by Linda Gordon
Hiding identity through this costume expressed, physically and metaphorically, the secrecy that furthered the Klan’s magnetism and prestige. To be entrusted with a secret is to receive a gift of high value, and the secret then represents that trust and requires that it not be violated.23 After a new member was inducted, the veteran Klansmen were to raise their aprons so as to reveal their faces—thus learning the identity of one’s brothers and sisters was itself a gift. (This gift not only consisted of welcome into a brother/sisterhood but also had economic value, as we will see in the Klan’s economic warfare, discussed in chapter 9.)
The Klan’s bible, created and copyrighted by Simmons, was the Kloran. The name’s resemblance to Koran is probably not coincidental. Many Klan terms were orientalist or even Latin—the language of the Catholic mass—in origin: thus “Klaliff” from “caliph,” “Kloncilium” from “concilium.” Unlike the bible, however, the Kloran was a secret document; it had to be “rigidly guarded” and “MUST not be kept or carried where any person of the ‘alien’ world may chance to become acquainted with its secret contents.”24 The secrecy necessitated weighty oaths of initiation, accompanied by threats of punishment, “direful things,” should a member breach this trust. The oaths may not have actually frightened an initiate, but they surely symbolized his absolute and theoretically unbreakable bonds with his brothers. Since these oaths were sworn in the midst of ritual, they took on added magnitude.
Every Klan event had to display four symbolic objects: an American flag, a sword, “Klan water,” and the robes themselves. The flag, of course, stood for Americanism: red for blood, white for the purity of white womanhood, and blue for the skies of freedom. The sword symbolized the fierce fight necessary to protect Christianity and America. “Klan water,” another source of profit, had to be purchased from the national headquarters, where it was made sacred, like holy water in some churches. With it a new member would be baptized, pledged to cleanliness in mind, spirit, and body; it also, somewhat heretically, made new members part of the body of the Klan. The robe was emblematic of purity.
Klan membership entailed learning a new vocabulary, symbolizing entry into a mythical universe, resembling perhaps that of a Wagnerian opera, access to which was a privilege awarded only to the anointed. Officers, beneath the Imperial Wizard, included three Great Klaliffs, the Great Klabee, the Great Kligrapp, the Great Kludd, and the Great Night-Hawk, together forming the Furies. Chapters were known as Klaverns, each headed by an Exalted Cyclops. (The Cyclops, sometimes spelled “Cuclops” or “Kuclops,” was probably associated with the Illuminati, whose single all-seeing eye originally signaled opposition to obscurantism and superstition.) The twelve officers of a Klavern, or local chapter, each of whom had his own K title, formed the Terrors. The profusion of official posts allowed many members to hold offices, thereby increasing their investment in the organization. Days of the week, weeks of the month, and months of the year each had new names,25 almost all of them intended to frighten.* Years were counted in Roman numerals and dated from the founding of the first Klan, so that AD 1922 became AK LVI. Different gatherings, meetings, and ceremonies had specific labels: for example, a Klonklave was a weekly meeting of a Klavern; a Klonverse was a monthly province meeting; a Klonversation was a “naturalization” ceremony, which was the Klan term for initiating an “alien” into the order; a Klonvokation was a national convention.26
Klansmen were also provided with secret acronyms, composed of the first letters of words in a phrase. Thus one might ask, Ayak? (Are you a Klansman?) To which one would answer, Akia. (A Klansman I am.) Cabark meant “constantly applied by all real Klansmen.” Cygnar: Can you give number and realm? Itsub: In the secret unfailing bond. Miafa: My interests are for America. Particularly important was San-bog: Strangers are near, be on guard. Oddly, one key Klan motto was written in not-exactly-correct Latin: Non Silba sed Anthar, Not for Self but for Others. I rather doubt that Klanspeople were able to commit all this to memory; in fact, they frequently carried scripts or copies of the Kloran during ceremonies.
The words uttered in a meeting followed a script. The Exalted Cyclops calls out, “The Kladd of the Klan.” That man, custodian of Klan paraphernalia, comes forward. The Exalted Cyclops says, “You will ascertain with care if all present are Klansmen worthy to sit in the Klavern during the deliberations of this Klonvocation.” To which the Kladd must respond, “I have your orders, Sir.” Whereupon the Kladd approaches each member, who must make a countersign and whisper the password directly into his ear. And so the script continues for many pages. Sociologist Kathleen Blee has pointed out that many Klan verbal rituals resembled Catholic catechisms.27 As in Protestant services, however, members joined in singing hymns and patriotic songs, each at a prescribed moment.28
Klavern meetings proceeded with prescribed staging directions as well as scripts, and participation in these choreographed articulations of space contributed to the fun of performance.29 Military metaphors abounded; for example, “The Klaliff (vice Cyclops) having been assigned the duty of directing the military machinery, he should appoint as his assistant a Lieutenant Colonel . . . [and] one Corporal to serve each eight Klansmen.” Members took up assigned posts. Echoing the insignia on the robe, these involved circles, squares, and crosses. The official form of a Klavern was a square, within which was a circle, within which was another square, within which was an altar. The assembled Klansmen reproduced these shapes with their bodies, limited by their need to use rented or borrowed spaces. Four leading officers stand in the four corners of the square; three Klokanns stand against one wall; the Kligrapp (administrative officer) stands against the next wall clockwise from them; the Klarogo (guard of the inner room) is at the door to an inner den where, ideally, lockers store costumes and symbolic items; Klexters (outer guards) stand at the door leading to an outer room where candidates for naturalization are kept until called in for their interrogation and ceremony. The circle within the square, really four discontinuous arcs, is formed by standing Klansmen.
Props had to be displayed in a prescribed design. The Klokard (lecturer) drapes an American flag on the altar, and its stars must lie toward his left and on the opposite edge. He places a sword across the flag with its hilt toward the Exalted Cyclops.
Movement within meetings was minutely choreographed. In verifying the membership of each attendee the Kladd always moves counterclockwise. Once confirmed, they sit unless they have forgotten the password, in which case they remain standing until authorized by the Kligrapp. If Klansmen from other Klaverns are visiting, they come to the Exalted Cyclops’s station, then turn to face the altar. The others all stand and give “tsog,” the sign of God. Then the Exalted Cyclops gives two raps with his gavel and says, “My Terrors, you will take your respective stations.” And so on.
The most elaborated event was naturalization, the induction of new members. (See figures 6–9, 22.) Its ritual was of supreme importance, because it marked the passage from “alien” to “citizen”; by underscoring the momentousness of joining, it helped produce the Klan’s attractiveness. The ceremony’s official design, like that of Klavern meetings, sculpted space symbolically, so as to “afford them [the candidates] a safe journey from the world of selfishness and fraternal alienation to the sacred altar of the empire of chivalry, industry, honor and love.” After several scripted questions and answers verifying that the candidate is approved, the Night-Hawk (courier) delivers application petitions and Klecktoken payments to the Kligrapp, who then rises and hands the petitions to the Exalted Cyclops, who then instructs the Night-Hawk to inform the candidate as to the duties of Klansmen. The Night-Hawk goes to the door and, without leaving the inner room, repeats those words to the candidate. The Klokard then administers a Qualifying Interrogatory of ten questions to the candidate, reporting back that he has received the correct answers. The Kladd, or conductor, then lines up the candidates and, after further scripted, stilted dialogue, and whispering again the countersign through the door, brings
them into the inner room. The lights are now turned down so that the space is nearly dark. The waiting Klansmen must be completely silent and immobile; the Kloran explicitly forbids smoking at this point. (Allowing for difficulties in memorizing all this, the Kloran specifies that officers are allowed to use flashlights to read their lines.) Then the Kladd leads the candidates through prescribed steps, counterclockwise around the altar. If there are enough candidates, he forms them into a “three-quarter hollow square” facing the altar. The Night-Hawk holds aloft a fiery cross at the corner of the altar just to the right of the Exalted Cyclops, exercising all the while “good military mannerisms.” Several officers then line up on the missing fourth side of the square, to “complete the quadrate.” The Exalted Cyclops holds up a vessel of “dedication fluid” (the purchased Klan water) and pours a few drops on each candidate’s back, then on his own head, then tosses some drops upward, and finally moves his hand horizontally in a circle around each candidate’s head. (These four locations symbolize body, mind, spirit, and life.)
At best, these ceremonies, held in darkness, with men anonymous behind their robes, must have been electrically charged, possibly even eerie and intimidating, as was their intent. For the initiate, the weirdness, the out-of-the-ordinariness, made a “naturalization” not just a club meeting but also a memorable drama that enhanced the value of belonging to the Klan. For veteran members, the drama confirmed their belonging. I suspect, however, that Klavern size and the spaces they could secure required improvisation or even abbreviation of the choreography and script.
Urbane twenty-first-century readers may find these rituals absurd and hokey, even puerile. Once immersed in this material, however, one begins to see them as participatory theater, a game of make-believe. Beyond their bonding effect, beyond confirming that membership in the Klan brought honor and prestige, they provided enjoyment. This was a time before movies were widespread, when radio was still new and theater not plentiful, when Americans spent their leisure time in participatory activities. They sang in church and at home, played pianos and guitars, gathered for card games and ball games and quilting sessions. These practices allowed potential members to understand the Klan not as a group in which you discussed books or politics, not as a meeting in which you listened to speakers (although lectures and traveling circuses remained popular diversions), but as a club. The make-believe quality of Klavern meetings made them folk theater, albeit not performed for an audience other than the participants. Not a creative folk theater, because the ritual was prescribed, but one in which an imaginary, possibly medieval, possibly “Oriental” society was imagined; much of the Kloran could be described as a new compilation of the folklore of emperors and knights—and “knights” was a favorite Klan word.
The pleasures of this ritual were, then, multiple: the participant was a member of a theatrical troupe, allowed a fantasy world alongside workaday life; he reaped the security and prestige of being an insider, enhanced by knowing that so many were excluded “aliens”; and, of course, he was nourished by a bonding that offered deliverance into a brotherhood as a respite from the loss of community that increasingly characterized modern life.
___________
* The days of the week were Dark, Deadly, Dismal, Doleful, Desolate, Dreadful, and Desperate. The months began with Bloody and ended with Appalling, in one version; in another, from Dismal to Dying. Even the hours were renamed, from one o’clock, Fearful, through Startling, Awful, Woeful, and finally Appalling and Last. What fun it must have been to coin these names.
Entertainment at a Colorado KKK summer picnic. (Royal George Regional Museum & History Center)
Chapter 5
SPECTACLES AND EVANGELICALS
KLAN RITUALS TOOK ON A DIFFERENT AND MORE capacious appeal when they were mass performances, staged for audiences. At the time, political parties held large, raucous gatherings to build and confirm electoral support. Protestant camp meetings were a popular attraction. But the Klan outdid these by far. It mounted extravagant productions that offered entertainment for all, and the fact that they also formed a recruitment strategy was of more than incidental value. They were profitable investments, recouping expenditures many times over by presenting the Klan as a booming, wealthy fraternity and thereby attracting new members—and new Klecktokens. If Klavern rituals strengthened small-scale bonding, these public events strengthened wholesale bonding, feeling oneself a part of groups of thousands. They were visible representations of Klan strength.
These monster events took place by the hundreds, and they were wildly popular. They brought the Ku Klux Klan to a large public, and, depending on the audience, could be attractive, intimidating, or both. Even those intimidated could be attracted, because these large gatherings featured amusements typically associated with county or state fairs. The Klantauquas, as some labeled them, point to one of the contradictions of Klan strategy: Klanspeople sometimes sought secrecy, largely because mystery made it more attractive, occasionally because members wanted deniability. But the Klan also sought publicity, not only for its cause but equally, if not more importantly, in order to grow. In this respect it differed from other fraternal orders, many of which preferred to remain closed, and selective in admitting new members. To the extent that the Klan resolved this contradiction, it did so by developing nonmember supporters. That tactic became increasingly important as the recruitment-by-commission system ended and the Klan began to emphasize electing candidates for public office. The big outdoor spectacles thus served many purposes: to attract voters, to project an image of the Klan as a benign fraternity, and to provide leisure activity that strengthened Klan solidarity.
None of these purposes prevented turning a profit. Sometimes there was a small admission charge, and rides and games might also bring in money: a Klonvocation in Iowa in 1925 took in $810.50 from entrance fees, plus $190 from tickets for rides, amounting to $13,950 in 2016 dollars.1
Typically staged in summer, often on Independence Day, and outdoors, these KKK pageants might last well into the night. Open to everyone, located in fairgrounds, public parks, and donated private fields, they were announced in newspapers, handbills, and posters tied to trees far enough in advance that word spread widely. Ministers promoted them in sermons. People from miles around anticipated them with excitement and attended in the thousands, sometimes the tens of thousands. One huge event in Racine was co-organized by Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan Klans.2
The Klonvocations typically culminated in long parades, and anyone, including nonmembers, could walk with them, enjoying the bands and floats. One parade featured men carrying horizontally a thirty-foot-long American flag, into which people tossed money, followed by a motorcycle brigade, a thirty-piece band, a fife and drum corps, stilt walkers, and floats, one of which was a miniature schoolhouse surrounded by an oversized American flag. In evening parades through towns, the Klan sometimes arranged to have streetlights turned off so as to make their burning crosses show more dramatically.3
Unlike Klavern meetings, these events were family affairs. They were carnivals but never carnivalesque, offering respectable entertainment and participatory activities for people of all ages: music, rides, ball games, races, contests with prizes, lots of food to sell or share, even hot-air balloon rides. Huge tag sales offered bargains. Physicians staffed first-aid stations. Concerts featured children and teenagers from the Klan’s youth groups, and of course minstrel shows, when white performers sang and danced in blackface. Drum and bugle corps performed. Competitions included beauty contests and team sports; a Minnesota event featured a “fat man’s race” for those over 225 pounds.4 A Nebraska event featured a “water pageant” at which displays floated around the lake on pontoons.5 Some of these happenings involved mass naturalizations—in one 1922 Chicago event, 4,650 initiates joined; in Dayton in 1923, 7,000; in Farmingdale, New Jersey, 1,700; in Oakland, California, 500.6 (See figures 6 and 7.) No doubt these are exaggerated figures, but in any case there were masses of recruit
s. Klanspeople spent considerable labor and money on these events, but they were calculated investments.
The spectacles often featured daredevils. In a 1924 Indianapolis event, a Kokomo man leapt from a hundred-foot tower into a net.7 They often featured airplanes, which says something about the resources that Klan leaders could command. (See figure 13.) Parachutists jumped from planes. “With the black sky as a background, a flaming red cross streaked across the heavens . . . when the aviator turned on a red electrically lighted cross on the bottom of its fuselage,” one reporter wrote of a Klonvocation in Jackson, Michigan.8 (The Klan’s airplane stunts prefigured those of later air shows, particularly one made famous by the Italian fascist pilot Italo Balbo, who led a squadron of daredevil seaplanes from Rome to Chicago, arriving at the 1933 World’s Fair, commemorating the city’s founding in 1833, to a cheering crowd of thousands.9) In Kansas City, Missouri, in 1923, the show was introduced by “a white-robed horseman on a white steed” standing atop a hill as a plane covered by a huge fiery cross swooped low” over him.10 These performances were “calculated to inspire curiosity on the part of those outside the Klan and make them want to be inside,” as one contemporary perceived.11 This was superb entertainment, free to all comers, like free circuses.
Events like these made some attendees think of the Klan as an innocent community group. Even members of the very groups despised by the Klan frequently admitted to enjoying the spectacles, and no doubt some risked mingling with the crowd, undetected if they were white. The Klan’s mystique, and its reputation for throwing these extravaganzas, attracted many who did not join and perhaps had no intention to join.