Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
On a hot afternoon in July 1923, former Dallas dentist and national Ku Klux Klan leader Hiram Evans took the podium at the first annual national meeting of the revived organization. By the time of this meeting, the Klan had again become infamous for its reputation of intolerance and vigilante violence. It had also become enormously popular among native-born white Protestants. In states such as Indiana and Colorado, the Klan briefly seized control of state and local politics. In spite of vigorous and scathing attacks from liberals and minority groups, between three and six million native-born Protestant white men rushed to join the secret order. At least another half-million women joined the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. Some even claimed that President Warren Harding took the membership oath in a secret White House ceremony. The appeal of the organization has been explained by historians as evidence of a variety of cultural trends, including worries over lax Prohibition enforcement, desires to enforce white racial dominance, fears caused by increasing immigration rates and labor unrest, and anxiety about changing cultural mores. While each of these issues was part of the revived Klan's allure, the shrewd “Imperial Wizard” chose another topic to electrify his audience. “The greatest duty of America today,” Evans thundered, “is to build up our educational system.”
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