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The KKK and Jim Crow in Iowa

Most of my family on my fathers side lived around Millersburg, Iowa. Back in the 1960s my grandmother was cleaning out my great grandfathers basement at his grocery store and found a Klan outfit.

It was evidently a big deal back in the 1930s in Iowa but it wasn’t evolved around black folk. It was against Catholics. The Methodist and Lutheran Churches absolutely hated the Catholics back then. Don’t know why really.
I can enlighten that a little. My Dads parents were Methodist/Evangelical United Brethren. In the 60's , the Catholic kids who we played with in town were not allowed to join us for a potluck dinner and services in our church. They didn't consider Catholics as true Christians.
The hardcore Baptists, Evangelicals and some of the other fundamental Christian denominations have long held the Roman Catholic church is unworthy of the publics spiritual trust going back to the times of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
 
The whole Protestant vs Catholic issue in rural Iowa was a real thing. My grandmother’s 1st cousin got knocked up by an Irish Catholic kid from a nearby farm in the late ‘30’s. Her parents forbade her to marry him or to have anything to do with him. So, the child basically grew up fatherless.
 
The whole Protestant vs Catholic issue in rural Iowa was a real thing. My grandmother’s 1st cousin got knocked up by an Irish Catholic kid from a nearby farm in the late ‘30’s. Her parents forbade her to marry him or to have anything to do with him. So, the child basically grew up fatherless.
Yeah, we weren't supposed to date mackeral snappers. Some of us did anyway, but what were we supposed to do when every tavern in any small town in Carroll county would serve you.:D
 
Watching a documentary on IPTV. I did not realize the Klan had such a history in Iowa.

How did I ever think we were above this?

The University of Iowa and Iowa City had many areas off limits to blacks. I had no idea of this. Very disappointing.


Your mom didn’t suck dick either ;)
 
Watching a documentary on IPTV. I did not realize the Klan had such a history in Iowa.

How did I ever think we were above this?

The University of Iowa and Iowa City had many areas off limits to blacks. I had no idea of this. Very disappointing.

The Klan was huge in Indiana in the 1920's. In fact, it was maybe the largest Klan organization in the country at that time. The governor and about half of the state legislature were Klan members.

There was a time in the 1920s when being seen as a good, upstanding Hoosier meant joining the Ku Klux Klan.

At its peak, the Klan counted among its members the governor of Indiana, more than half of the state legislature and an estimated 30 percent of all native-born white men in the state. More than 250,000 Hoosiers swelled the Klan's ranks – some because they believed in its anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic message, others because being on good terms with the Klan was necessary for their business or political aspirations – making it the largest Klan organization in the country.

By the end of the decade, the Indiana Klan was all but dismantled following the conviction of Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson for the rape and murder of a young school teacher named Madge Oberholtzer.

My dad told me the story of a bunch of Klansmen that came out of Lafayette one night to burn the small rural Catholic church my dad's family attended. Unfortunately for them, they got on the wrong road and burned down some protestant church by mistake.

https://www.theindychannel.com/longform/the-ku-klux-klan-ran-indiana-once-could-it-happen-again
 
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This anti-Catholic attitude was still going strong in the 60s. Many have argued it kept Kennedy from winning the biggest Presidential election margin against Nixon.
Hell, I still occasionally here people of my generation referring to "Crossies" without blinking. Never quite got why this was so.
 
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The Klan was pretty much considered nearly mainstream in much of the country in the nineteen teens and twenties. Really a bad reflection on our country at that time. Remember the movie "The Birth of a Nation?" A film that' considered a seminal classic in American cinema that glorified the KKK.
 
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In the 1960 election, one of the main complaints by evangelicals Vs. Kennedy was that he would take policy direction from the Vatican at the expense of the United States.

Heck, there was even a conspiracy theory that he would have an office built for the Pope in the White House!
 
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The Klan was pretty much considered nearly mainstream in much of the country in the nineteen teens and twenties. Really a bad reflection on our country at that time. Remember the movie "The Birth of a Nation?" A film that' considered a seminal classic in American cinema that glorified the KKK.

Quoting Democratic president Woodrow Wilson:

Abstract. In February 1915, upon viewing The Birth of a Nation at a special White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson reportedly remarked, “It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”
 
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Most of my family on my fathers side lived around Millersburg, Iowa. Back in the 1960s my grandmother was cleaning out my great grandfathers basement at his grocery store and found a Klan outfit.

It was evidently a big deal back in the 1930s in Iowa but it wasn’t evolved around black folk. It was against Catholics. The Methodist and Lutheran Churches absolutely hated the Catholics back then. Don’t know why really.

Color me shocked
 
I can enlighten that a little. My Dads parents were Methodist/Evangelical United Brethren. In the 60's , the Catholic kids who we played with in town were not allowed to join us for a potluck dinner and services in our church. They didn't consider Catholics as true Christians.
The hardcore Baptists, Evangelicals and some of the other fundamental Christian denominations have long held the Roman Catholic church is unworthy of the publics spiritual trust going back to the times of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
In Davenport, the German Catholic Church (St. Joes) was four blocks from St. Mary's (Irish Catholic Church). It was a scandal for a German Catholic to Marry an Irish Catholic. So even the Catholics did not like each other much.
 
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In Davenport, the German Catholic Church (St. Joes) was four blocks from St. Mary's (Irish Catholic Church). It was a scandal for a German Catholic to Marry an Irish Catholic. So even the Catholics did not like each other much.

The Germans typically think their shit don’t stink. It’s always been that way, especially if you’ve grown up around the older generation
 
Most of my family on my fathers side lived around Millersburg, Iowa. Back in the 1960s my grandmother was cleaning out my great grandfathers basement at his grocery store and found a Klan outfit.

It was evidently a big deal back in the 1930s in Iowa but it wasn’t evolved around black folk. It was against Catholics. The Methodist and Lutheran Churches absolutely hated the Catholics back then. Don’t know why really.
My grandparents, Irish Catholic immigrants who settled in the Fort Dodge- Storm Lake area, had the KKK burn a cross in their yard because they didn't want Catholics in their area.
 
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