John Tuohy|Indianapolis Star
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When the Ku Klux Klan re-emerged in the 1920s more notorious and stronger than it had been after the Civil War, Indiana was its epicenter.
The new leader, David Curtis Stephenson, set up headquarters in Evansville and at its peak, 250,000 Hoosiers were card-carrying members. The “Grand Dragon” was considered the most powerful person in the state, helping elect the governor and the mayor of Indianapolis.
It came crashing down in 1925, when Stephenson was convicted at the Noblesville Courthouse of second-degree murder for killing a 20-year-old Irvington woman. But Noblesville and Hamilton County were not impervious to the Klan’s influence:an estimated 2,500 members resided there, which included people from all facets of the community.
Now, the Indiana Historical Society will make available to the public 1,160 of those membership cards and receipts from 1923 to 1926. The documents had been housed at the Hamilton County Historical Society since 1995 but inspection was generally limited to scholars or descendantsof the Klan members.
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The decision by the Hamilton County Historical Society to withhold the documentsfrom the general public was controversial at the time but Historical Society researcher David Heighway said it was to save relatives from the stigma and embarrassmentof being linked to the Klan. Some residents in the 1920swere intimidated by the Klan to join, he said,and it's difficult to tell fromthe documents to what extent they and others participated in Klan activities.
”In some instance, it was an insurance to do business,” he said,"while others could have been hardcore. We just don’t know."
But Heighway said that might have beena mistake.
“Generally speaking, we didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said,"but we should have listened more to the African-American community."
Joe Slash, former president of the Indianapolis Urban League, said he could understand the shame the records might have brought tothe descendants of Klan members but that should not have outweighed making their namesavailable tothe public in 1995.
"I'd think that the people who were persecuted by the acts of the Klan have a right to see the names," said Slash, who was an Urban League board member in 1995. "It is part of history and it is well known that the Klan controlled politics. We already know some of the names of those leaders. I think this is the right decision."
Hidden trove
The records were purchased at the estate sale of Charlotte Amanda Stern, who died in the 1990s. Her husband and brother, both furniture movers, had kept the documents, along with KKK hoods, sashes and an electrified cross that had their names on them.
The Klan membersin Hamilton County included doctors, ministers and other pillars of the community. Some were businessmen who joined under a threat of boycott.
Building contractor Don Roberts, who bought them, gave them to Hamilton County Historian Joe H. Burgess to review and copy for the historical society.
While the historical society was pondering what to do with the cache, word of the finding leaked out and drew national media attention. That made the societyleery of simply opening up the collection to everyone, which could riskwidespread publication of names— without much context — and possible harassment of decedents.
Some names —of the Klan officers and the local sheriff — were immediatelypublished, but the rest were not widely viewed. The Historical Society board voted to limit viewing to researchers, geologists and historians in 1995.
“The white community was OKwith that,” said Jessica Petty, president of the Hamilton County Historical Society,"but not everyone in the community was consulted."
Allen Safianow,Emeritus Professor of History at Indiana University Kokomo, said despiteclaims by some Klan membersthey thought the organization was benign, their views were widely known.
"That's just implausible," said Safianow, who has studied the Indiana Klan for decades and interviewed people from that era. "They were quite public and made their positions known in newspapers and elsewhere. They even had their own publication, 'The Fiery Cross.'
"I think it was a testimony to the extent of racism at the timetheKlan was able to get so many to join."
Exposing the reality
Though the decision to open up the records was made before the recent nationwide protests of police brutality and the subsequent largeractionsto acknowledge and rectify systematic racism,its timing may be bring more attention to the collection.
That could help Hoosiers gain an honest accounting of the extent of racism in Indiana, said Brain Glover, 67,who grew up in Noblesville.
"We tend to talk about the history that makes us feel good," said Glover, who is Black. "It's time to take it out of the shadows and tell the history. There a lot of things about our history we don't know. A community sometimes blanksthat out. It might not even be intentional."
Klan violence in Indiana was not as frequent as it was in some surrounding states such as Illinois and Ohio, but their influence was obvious and widespread, Safianow said.
"Certainly there was a good deal of intimidation —cross burnings being one blatant form, and of course (a)campaign aimed at Catholic and Jewish businesses," he said. "Klan speakers used churches, rallies and public forums to proclaim white supremacy and to verbally attack immigrants, Catholics and Jews. The secrecy, and the use of hoods and robes could be intimidating."
Even after the Indiana Klanbroke up after D.C. Stephenson's imprisonment, violence against Blacks continued. In 1930, a mob broke into the jail in Marion and hanged two black teen-agers downtown. A third was let go after someone told the crowd he was not involved. The Klan was suspected of the killings but it was never proven.
Glover's mother, who is 90, was a child in the 1930s and 1940s in Noblesville. She and his aunt, 89, livedin asegregated society because of Jim Crow laws that weren't fully dismantled until the Civil Rights Era.
"They felt it when they shopped, when they ate, when they went to the movie theater, inschools, in swimming pools," Glover said. "Everything that was happening south of the Mason Dixon Line was happening here, too."
A new look
After a recently formed group, the Noblesville Diversity Coalition, held an education program on the county's diversity and history Glover approached the historical society's Heighway about the KKK collection.
Glover said it had bothered him that in such forums there is a lot of talk about places like the RobertsSettlement, a community of free Black peoplefounded in 1835 in northern Hamilton County, while the uglier history of the area is glossed over.
Heighway agreed with Glover's assessment and that led the NDC to begin talks with the historical society about ways to open the collection. The solution was to donate them to the bigger and better-staffed Indiana Historical Society, inan agreement reached earlier this year.
Petty said there were no objections from the community this time around.
"We were not directly approached by anyone during the decision making process," she said. "At this point it's been almost 100 years, so direct descendants are still possible, but less likely."
Rorderick Bohannon, co-chairman of the legal redress committee for the Indianapolis chapter of the NAACP and former president, said it was "ludicrous" for the Hamilton County Historical Society to presume at the time that descendantswould react with horror and embarrassment at discovering their ancestors were members of the hate group.
"Mostof the descendantsprobably didn't even have a clue about that history so it is impossible for anyone to know how they would feel about findingout," Bohannon, a lawyer, said. "Some people would appreciate knowing thatpart of their family history and the history of their community."
Only the documents will be turned over to the state historical society and there won't be an accompanying display; the hoods, sashcross and a rope will remain in Hamilton County,Jody Blankenship, president of the Indiana Historical Society, said.
Blankenship said documents were put through the conservation process, which involves freezing them to kill any mold or insects, among other things.
The records include membership cards,receipts for dues paid and notices. The membership cards have first and last names, sometimes theoccupation of the member and addresses or towns.
Blankenship said the membership cards are about the size of a piece of paper. Some of the records are faded and barely readable but others are in relatively good condition
The collection is now open at the Indiana Historical Society, 450 W. Ohio St.. The public needs to make an appointment to view the documents because they need to be quarantined for a period after each viewing as part of coronavirus precautions.
Review of the documents is free and appointments can be made by calling 317-234-0321 or emailing reference@indianahistory.org.
The staff will make copies of any KKK documents and taking pictures of them is allowed.
Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on Twitter and Facebook.
