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Chapter 5 Memory and the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Texas Walter L. Buenger During the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan grew to enormous size and influence in Texas, but from the mid- to late 1920s it dwindled away. Usual explanations for the rapid rise and fall of the Klan describe its growth as an aftershock of World War I and connect it to changing gender roles, an upsurge in racial tension, class anxiety, increased urbanization, and concerns about lawlessness and licentiousness in the Prohibition era. In Texas the Klan also functioned as a fraternal organization and as a faction within the dominant Democratic Party that elected a U.S. senator in 1922 and almost elected a governor in 1924. It grew because of effective organization and advertising. It lost influence, the standard argument goes, when it lost elections, when leading newspaper editors and community leaders became increasingly critical of its violence, and when scandals exposed Klan leaders as hypocrites. In ways reminiscent of European fascism, however, the Klan also grew because it rested upon racialized myths and memories of the past that touched popular chords. It grew because among white Protestants these memories turned widely held but amorphous attitudes about Jews, Catholics, blacks, and non-English speakers into concrete action intended to defend America. Through symbols and images that drew upon regionalism, race, religion, and patriotism, promoters of the Klan attracted adherents and gave their organization focus and energy. In turn opponents of the Klan used countervailing myths, memories, symbols, and images. For them, the Klan stood opposed to memories of the founding fathers as advocates of freedom of religion and of Texans as rugged individualists who resisted the influence of 120 walter l. buenger the mob. But this clash of memories was more than a story of two competing sides using the best available weapons against each other. It was more than a contest for power in the present between factions trying to control what the community remembered and what it forgot. By using memories associated with Americanism, members of the Klan and opponents of the Klan further transformed themselves and their society from southern to American . Using memories has often been depicted as a reactionary act, a defense of entrenched ideas and established power. The Texas example suggests that memories also served as agents of transformation. Focusing on memory, then, adds to our previous understanding of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan and its long-term impact. In her perceptive study of the Klan in Indiana, Kathleen M. Blee makes the point that “deep-seated racism” and “xenophobic attitudes” did not automatically translate into membership in the Klan. The Klan espoused the normal range of ideas and opinions among white Protestants in the 1920s, but not all with those ideas and opinions joined the Klan. Klan membership drew out, heightened, organized, and focused racism and xenophobia, but the original level of racism and xenophobia matched that of the majority of white Protestants. Memory served as a trigger mechanism that influenced people to join the Klan and helped members articulate and act on racism and xenophobia once in the Klan. Four strains of myth and memory contributed to the rise of the KKK and to its ability to energize and direct its members. The most obvious of these were memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Indeed, the Klan first appeared in Texas at a reunion of Confederate veterans in Houston in October 1920. The Klan, as that term implies, also drew upon romantic images of medieval England, where chivalrous Anglo Saxons defended the virtues of their race. This romantic image encompassed both race and gender , as members of the Klan defended the white race and established their own manliness in the process. The Klan also depended upon the religious primitivism of the time—an impulse to return to the imagined purity of the early Christian church. The Klan advocated an unadorned but muscular Christianity whose followers changed the world around them. Finally, the Klan preached “Americanism,” devotion to flag and country, and adoration of the founding fathers. Links to the Confederacy and Reconstruction appeared early in the history of the Texas Klan and persisted throughout its glory days. On October 8, 1920, a group marching in the Confederate Veterans Parade in Houston carried three messages: “We were here yesterday, 1866.” “We are here today, 1920.” “We will be here forever.” This insistence that the 1920s Klan directly [3.129.23.30] Project...

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