Book: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
Genre: History
Publisher: Viking (Penguin Random House)
Publication date: 2023
Pages: 404

Source: Hardback from the library

Summary: The Ku Klux Klan had a resurgence in the 1920s, inspired by the movie The Birth of a Nation and a general tenor of fear that could easily be turned to anger and hate. The greatest surge came in Indiana where 30% of US-born white males joined the KKK.

The leader who orchestrated the movement in Indiana was D.C. Stephenson. To the men in Indiana, he presented himself as one of them — a supporter of Prohibition and a protector of American womanhood against the excesses of the Jazz Age. Behind closed doors, he was a drunk and serial rapist who made himself rich off membership dues and robe sales.

When a woman ended up dead, after she provided the details in a deathbed declaration, Stephenson found himself on trial and exposed. The blow-back from the trial, along with other factors, ended the hold that the KKK had on much of Indiana and the country.

Thoughts: I’ve known since childhood that my maternal grandfather, who lived in Indiana, was a member of the KKK. I wrote what I’ve figured out about that, so far, on Wednesday.

Here are three things from A Fever in the Heartland that took me by surprise.

First, The Ku Klux Klan used Protestant churches to spread the message and recruit new members. Here is part of a sermon delivered in Noblesville, which is just north of Indianapolis and just south of the town where my grandfather was a member of the KKK.

In January 1923, Reverend Aubrey H. Moore took to the pulpit of his First Christian Church to answer the question from the title of a much-publicized sermon: “Is the Ku Klux Klan a Menace to America?”…. The pastor rose now to praise the Klan. The menace was its enemies. He warned against the mingling of races, saying, “Every colored person should keep his place.” He inveighed against “the poison of the melting pot.” He attacked Jews as “untrustworthy,” and for not accepting Jesus Christ as their savior.

In closing, Reverend Moore asked God to “bless every Ku Kluxer who may be under the sound of my voice.” (p. 238)

Second, The Ku Klux Klan used the same playbook and connections as the temperance movement. According to Clarence Darrow, “The father and mother of the Ku Klux Klan is the Anti-Saloon League.”

Third, there was a Women’s Auxiliary called the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. Check out the Wikipedia article for Daisy Douglas Barr for information about how this woman bridged the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the suffrage movement, and the KKK.

The women’s history that I’ve picked up over the years painted a clear connection between the WCTU and the suffrage movement. This is the first time that I learned that, for many women, the KKK got swept in there, too. No wonder black women in my life scoff at my sentimentalism over the women who won the right to vote. I would have been well-served to learn this history earlier.

The Women of the KKK organized their children, too. “The Ku Klux Kiddies were issued small-sized robes and masks, recited pledges and songs at regular den meetings, and marched in parades.” (p. 63)

Appeal: This is one of those books that I want everyone to read because we weren’t taught it in history class. This was the December selection for the Community for Understanding and Hope Book Group. Like many of our books, this one generated multiple comments of “How come I didn’t know this before now?”

It would be great if these topics were included in the curriculum so that we aren’t so shocked when we learn it later in life.

Have you read this book? What did you think?