118, 155; Camera, November 5, 1921; Exhibitor’s Herald, November 19, 1921; Exhibitor’s Trade Review, October 15, 1921; Young Sherlocks, directed by Robert F. McGowan and Tom McNamara, 1922 (archive.org); Lodge Night, directed
by Robert F. McGowan, 1923 (archive.org).

  58. Exhibitor’s Herald, January 29, 1921, December 31, 1921, July 8, 1922, August 12, 1922, October 7, 1922, January 13, 1923, March 22, 1924; The Film Daily, February 2, 1921, January 1, 1922, April 30, 1922, August 17, 1922; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 112, 129, 133, 140, 169–70; Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1922, June 17, 1922; An Eastern Westerner, directed by Hal Roach, 1920, in The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection Vol. 1 (New Line Home Video, 2005, DVD); Big Stakes, directed by Clifford S. Elfelt, 1922 (youtube.com).

  59. Variety, October 10, 1928; Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1928; Life, November 2, 1928; New York Times, October 8, 1928; Photoplay, October 1928.

  60. Munden, AFI Catalog, 567–68; Slide, American Racist, 174; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 140; Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1922; Film Daily, June 25, 1922; Eyman, Lion of Hollywood, 41–42; Greene, One Clear Call.

  61. Variety, June 23, 1922; New York Times, June 19, 1922; Rice, “Life after Birth,” 162–63; Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1922; New Castle News, November 7, 1922; Baltimore Afro-American, November 24, 1922; Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, January 17, 1923; Scandia Journal, July 26, 1923; Checotah Times, March 30, 1923; New Market Herald, July 24, 1924.