The Ku Klux Klan: American Fascists (Part 4)

The second Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s grew into a mass organization of up to five million members by blending fraternal order rituals, family entertainment, and "100% Americanism"—a defense of white Protestant values against Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. Events like the 1923 Kokomo picnic in Indiana drew tens of thousands with barbecues, circuses, boxing, choirs, airplane stunts, and cross-burnings, serving as recruitment drives. These gatherings, promoted by ministers and advertised widely, made the Klan a routine part of white Protestant social life, prefiguring large festivals while masking its bigotry.

Klan Picnics and Everyday Appeal

The Klan hosted hundreds of picnics, parades, baseball games, rodeos, and fairs across states like Indiana and Oregon, attracting families with kids' areas, clowns, and fireworks. Historians like Kathleen Blee note that former members later recalled these as "good fun" with costumes, burgers, and community events such as weddings, christenings, spelling bees, and beauty contests. Even at the 1923 Texas State Fair's "Klan Day," attended by 150,000, rodeos and band concerts preceded speeches by Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans decrying African Americans as "savage," Jews as "money mad," and Catholics as threats. Violence lurked beneath: the sponsoring Dallas Klan No. 66 was notorious for kidnappings and floggings.