![]() Klansmen paraded in military formation at night time with red, white, and blue torches. Their mass events began with a modern fireworks display of bombs that exploded into three K’s and parachuted American flags from the sky. Technological novelty played into the notion that the Klan was offering its audience a modern spectacle. As aggressive self-promoters, the Klan then spread overstated attendance figures from these rallies and overwrought descriptions of their pageantry to generate a buzz and claim a legitimacy that few outside observers actually thought the organization deserved. Klan rallies used entertainment as a vehicle for Klan propaganda in the hopes of recruiting new members. Klan organizers capitalized upon this by turning their political events into forms of entertainment through pageantry, fireworks, singing, 21 gun salutes, patriotic reenactments of events from American history, and religious sermons. From scattered evidence we have, it seems that many of the thousands of people who attended Klan rallies came out of curiosity or to be entertained.Īt a time when most Washington residents lived in small towns and rural areas far from big cities, and worked in farming, fishing, timber, and mining industries, massive Klan rallies were not merely political. These public events served to initiate and recruit new members, make a public show of political power by a secret society, and spread the Klan’s propaganda to a curious and supportive audience.īut most people who attended “Konventions” did not vow allegiance to a secret society of vigilantes, nor perhaps even think too deeply about the Klan’s history as a terrorist organization that laid the foundation for Jim Crow segregation in the South. 3 It would be followed by two additional fifty thousand person “Konventions” in Issaquah and Yakima in the Summer of 1924 (July 26 and August 9, respectively), along with at least a dozen smaller rallies and parades that drew hundreds and sometimes thousands of spectators around the state from 1923 to 1926. This was the first “Konvention” held in the state of Washington, and it attracted between twenty and fifty thousand spectators (depending on whether you asked the Klan or its opponents). ![]() It took place at Wilson’s Station, near Renton Junction, just outside Seattle, on July 14, 1923. 2 But this massive Klan rally did not take place in the U.S. Simmons, the man who founded the Ku Klux Klan revival on Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1915 and introduced a new and terrifying symbol into Klan rituals: the burning cross. The “Imperial Cyclops” honored at the event, to which thousands of Klansmen (probably not ten thousand) raised their hands in salute, was none other than William J. ![]() The huge Ku Klux Klan rally described in the above passage from a Klan newspaper brought together tens of thousands of spectators to witness the initiation of as many as 1900 new members to this secret society devoted to white supremacy and Christian patriotism. A young voice heralding the stars passes the word “Every Klansmen will salute the Imperial Cyclops.” Ten thousand hands are raised beyond the ring denoting the presence of Klansmen not taking part in the Ceremonial, thousands of hands over fifty acres of ground from cars packed in solid columns of tens, twenties, and hundreds. Suddenly a figure appears on the brow of the hill riding a brown horse. Courtesy Washington State Archives.Ĭover of Watcher on the Tower, July 21, 1923.Ībove a green sloping hill on which stand four huge crosses an endless line of white-robed Klansmen move in single file and closed ranks… The white lines extend and open until they form a square covering the space of five acres. Letter from Ku Klux Klan representative to Governor Louis Hart ridiculing the Governor for denying the Klan the use of the State Fairgrounds. Yakima Daily Republic, August 11,1924,p.2 Yakima Morning Herald, August 10,1924,pp 1-10 Yakima Daily Republic, August 9,1924, p.1 Yakima Morning Herald, August 6,1924, p.8 Courtesy of the Washington State Archives. 10.Ĭorrespondence exchange between the Klan and the Governor about whether the Klan rally on July 14 would need state protection from a hostile local Sheriff. Powell, "Exalted Cyclops" of the Seattle Klan No. "The Ceremony Through the Eyes of a Woman." Watcher on the Tower, July 21, 1923, p. Watcher on the Tower, July 21, 1923, pp3-7 Watcher on the Tower, June 20, 1923, p.8. (Click on image to view articles from the Seattle KKK paper, Watcher on the Tower)Īdvertisement for KKK rally.
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