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In the 1920s and '30s, Roanoke's Klan chapter drew members from all walks of white Protestant society, mixing social and fraternal activities with its white supremacist politics.
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By MIKE HUDSON
THE ROANOKE TIMES, 12/2/2001
In the first days of 1869, U.S. Infantry Lt. Col. T.E. Rose journeyed to Virginia's westernmost tip, under orders to investigate "outrages" against ex-slaves.
At Cain Creek in Lee County, he learned that "a party of white men styling themselves as Ku-Klux" had burst into a black Christmas ball and fired their revolvers. One of the Klansmen had "placed his pistol close to [a] colored woman and shot her through the body, inflicting a dangerous and possibly a mortal wound." Some whites told Rose that they, too, had been attacked because they had tried to protect black neighbors who were being driven out of the community by night riders. In the report to his superiors, Rose said he gathered local law officers and asked them "why they did not find out who committed these lawless deeds. These feeble-minded gentlemen said they were afraid to move for fear of their lives, and seemed astonished that I should ask such a question."
No one place or book contains a complete history of the Ku Klux Klan in Roanoke.
This story was pieced together from a number of sources, including old issues of The Roanoke Times and the Roanoke World-News.
John Kneebone, a historian at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, provided a wealth of information about the Klan's history in Virginia.
Information also came from the Harrison Museum of African American Culture, the Roanoke Public Library's Virginia Room, the History Museum of Western Virginia, the Salem Museum and the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.
Books used in this story included "The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America," by Wyn Craig Wade; "Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan," by David M. Chalmers; and "The Klu Klux Klan in the City 1915-1930," by Kenneth T. Jackson.
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The question of the Ku Klux Klan is one that's often avoided when Virginians discuss their state's history. The Invisible Empire is usually treated as a footnote or aberration.
That's partly because the Klan's presence has never been as strong in Virginia as in many Deep South states or even, during the 1920s, in some Midwestern states. But it has been a presence in the state for much of the past 135 years, exerting its influence at various times in Roanoke, Norfolk, Arlington and far Southwest Virginia.
What follows are snapshots of the Klan's history in Virginia. They paint a picture of a group that has risen and fallen in membership and power but has clung to its traditions of racism and intimidation.
- In the spring of 1868, the U.S. Freedmen's Bureau reported, an ex-slave in Roanoke County was "abused and shot at by KKKs." He was fined $3 for breach of peace because he "resented" the mistreatment; a Klansman was fined $1 for "unlawful shooting."
- An 1872 congressional panel reported that KKK groups had become active in various Virginia localities, "visiting the houses of colored men at night, in some cases placing ropes around their necks and threatening to hang them on account of their political opinions."
- In 1925, the Virginia Klan opposed a Catholic candidate for state treasurer, John Purcell, instead backing John Bassett, a Protestant and a Henry County furniture manufacturer, as the only "100 Percent American" candidate. Purcell won, but his narrow margin of victory indicated anti-Catholicism was strong in Virginia.
- In 1928, the KKK burned crosses and exploded bombs on a hilltop in Covington to protest a speech there by Gov. Harry Byrd. Like the Klan, Byrd advocated white supremacy, but he opposed racial violence and any organization that might threaten the control his political machine exercised over the state.
- During World War II, a federal tax lawsuit forced the national Klan to give up its charter. Virginia "grand dragon" Joel Baskin chartered a new group in Virginia, the American Shores Patrol. The group said it wanted to help keep out dangerous aliens, but an undercover investigator found the patrol was a front for Baskin's old Klan organization.
- In 1957, a Klan rally in a Pittsylvania cow pasture was spoiled by rain and mud. The weather kept attendance down, and a water-logged cross, soaked repeatedly with gasoline, would only smoulder.
- In 1965, the Klan made a well-publicized push in Southside Virginia, holding rallies and vowing to register whites to vote and make the Klan a political force. "They put one Negro on the books," a Klan leader vowed, "we plan to get seven or eight white people."
- In 1986, a group of more than 500 people, mostly Radford University students, confronted 50 Klan marchers on a street in Radford, chanting "KKK Go Away" and forcing police to reroute the Klan's parade route. Klan members, who had been chanting "KKK All the Way" and "Be a Man; Join the Klan," said the police had violated their rights. The crowd cheered as the procession was forced to make a U-turn.
- In 1997, a dark episode in Virginia Klan history came to light when an elderly ex-Klansman was convicted of a 1975 car bombing that killed a 23-month-old girl in Roanoke County. The attack, intended for a white woman who was dating a black man, appeared to be the work of two racists acting alone rather than a group action.
- That same year, controversy emerged at Virginia Tech after a history class discovered references to a student KKK chapter in an 1896 yearbook, listing the group's pastime as "(Midnight) field sports." One page listed a student, Claudius Lee, as the organization's "Father of Terror." Lee had gone on to be a professor at Tech for half a century, becoming known as Tech's "grand old man" and having a dormitory named after him in 1968. Tech officials called it an embarrassing revelation, but some Tech historians said they believed the yearbook page had been a sophomoric prank rather than evidence of a real KKK chapter at Tech. Others said it was, at the least, a reflection of the racism of the times.
- Last month the Virginia Supreme Court voted 4-3 to strike down a state law against cross burning, calling it a violation of the First Amendment, and throwing out the conviction of a Klan leader who had led a cross burning ceremony in Carroll County. The case drew national attention because the Klansman's attorney, David Baugh, was black. Baugh called racism rude, ignorant and evil, but argued that his client had the right to free expression.
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