A photo of an unnamed Osage County town shows unmasked Klansmen riding horses in a parade. Osage County Historical Society photo.
Sometimes history that is hidden just means it is forgotten. Other times, history is purposefully suppressed because it is much easier to forget than to deal with it. One of those topics that has been intentionally pushed to the side is associations with the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan in Kansas found a foothold in the 1910s.
Increased immigration, along with a surge of nationalism with the first world war, provided a foundation for a resurgence of the KKK. The original Klan emerged in the South in the period following the Civil War called Reconstruction, a plan to alter the skewed social structure that existed in the South caused by slavery. The Klan used political and social terrorism to keep those of African descent in check during this period.
While Klan activities diminished after the early 1870s, memories of the organization did not. The KKK experienced a resurgence when the group was romanticized by author Thomas Dixon in his 1905 novel, The Clansman, which went on to be adapted into a motion picture called The Birth of a Nation in 1915.
The same year the movie came out, the new Klan initiated its first citizens into the “invisible empire” around a fiery cross on top of Stone Mountain in Georgia. The new Klan voiced prejudice against not only African Americans, but also Roman Catholics, Jews, individuals with low morals, or those that showed a lack of patriotism. The new iteration of the organization was much larger than the first one, gaining membership nationwide, and took hold predominantly in the rural states.
Kansas, however, fought hard to keep the Klan out of its borders. Earliest actions included the Kansas censorship bureau banning The Birth of a Nation from being shown in the state.