Ku Klux Klan

====Political role====
[[File:klan-sheet-music.jpg|thumb|left|Sheet music to "We Are All Loyal Klansmen", 1923]]

The second Klan expanded with new chapters in cities in the Midwest and West, and reached both Republicans and Democrats, as well as men without a party affiliation. The goal of Prohibition in particular helped the Klan and some Republicans to make common cause in the North.<ref>Pegram, Thomas R. (2008). "Hoodwinked: The Anti-Saloon League and the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Prohibition Enforcement". ''Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era'' vol. 7 no. 1 pp. 89–119</ref>

The Klan had numerous members in every part of the United States but was particularly strong in the South and Midwest. At its peak, claimed Klan membership exceeded four million and comprised 20% of the adult white male population in many broad geographic regions, and 40% in some areas.<ref>Marty Gitlin (2009). ''The Ku Klux Klan: A Guide to an American Subculture''. p. 20.{{ISBN?}}</ref> The Klan also moved north into Canada, especially [[Saskatchewan]], where it opposed Catholics.{{sfn|Sher|1983}}

In Indiana, members were American-born, white Protestants and covered a wide range of incomes and social levels. The [[Indiana Klan]] was perhaps the most prominent Ku Klux Klan in the nation. It claimed more than 30% of white male Hoosiers as members.<ref name=nicfh>{{cite web| url=http://www.centerforhistory.org/indiana_history_main7.html|title=Indiana History Chapter Seven|publisher=Northern Indiana Center for History|access-date=October 7, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411163028/http://www.centerforhistory.org/indiana_history_main7.html|archive-date=April 11, 2008}}</ref> In 1924 it supported Republican [[Edward L. Jackson|Edward Jackson]] in his successful campaign for governor.<ref name="Library" />

Catholic and liberal Democrats—who were strongest in northeastern cities—decided to make the Klan an issue at the [[1924 Democratic National Convention]] in New York City. Their delegates proposed a resolution indirectly attacking the Klan; it was defeated by one vote out of 1,100.<ref>Robert A. Slayton (2001). ''Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith''. pp. 211–213{{ISBN?}}</ref> The leading presidential candidates were [[William Gibbs McAdoo]], a Protestant with a base in the South and West where the Klan was strong, and New York governor [[Al Smith]], a Catholic with a base in the large cities. After weeks of stalemate and bitter argumentation, both candidates withdrew in favor of a compromise candidate.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Lee N. |last=Allen |title=The McAdoo Campaign for the Presidential Nomination in 1924 |journal=Journal of Southern History |year=1963 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=211–228 |jstor=2205041 |doi=10.2307/2205041 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Douglas B. |last=Craig |title=After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920–1934 |year=1992 |location=Chapel Hill |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |at=ch. 2–3 |isbn=978-0807820582 }}</ref>

[[File:Children with Dr. Samuel Green, Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, July 24, 1948.jpg|thumb|Two children wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods stand on either side of [[Samuel Green (Ku Klux Klan)|Samuel Green]], a Ku Klux Klan [[Grand Dragon]], at [[Stone Mountain, Georgia]], on July 24, 1948.|alt=]]
In some states, such as Alabama and California, KKK chapters had worked for political reform. In 1924, Klan members were elected to the city council in [[Anaheim, California]]. The city had been controlled by an entrenched commercial-civic elite that was mostly [[German Americans|German American]]. Given their tradition of moderate social drinking, the German Americans did not strongly support Prohibition laws – the mayor had been a saloon keeper. Led by the minister of the First Christian Church, the Klan represented a rising group of politically oriented non-ethnic Germans who denounced the elite as corrupt, undemocratic and self-serving. The historian Christopher Cocoltchos says the Klansmen tried to create a model, orderly community. The Klan had about 1,200 members in [[Orange County, California]]. The economic and occupational profile of the pro- and anti-Klan groups shows the two were similar and about equally prosperous. Klan members were Protestants, as were most of their opponents, but the latter also included many [[Catholic Germans]]. Individuals who joined the Klan had earlier demonstrated a much higher rate of voting and civic activism than did their opponents. Cocoltchos suggests that many of the individuals in Orange County joined the Klan out of that sense of civic activism. The Klan representatives easily won the local election in Anaheim in April 1924. They fired city employees who were known to be Catholic and replaced them with Klan appointees. The new city council tried to enforce Prohibition. After its victory, the Klan chapter held large rallies and initiation ceremonies over the summer.<ref name="Cocoltchos" /> The opposition organized, bribed a Klansman for the secret membership list, and exposed the Klansmen running in the state primaries; they defeated most of the candidates. Klan opponents in 1925 took back local government and succeeded in a special election in recalling the Klansmen who had been elected in April 1924. The Klan in Anaheim quickly collapsed, its newspaper closed after losing a libel suit, and the minister who led the local [[Klavern]] moved to Kansas.<ref name="Cocoltchos">Christopher N. Cocoltchos (2004). "The Invisible Empire and the Search for the Orderly Community: The Ku Klux Klan in Anaheim, California". Shawn Lay, ed. ''The invisible empire in the West'', pp. 97–120.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

In the South, Klan members were still Democratic, as it was essentially a one-party region for whites. Klan chapters were closely allied with Democratic police, sheriffs, and other functionaries of local government. Due to [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchisement]] of most African Americans and many poor whites around the start of the 20th century, the only political activity for whites took place within the Democratic Party.

In Alabama, Klan members advocated better public schools, effective [[Prohibition]] enforcement, expanded road construction, and other political measures to benefit lower-class [[white people]]. By 1925, the Klan was a political force in the state, as leaders such as [[J. Thomas Heflin]], [[David Bibb Graves]], and [[Hugo Black]] tried to build political power against the Black Belt wealthy [[Planter (American South)|planters]], who had long dominated the state.{{sfn|Feldman|1999}} In 1926, with Klan support, [[Bibb Graves]] won the Alabama governor's office. He was a former Klan chapter head. He pushed for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation. Because the Alabama state legislature refused to redistrict until 1972, and then under court order, the Klan was unable to break the planters' and rural areas' hold on legislative power.

Scholars and biographers have recently examined Hugo Black's Klan role. Ball finds regarding the KKK that Black "sympathized with the group's economic, nativist, and anti-Catholic beliefs".{{sfn|Ball|1996|p=16}} Newman says Black "disliked the Catholic Church as an institution" and gave over 100 anti-Catholic speeches to KKK meetings across Alabama in his 1926 election campaign.<ref>Roger K. Newman (1997). ''Hugo Black: A Biography''. pp. 87, 104 {{ISBN?}}</ref> Black was elected US senator in 1926 as a Democrat. In 1937 President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] appointed Black to the Supreme Court without knowing how active in the Klan he had been in the 1920s. He was confirmed by his fellow Senators before the full KKK connection was known; Justice Black said he left the Klan when he became a senator.{{sfn|Ball|1996|p=96}}