GRAND RAPIDS — Adorned in familiar white sheets and ropes, they marched 3,000 strong through the Polish and Lithuanian immigrants, and Catholics of the city’s West Side waving American flags behind floats reading “Only Americans On Guard.”

What they got from the crowd was stony silence.

“It’s thumbing your nose right at that community,” says Grand Valley State University history professor Matthew Daley. “It’s a dare — come get us.”

The Klu Klux Klan decided to visit Grand Rapids in a big way in 1925. It was a tumultuous year with the Klan at it’s 1920s apogee and looking to flex some greater muscle in its northern stronghold states.

In 1925, while it was focusing greater attention on Michigan, specifically turning Grand Rapids into the central hub of Klan activity in the state, it was the country’s largest fraternal organization with somewhere between 1.5 and 5 million members.

Their march carried a clear message of reactionary white supremacy wrapped in traditionalism:

There are disturbing changes afoot in our land — join us and fight back.

“This whole march was to whip-up the troops,” said Daley, who has done extensive research on the KKK in Michigan and recently gave a “History Detectives” presentation at the Grand Rapids Public Library main branch on the hooded skeleton in Grand Rapids’ closet.

An ‘Invisible Empire: The 2nd Klan

Approximately 15,000 people flooded into Grand Rapids for the July 4, 1925 Klan march from rural counties and cites like Detroit, Lansing and Jackson.

For a few years in the early 1920s, the Klan exerted strong political influence in Michigan and was close to electing members to office as they had done in other states like Indiana, where Klan member Edward Jackson was elected governor. They controlled governments in Ohio, Colorado and elected other politicians across the country.

The “Invisible Empire” of the 1920s is what scholars refer to as the second iteration of the Klan, and organization that briefly flourished in the reconstructionist South until it was resurrected in 1915 amid a wave of societal disillusionment with World War II and given an image makeover.

The Klan of the 1920s was centrally-structured but regionally-focused, said Daley. In rural counties like Newaygo, Mecosta and Ionia, where Klan artifacts have surfaced, members saw it like a quasi-respectable lodge organization. Members had local, small town-type concerns about immigration and mass culture influences like music, movies and Roaring Twenties fashion becoming more risqué.

View full sizeMLive file photoThe Klan funeral of Charles Rice on May 3, 1925, in Hesperia. The photograph was one of the items from a Klu Klux Klan collection sold at private auction in 1992

“Newaygo County Klan No. 29” artifacts were unearthed by happenstance in the early 1990s and sold at a private auction. Records held at the Clarke Historical Library in Mount Pleasant show show more than 1,200 members in a county with 17,000 residents.

Among those eligible to join — native-born white adults — 15 percent signed up with the Klan or its women’s auxiliary. Membership fee was $10.

The Grand Rapids Public Museumcollection contains a Klan robe from Fremont.

It was a time when people were naturally inclined to join organizations like the Elks, the Moose or the Oddfellows, Daley said.

The Klan was looked on with disdain by church and civic leaders in Grand Rapids, who were loath to even talk about it. City leaders like Arthur Vandenburg, editor the Grand Rapids Herald, and George Welsh, a Scottish immigrant in the state legislature at the time, were no friend to the organization.

Being anti-Catholic, among other prejudices, stunted any support among city parish members. Because the Klan was pushing for an amendment to the state constitution at the time that would ban parochial schools, an alliance between religious orders which might not otherwise have joined together formed against them.

Potential members, although they may well have sympathized with the overall goals of the Klan in regards to white supremacy and notions of order and control, hewed closer to their churches than to any new fraternal organization, said Daley.

“This wasn’t an area that had a hot button issue they could push,” he said. “If they burned crosses out here, the newspapers didn’t really cover it very much.”

A scandal among the local Klan also undercut its image in the months preceding the march. Names and finances were disclosed in a lawsuit directed at the state chapter by deposed leaders of the Grand Rapids Klan bitter over the ouster. Key figures were named.

Court records from the lawsuit showed the Klan had about 5,000 members in the immediate Grand Rapids area with a monthly donation and fee total of around $10,000.

A Mysterious ‘Symbol’ Goes Up Over Bridge Street

Daley believes the exposure of names and resulting negative publicity may have helped mute the response to the upcoming Klan rally in Grand Rapids. The archdiocese remained silent and the newspapers didn’t advertise it.

Members began arriving in Grand Rapids in the weeks ahead of July 4 and set up a tent city on the municipal outskirts near the Bridge Street hillside. Daley said mentions of “a symbol” seen atop the hill the night of July 3 suggest Klansmen fired off a cross, possibly with a matching one over Belknap, to announce their presence the next day.

They staged in Lincoln Park and set off marching at 10 a.m. the next morning.

Marchers, half of them female, wore the Klan regalia but they marched with hoods up per a 1923 state law directed at Klan activity which forbade hoods in public.

Floats in the parade were symbolic of the Klan’s state platform. The first represented the hearth of a home with a mother and children labeled “Pure Motherhood.” Others depicted the Rock of Ages, an image of Uncle Sam, the evolution of the American flag, the Little Brick School, and one that simply stated, “America First.”

They marched down Bridge Street, across the river, made a right onto Ottawa Avenue where Daley said people watching gawked and cheered. The march turned west on Fulton and headed back over the river to John Ball Park where a large rally took place.

Press reports, written with a poker face, said Daley, indicated they stockpiled 8,000 cases of soft drinks, 30 tons of hamburgers, 450,000 buns, two tons of coffee, 1,200 gallons of ice cream and installed a 5,500 gallon per hour potable water system.

Coverage of the march is sparse and news reports offer little beyond bare bones and attendance, said Daley. News leaders weren’t keen on glorifying the gathering.

“One, they didn’t like the Klan. Two, they saw no reason to whoop it up and cause trouble. Three, if you want to attract business and keep people here, do you want to advertise the fact that there was a massive Klan rally and all this crap in your beautiful city?”

“It’s image control,” Daley said. “A lot of these guys, even if they’re not all ‘join hands, sing songs,’ it’s — ‘do we want these sheet-wearing freaks to make us look like idiots?’ Hell no.”

“What would appear at first to be a significant gathering point, looks on the surface as merely another mildly interesting news item of a bygone era buried on page two,” Daley said.

In the days after the march, the Press noted that “quantities of foodstuffs remaining at the camp Monday were free to those who came by to retrieve them.”

Attendees heard from Maggie Elliott and Major Wilbur Ryman, field representatives of the Kent County Klan. There’s no documentation of the remarks at the rally, Daley said. In fact, detailed records on Klan activity in Grand Rapids are rare because most have been destroyed after the Klan petered out a couple years after the march.

By 1930, nationwide membership dropped to 30,000. Trials of violent members like D.C. Stephenson of Indiana soured the public on the Klan, which only survives today as loosely splintered chapters classified overall as a hate group.

“They march. They’re done and they go home,” he said. “They don’t get a lot of members.” In fact, the local chapter closes their office in the Federal Square Building downtown and moves to Jackson a few month later.

Homes in the Stoney Point neighborhood have been targeted. Police have responded to at least four calls there in the past three days.

Tammy Koolbeck is one of the vandalism victims, and she says she wonders whether the vandal or vandals understand what KKK really means.

In early January residents in one northeast Cedar Rapids neighborhood found fliers on cars and doors that appeared to promote the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization with a bloody history.

Police are not investigating the vandalism as a hate crime. Teenagers are the suspected culprits.

Police say they doubt there’s any threat to people in the neighborhood.

The annual Presidents’ Day weekend event is put on by the American Civil War Society, a Southern California-based Civil War re-enactment group. The event has been held at Calico Ghost Town since 1994.

About 300 actors participate in the re-enactment, Event Coordinator Noelle Wayne said.

At Sunday morning’s battle, Union and Confederate troops squared off at the Silver Bowl, an amphitheater area of the town. Muskets and cannon fire rang out as commanders barked orders at soldiers.

The most devoted participants brave the cold by spending the night in authentic Civil War-era tents, said Michelle Akkerman, membership coordinator for the American Civil War Society. Union and Confederate soldiers camp on separate ends of the town. (Less adventurous participants camp at the ghost town’s campground or in recreational vehicles.)

Akkerman, an eight-grade history teacher in the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, said her time spent at Civil War re-enactments helps her give her students a more thorough understanding of the Civil War.

Akkerman said she has been involved with reenactments for about 10 years and became membership director last year. The event had already attracted about 20 new membership applications, Akkerman said.

David Grimsrud, president of the American Civil War Society, said most people who visit Civil War re-enactments do not realize the full extent of the battles. The events are spectacles with extensive noise and choreographed marching, Grimsrud said.

The soldiers determine in advance who will die in the battle and which side will win, Akkerman said.

Grimsrud, who has been involved with the organization for eight years, said he does not typically participate in battles anymore because it’s too physically strenuous.

“War is a young man’s game,” Grimsrud said.

For Union soldier Ryan O’Connell, getting involved in Civil War re-enactments helped him better understand the war.

“It put a face on it rather than just a map of red and blue arrows,” O’Connell said.

Jones, a former U.S. congressman from Georgia, was dismayed that NASCAR nixed a plan for golfer Bubba Watson to drive the General Lee car from the hit television series on a parade lap prior to the Sprint Cup race March 4 at Phoenix International Raceway.

NASCAR did not want the car on the track because of the Confederate flag on the roof.

“At a time when tens of millions of Americans are honoring their Union and Confederate ancestors during this sesquicentennial of the Civil War, NASCAR has chosen to dishonor those southerners who fought and died in that terrible conflict by caving to ‘political correctness’ and the uninformed concerns of corporate sponsors,” Jones said in a statement.

NASCAR has tried to distance itself from the Confederate flag, which used to be a staple in the infield camping areas at many tracks in a sport whose roots are in the Southeast.

The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism for some, a symbol of heritage for others. NASCAR said that the flag “is not something that should play an official role in our sport as we continue to reach out to new fans and make NASCAR more inclusive.”

Jones disagreed with that philosophy.

“This is also an extraordinary insult to rural southerners, who are NASCAR’s oldest and most fervent fan base, and it sends a message against inclusion and against the need for diversity,” Jones said.

“Many of us who are descended from ancestors who fought for the South see this as a crude dishonoring of our kinfolks and our heritage. Our ancestors were proud Americans who had fought for our nation before the Civil War and have served honorably in every conflict since then.”

Jones said he does not believe the flag is a racist symbol.

“While it is true that the Confederate Battle Flag has been used by extremist groups like the KKK, these groups also display the American flag and the Christian cross in their rituals,” Jones said. “However, the vast majority of the display of the St. Andrews Cross Flag is in a benign spirit of remembrance and reverence.

“I am a veteran of the civil rights movement, a life member of the NAACP, and a proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. As a cast member of The Dukes of Hazzard and the owner of several General Lees, I can attest that the car and our show reflect the very best of American values, and that Hazzard County was a place where racism was not tolerated.”

NASCAR is creating an issue with the flag by banning the car on the track, Jones said.

“This action by NASCAR is a provocative and unnecessary over-reaction to a problem that doesn’t exist,” Jones said. “It is a disgraceful and gratuitous insult to a lot of very decent people. It is prejudicial toward those good-hearted folks who, like Uncle Jesse Duke, are in fact ‘never meanin’ no harm.’”

NASCAR President Mike Helton said Saturday that NASCAR stands by its decision.

“That was more the race track’s decision than it was ours (to cancel the appearance),” Helton said. “But I will tell you that obviously NASCAR is very sensitive and takes very serious its responsibility to be sure that there’s not endorsement or implication from us that has any barriers attached to it. We want to be as neutral and as open as we can with everything. Everybody in the industry does, including the race tracks. When something comes up and it looks like it might be an issue, then you take the safe route and just try to keep it from being, one although I guess it came up to be one anyway.”

The marker, and the establishment here in Socorro of New Mexico‘s only Confederate Memorial Cemetery, is a project of the New Mexico Confederate Historical Society, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Texas Division, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, New Mexico Division.

A ceremony to mark the occasion will be a featured event during next week’s Civil War re-enactments of the Battle of Valverde and the Battles for Socorro in 1862.

Charles Mandeville, a local re-enactor who has worked tirelessly to promote this project, is a stickler for details.

“This is a design that emulates confederate headstones throughout the south,” Mandeville said. “If you notice, it has a pointed top. Federal headstones are rounded on top. The reason for the pointed top was because Confederate veterans never wanted a Yankee to be able to sit on their headstone.”

Just by looking at the tops of the headstones, it’s possible to stand in a turn-of-the-century cemetery anywhere in the country and pick out the graves of Confederate soldiers, Mandeville said.

The memorial weighs 5,300 pounds, and is made from a pink granite quarried from central Texas.

“Just like all the Civil War monuments you see on Civil War battlefields everywhere,” Mandeville said.

The dedication ceremony will be attended by members of the hierarchy of the New Mexico Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, as well as some descendants of Texas soldiers who fought in the New Mexico campaign.

“We’re hoping to have some cavalry and artillery, and we’ll have some infantry,” Mandeville said.

The event is scheduled to take place at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24, and the public is invited. From the cemetery, the infantry and cavalry will proceed down Blue Canyon Road in the direction of the plaza, to take part in the re-enactment of the Battles for Socorro scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

The Battles for Socorro began on the evening of Feb. 24, 1862, and ended early the next morning when Union forces in Socorro surrendered, marking a period of about nine weeks when the town was occupied by Confederate soldiers.

On Saturday morning, Feb. 25, the re-enactors will recreate the Battle of Valverde, which actually happened three days before the occupation of Socorro, on Feb. 21, 1862.

Sharing a bond with those who fought beneath the waves, a group of submariners from the United Kingdom paused Friday to pay tribute to the crews of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship.

During a brief ceremony in a grove where the three crews are buried, 78-year-old Dennis Wade of the Portsmouth Submariners Association placed a poppy wreath at the gravesite and then saluted. The poppy is a symbol of courage and sacrifice.

Three other British submariners and a group of Confederate re-enactors looked on.

Watson was scheduled to drive the 1969 Dodge Charger, known as the “General Lee,” on a parade lap before the March 4 Sprint Cup series race at Phoenix. The car has a large Confederate flag on its roof, just as it did when it appeared on the show.

“The image of the Confederate flag is not something that should play an official role in our sport as we continue to reach out to new fans and make NASCAR more inclusive,” NASCAR spokesman David Higdon said in a statement Friday.

Higdon said it was a joint decision by officials with NASCAR, the racetrack, and track ownership group International Speedway Corp.

While the flag may not be welcome in an official capacity in NASCAR, it often can be seen flying from fans’ vehicles in racetrack infields.

Reached Friday at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, Watson said the car only has the flag on it because that’s the way it looked on the show.

“Obviously, I don’t stand for the Confederate flag,” Watson said. “The Confederate flag was not used (in the show) for what people see it as today, so that’s sad. But NASCAR was built on moonshining, so the show was built on moonshining. I thought it was fun. I didn’t buy the car to get publicity; I bought it because I love it.”

Watson recently bought the car at an auction for $110,000.

The photo on Watson’s Twitter account shows him standing next to the car, and he drove it to the Phoenix Open earlier this month.

“Two days ago, they called my manager and said we can’t do it, that NASCAR pulled the plug on it,” Watson said. “They said the reason was the Confederate flag on top. I understand if I was using it in that form. But I bought because it’s [number] 01, from the TV show, and who doesn’t want a car that’s been jumped [in a TV stunt]? The TV show was about moonshining, driving in the backwoods in those days.”

Watson said he still will attend the Phoenix race, and still plans to let NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin caddy for him in the Par 3 tournament at the Masters.

“Me and Denny have been friends for a couple of years,” Watson said. “I’ll still go to the race, even though I can’t drive around the race track.”

The above quote is taken from the autobiography of Margaret Sanger, the sometimes revered mother of American abortion. She is also the founder of Planned Parenthood, an organization that has come under scrutiny recently for its use of federal tax dollars in financing the abortions that generate the bulk of its revenue, causing public friction for its supporting groups like Susan G. Komen and the Girl Scouts.

Though a highly misunderstood figure, Sanger is often quickly associated with “progressivism.” But considering that the Ku Klux Klan would be considered anything but “progressive” by today’s standards, this quote immediately begs the question- why were the women of the KKK so attracted to her message? These women, predominantly Protestant Christians in Sanger’s time, would have generally rejected progressive or scientific social initiatives. Yet they, much like the liberal and commonly unreligious advocates of Planned Parenthood would later do, found Sanger worthy of admiration.

Lloyd Marcus, author of Confessions of a Black Conservative, provides some perspective to address this peculiarity, and shares some truths about what the left’s devotion to abortion has wrought, specifically in regard to American blacks.

He writes:

 “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.” So said Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Seventy-eight percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are in black neighborhoods. Blacks make up only 12% of the population, but 35% of America’s aborted babies are black. Half of black pregnancies end in abortion. Is this an intentional genocide? (Emphasis added)

”The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb,” according to Pastor Clenard Childress, Jr. Blacks are the only minority in America experiencing a declining population.

So why would Obama, the NAACP, Rev. Sharpton, and other black leftists be passionate supporters of Planned Parenthood? Why did Al Sharpton threaten to protest a pro-life billboard which exposed the devastatingly high number of black abortions?

Why, indeed. The application of ethics and morality in the abortion issue may vary from person to person, and debating this might require the most complex human philosophy, but the specificity of the abortion agenda’s targets in the black community could be recognized even by a child.

These trends are unpleasant to progressive sensibilities, and they therefore will be ignored or dismissed as false by those unwaveringly devoted to the notion that a woman’s right to “choose” is the crux of the debate. But the extent to which these disturbing trends are hidden and avoided by abortion advocates gives the pro-choice agenda a decidedly insidious nature.

Abortion advocates in Washington, most notably San Francisco’s resident crooked CatholicNancy Pelosi, have for years prattled about the long-term savings to be had through federal spending on contraception and abortion. The future public cost of education and welfare, they argue, will be significantly reduced if the welfare class can more readily afford and acquire abortions. So the fact that the abortion agenda has a targeted demographic should not, in itself, be surprising- implicit in these past suggestions is that the fertility of the lower economic rungs of society be cauterized.

There is an intense irony in the poor accepting Democrats like Pelosi as their champion in spite of the crowing about the need to sterilize them, but perhaps even more puzzling, and certainly tragic, is the fact that Barack Obama garnered 95% of the black vote in 2008 while promoting a wholesale devotion to a practice that proves uniquely destructive to black Americans.

Half of the black children conceived in this country are aborted before reaching our world, and they are aborted at levels nearly three times their demographic representation. Lloyd Marcus ponders whether this is intentional, but the reality is that it doesn’t matter whether it is intentional or not. Either by design or inadvertently due to social realities, the evidence conclusively shows that the left is fulfilling Margaret Sanger’s vision of systematically exterminating blacks, which should reveal even to the most naive abortion advocate why her message was so incredibly attractive to the KKK in her time. In fact, it would even be reasonable to assume that those same women who once hung on Sanger’s every word might today support Planned Parenthood in their efforts, unintentional or not.

The fact that today’s modern left doesn’t likewise profess the racist intentions of the KKK or Margaret Sanger does not change the fact that the result of its continuing quest to promote federally-sponsored abortion and Planned Parenthood, if one appraises a child in the womb to have the smallest ounce of humanity, does indeed border genocide.