![]() “The Klan had a cafeteria of appeals,” Goldberg said. The new Klan also was far more organized. The second wave of the Klan, which began in 1915 under new leaders, was inspired in part by the movie “The Birth of a Nation,” which glorified the Reconstruction-era Klan’s actions and falsely recast the terrorist organization as a patriotic defender of law and order. While still fervent believers in white supremacy, the second iteration of the KKK expanded its targets to include Catholics, Jews and immigrants of any kind. This Klan largely disappeared from the public view by the 1870s. The Klan of the 1920s was distinct in some ways from the organization that terrorized the South in the 1860s after the Civil War and was responsible for lynching hundreds and suppressing the Black vote. These changes made the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants who had long held power in the city nervous, Goodstein said. It was also a time when Black people in Denver were moving into white neighborhoods and the city’s immigrant population was growing, including Jewish and Catholic communities. Sources: History Colorado, “In the Shadow of the Klan: When the KKK Ruled Denver” by Phil Goodstein,, the Colorado Encyclopedia He goes on to form a new, similar group called the Minute Men and splits Denver’s KKK. July 15, 1925: National Klan leadership ousts Locke from the organization. June 1925: Grand Dragon John Galen Locke is jailed for contempt of court in connection to an investigation of tax evasion. Clarence Morley, a Klansman, takes office. ![]() 15, 1924: Stapleton defeats a recall election to stay in office. 10, 1923: The KKK lights crosses on fire across Denver, including the steps of the Capitol, to commemorate Armistice Day.Īug. He installs Klansmen at many levels of city government. May 15, 1923: Klansman Ben Stapleton is elected mayor of Denver. June 17, 1921: The Colorado KKK announces its presence in Colorado via an open letter published in the the Denver Times newspaper. They also worked at Denver landmarks, like Elitch Gardens, the Brown Palace Hotel, Union Station and Lakeside Amusement Park.ġ915: The second wave of the Ku Klux Klan is founded in Georgia. The membership rolls show Klansmen worked at banks, pie companies, railroads, grocery stores, pharmacies, the zoo, the parks, the post office, cab companies, cafes, the stockyard, the city jail, the courthouse, laundry businesses, cab companies and this newspaper. Ripple effects of the Klan’s takeover of Denver’s power structures over the course of just a few years in the mid-1920s are still felt, especially after the release by History Colorado this spring of digital copies of the Klan’s membership ledgers from that time period. The more than 30,000 names in the documents include those of the men the Klan’s political machine installed as Colorado’s governor, Denver’s mayor and police chief, judges, state senators and representatives.īut the ledgers also show how pervasive the Klan was in day-to-day life, where the people they persecuted and intimidated would encounter them. Gallagher, who wears gloves whenever touching these objects and washes his hands afterward to separate himself from the Klan, heard family stories that inspired him to start researching Denver’s KKK of the 1920s. “I think that has affected the city for generations.”Įli Imadali, Special to The Denver PostDennis Gallagher, whose Irish Catholic family recalled the terror of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, looks through paraphernalia related to the KKK at his Denver home on June 3, 2021. “There’s never been an apology for what the Klan did,” said Gallagher, professor emeritus at Regis University, former city auditor, city councilman, state senator and state representative. In 1970, Gallagher was knocking on doors as a candidate for the Colorado House of Representatives and met a man who said he was a member of the Klan and thus would never vote for an Irish Catholic. His father was bullied by self-identified Klansmen about being an Irish Catholic when he joined the Denver Fire Department in 1938. He grabbed an ax and helped put the fire out, but the Ku Klux Klan members who constructed the symbol of hate already had fled, as Dennis Gallagher tells the story that’s been passed down by his family. Like other longtime Denver families, dealing with the Ku Klux Klan’s one-time dominance of the city has been a generational problem for Gallagher and his kin. Dominic Catholic Church in north Denver and ran to her home a block away to get her husband. Nora Flaherty saw the cross burning in front of St. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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