Colorado Experience, KKK: Rocky Mountain PBS

[appalachiablue]

- From the Grand Dragon to known KKK appointees in the police, mayor and governor offices, Colorado once had the 2nd largest Ku Klux Klan membership in the United States. Discover the sordid history of the KKK in Colorado and the impact they had on Catholics, Jews and African Americans in early 1920s, and the courageous individuals who fought against their establishment..'We were Klan Central, Colorado had the second highest per capita Klan membership after Indiana.' (Jan. 2017). http://www.rmpbs.org/coloradoexperience

[Laffy Kat]

1. I had no idea. Right in my own backyard!

I'm originally from Tennessee, so I certainly know a lot of THAT history, but here in Colorado, wow. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, obviously it's everywhere in the US.

[appalachiablue]

4. It was and is everywhere; in the 1920s and beyond

the Klan was active in Oregon, CA, NY, New England, the Midwest and Dixie. As pointed out in the film, in order to get anywhere in some towns you had to be a member, especially in the field of law enforcement, prosecutors, mayors and other influential office holders. Initially regarded like a 'Rotary Club,' the Klan had a women's auxiliary and people were very open about it, holding fairs and public events. Incredible to us today.

Simultaneous with the modern, hot Roaring 1920s era of the 'Jazz Age,' flappers, black music, automobiles, radio and a wild stock market boom of the later Gilded Age, many 'regular folks' wanted a conservative return to a 'real America and Americans,' native- born protestants as pointed out.

[Twice I visited Colorado, once years ago with friends from U Wisconsin, Madison for a wedding in the Rockies which was beautiful and fun as was seeing some of Boulder. In summer 2000 we stayed at the Broadmoor, a fine resort, the scenery was breathtaking but the atmosphere and guests there were quite conservative; I didn't see one person of color at the hotel or nearby environs.]

Women getting the vote in 1920 and 'making demands' alarmed many staunch traditionalists as were waves of immigrants arriving in the US since the 1880s- not the 'good ones' from northern Europe but Poles, Hungarians, Italians, Asians and others. It's not hard to see why the Eugenics movement received huge support and flourished during this period. In spirit Eugenics had ties to the Volkish nostalgia movement in Germany and Europe that was a reaction against many changes of the industrial age and a desire to return to a more simple, 'wholesome' time (that was fiction).

'The Birth of a Nation' movie (1915) caused a huge revival of the Klan, and stimulated a desire for an inward turn against the 'foreign' overseas WWI involvement; growing labor movement strife over better wages and conditions; oppressive Jim Crow and violence was widespread. This was the period of the 'First Red Scare' when deep suspicions were held about the 'wrong kind of people'--who could be viewed as dangerous, anti American (anti business), Communists and anarchists.

As well, the Russian Revolution of 1917 had stirred up the entire world especially industrialists and elites, and even influenced some displaced, out of work post- WWI veterans in Italy, Germany and elsewhere, some of whom were drawn to socialism or fascism especially in Europe.

Ramped up hatred of Catholics, Jews, blacks and those beer, whiskey and wine drinking immigrants and Prohibition in 1921 was driving some people off a cliff, with the help of propaganda, politicians, preachers and special interests. ~ It was a very reactionary period in some ways that we see remnants of today in what we're experiencing in these divisive, troubled times.

[llashram]

5. not surprising at all

grew up some of my life in the shadow of Stone Mountain, Tennessee. Ugly americans with a new leader, d. trump. Grand wizard of american racists.

[Hekate]

2. My late mom was from Colorado, raised Catholic. She's the one who told me how much the KKK...

...hated Roman Catholics, in addition to Black people and Jews. Born in 1924, she never forgot that.

[generalbetrayus]

7. My mother grew up in Denver and nearby Englewood in the 1920s, 30s and early 40s,

while I grew up in Washington D. C. in the late 50s and 60s, at the time of the African-American civil rights movement. My mother told me of signs in the windows of Denver and nearby Englewood business establishments back in her day that said, "No dogs or Mexicans allowed."

[appalachiablue]

9. Those ugly signs were also posted in the West which

my mother saw in the 1940s: 'No Mexicans, Indians or Dogs.'

In Portland, Oregon shop windows with signs noting 'White Trade Only' existed into the 1960s.

'No Irish, Blacks or Dogs' notices were seen in places in Britain, esp. London into the 1960s.

[madamesilverspurs]

3. Born and raised in Colorado,

and history classes dealing with the Civil War mentioned the klan only in that context. After high school we moved around a bit, then I did some moves on my own. I wound up in Virginia in the mid-'70s, and that was the first place where I saw in-your-face racism at work; I got fired from my first two restaurant jobs for waiting on mixed couples. My erstwhile co-workers were actually amazed that my blonde, blue-eyed self didn't agree with that way of thinking. Thus educated, when I returned to Colorado a few years later I was able to see and hear things that I'd previously missed.

My landlord came by to fix the plumbing as I was loading the car with Obama-gear for the '08 convention in Denver. He and his wife started spouting some crap I'd just been reading about, stuff from (if memory serves) 'Storm Front', and I told them that I was surprised to hear them quoting white supremacists. That's when they told me that their whole family was klan. And that's when I decided to move; they'd bought the complex six years after I moved in, and by the time of their revelation I'd been there twelve years. I loved the apartment, but no way was I going to keep putting money into that pocket.

I have dear friends whose families have been here for a couple thousand years at least, and they are routinely told to "go back where you came from". We now have several dozen languages spoken in this county. The meat plant that has been in the covid=19 news of late employs many immigrants who came here specifically through industry recruiters, many of them from eastern Africa, and their clothing makes them easy targets for our resident bigots. We are blessed with a burgeoning international-cuisine restaurant community, lots of us enjoying the opportunity to experience foods we'd never taste otherwise; that said, such blessings are the bigot's curse.

A few years ago our local Dems entry in the July 4th parade featured the Emma Lazarus poem from the Statue of Liberty, and the sides of the float were draped with colorful signs, each lettered with "Welcome" in one of the many languages spoken here. Most of the parade watchers cheered and clapped for us, but we got quite a few snarls and gestures, no surprise.

Way too many stories that could be related here. Suffice it to say that the local Dems have been aware of this stuff for years. We keep hammering away, but progress isn't always a speedy thing.

Then there are reminders like the one I got while driving home from a rehab session this week. Across the rear window of the pickup truck in front of me, the words "White Pride". People like him are an ongoing reason to keep my Obama stickers on my car.


.

[generalbetrayus]

8. Fort Morgan?

[madamesilverspurs]

10. Greeley.

[generalbetrayus]

6. Denver mayor and, when convenient, Klan supporter Ben Stapleton is in the news again locally.

When Denver built it's first major airport, it was named after Stapleton. When Denver International Airport was built in the 1990s to replace Stapleton Airport, the old airport was torn down and a housing development built on the old airport site. The new neighborhood was named Stapleton as well. Now there is a major effort to rename the Stapleton neighborhood. The effort is not new, but has recently gained broad and prominent support in light of the efforts elsewhere to tear down Confederate statues and rename military bases, schools, and other establishments honoring Confederate traitors and other racists.