A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

“’I did not sell the Klan in Indiana on hatreds,’ Stephenson said. ‘I sold it on Americanism.”’

One of the key differences between the first and second incarnations of the Klan is that, by the 1920s, its leaders had rebranded it. No longer was it a terrorist organization that dragged Black men from their homes under cover of darkness lynched them. The modern version advocated solid “American” values—sobriety, fidelity, and religion. Of course the hate underlies all of it, but the revamped rhetoric assuaged the conscience and patriotism of its membership.

“In 1880, 50 percent of Black men in the former Confederacy voted. By 1920, less than 1 percent exercised this fundamental right.”

Formerly enslaved people (who were newly freed) understood that their power was at the ballot box, and they took advantage it. However, under Jim Crow, restrictive legislation reduced Black voter turnout to almost nothing. In a South free from federal oversight, Southern states ran roughshod over the rights of its Black citizens. As many of these Black Americans migrated north, they were met with a backlash—a newly reconstituted Klan bent on keeping them out of every part of American civic life.

“People threw off the cultural remnants of the nineteenth century with abandon, even as others were relentlessly holding back the twentieth century.”

As some Americans embraced the new century—with its fast cars, growing urban centers, and diverse cultural life—others, fearing change, resisted. They pushed back against modernism, seeing only a rose-colored version of the past as authentically American. They pushed puritanical legislation as a counterpunch to the “gaudy” parties and social movements, such as women’s suffrage. These same people controlled the levers of power in many states, leaving America torn between two eras: the past and the future.

“They posted gun-toting sentries outside polling places on Election Day, checking voters as they stepped into school houses and church basements.”

The Horse Thief Detective Association—the Klan’s own “morality police”—took it upon themselves to enforce the Klan’s puritanical version of morality, breaking up alcohol-fueled parties, “rousting those in passionate embrace” (32), and even assuming the role of election watchdogs. Vigilantism is neither new nor has it lost its appeal. As recently as the 2020 election, self-appointed watchdogs have taken guns to polling places and ballot drop boxes, intimidating voters and enforcing a fundamentalist ideology, all in the name of performing a civic duty and correcting a “problem” that has not been proven to exist.

“Membership in a vast mysterious empire that ‘sees and hears all’ means a sort of mystic glorification of his petty self […] The appeal is irresistible.’”

Sociologist John Moffat Mecklin describes the appeal of the Klan (or any secret fraternal order). To be on the “inside” gave ordinary men a feeling of elite status, particularly in the aftermath of the Civil War. Men who believed they were fighting for a noble cause saw their homes, their way of life, and their entire sense of identity destroyed. Joining an in-group whose cause feels similarly noble helps to rebuild that self-esteem.

“’The strongest argument in favor of prohibition is the imperative necessity of keeping whiskey out of the reckless colored element,’ said the state’s leading dry newspaper, the Patriot Phalanx.”

One of the Klan’s most effective recruiting tools was to propagate negative stereotypes about Black Americans. Combined with its new image—an organization advocating for a virtuous America—its rhetoric conflated religion and sobriety with the only true Americanism. Adding to the already countless stereotypes, the Klan and its allies in the press warned of the danger of intoxicated Black men, a way to further disenfranchise Black communities as well as push their support for Prohibition.

“Stephenson had succeeded with an unusual formula for a mass movement: men were the muscle, women spread the poison, and ministers sanctified it all.”

Once Stephenson brought Daisy Douglas Barr onboard and the Klan added women and children to its ranks, the organization began firing on all cylinders. Stephenson realized what women have to offer: By framing the Klan as an advocacy group for righteousness and strong (virginal) women, he effectively doubles his recruitment efforts. Barr gave Klanswomen as much of a feeling of “mystic glorification” as Stephenson gave the men. Protestant ministers, many of whom were paid bribes, added further legitimacy to the movement.

“By way of guidance, the Fiery Cross ran a piece supposedly written by an African American living in Indiana, under the headline KLAN IS MY FRIEND IF I LIVE RIGHT, SAYS NEGRO.”

The Fiery Cross, the Klan newspaper, understood the rhetorical appeal of ethos. They knew that a pro-Klan argument from a Black man is far more effective than one from a white man. An insider arguing against his own organization—or in this case, an outsider advocating for one—carried far more weight. The Klan knew how to assuage any potential guilty consciences of its membership with a positive testimonial from one of its sworn enemies. Of course, absent from this headline is any description of what living “right” means.

“It was a God-fearing, law-and-order-loving, women’s-purity-enforcing, patriot-heart-beating, white-supremacy-upholding, Christian-based fraternal club with chapters in every part of Indiana—certainly nothing any respectable citizen should fear.”

The Klan’s rebranding efforts were enormously successful. They appealed to everything Americans wanted to believe about themselves—that they were devoted, patriotic, and law-abiding. Their rhetoric appealed to the mythic American rather than the flesh-and-blood version. Conspicuously missing from its public relations propaganda was what lies at the heart of the organization: fear and hate.

“If the United States were to become ‘darker in pigmentation,’ as the influential eugenicist Charles Davenport explained, ‘the typical American would eventually be smaller in stature, more mercurial, more attached to music and art, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex-immorality.’”

Scientific “facts” are ever changing. With each new theory comes a potentially better idea to replace the last best idea. For a brief time, the “science” of eugenics enjoyed its time in the popular spotlight. Theorizing that the human gene pool can be improved by excluding “inferior” races, the long-debunked theory was used by the Klan—and later by Hitler’s Nazi party—as an excuse to marginalize people of races deemed not as genetically “fit” or “pure” as white European descendants. By citing “science,” the Klan gave itself legitimacy, claiming that its ideology was not racist but based in sound empirical research.

“No one on board that Reomar II doubted that the future of the country belonged to an organization of shrouded men clinging to the past.”

Historically, new centuries have always signaled profound change accompanied by profound anxiety—case in point: Y2K. The early 20th century was no different. Technology surged forward (cars, telephones, radio, more powerful means of mass destruction), social mores were in flux, populations increasingly moved to urban centers, and not insignificantly, immigration began to change the racial makeup of the country. Anxiety over these changes was felt most strongly by white men who clung to their status, concentrating their efforts on passing legislation that would keep non-white people relegated to the margins.

“‘These parties would have shamed Nero,’ said Court Asher.”

Asher, one of Stephenson’s key lieutenants, describes one of his boss’s bacchanalian parties, affairs that grew more unusual and hedonistic over time. Epitomizing hypocrisy, Stephenson led an organization that preached the evils of alcohol and the virtues of sexual abstinence while hosting drunken parties at his mansion and sexually assaulting multiple women.

“‘They paid ten dollars to hate someone,’ said a Denver judge, ‘and they were determined to get their money’s worth.’”

Membership in the Klan cost $10, and while that was a significant sum of money in the 1920s, millions of Americans found the cash to join. It’s often said that consumers prioritize their budgets, and they find the money for what they deem valuable, be that dining out, taking a vacation, or going to the theater. In the Klan’s heyday, a large swath of the American populace decided that membership in a hate group was important enough to prioritize $10 of their household budget. For context, according to the Federal Reserve, $10 in 1922 is worth about $180 today.

“‘The federal government will use a navy to prevent a man from taking a drink, but will not empower a deputy marshal to protect the Negro’s ballot,’ said Johnson.”

The federal government during Prohibition spent millions of dollars and expended vast resources to prevent alcohol consumption, yet when it came to one of the most fundamental American rights—voting—the government didn’t see the Black vote as worth protecting, despite the fact that the 15th Amendment had enshrined that right into law. A contemporary example might be President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, a massive expenditure of federal resources to prevent drug use that has proven largely a failure.

“They talked about going to the police. Madge was still concerned about the publicity and disgrace it would bring to her family.”

The shame directed at victims of sexual assault is a powerful disincentive to reporting the crime. Such shame not only places blame on the victim, but also emboldens perpetrators to continue their behavior. Stephenson’s legal team took advantage of this assumption as they attempted to portray Oberholtzer as a “party girl” and a woman of questionable moral character. The implication—that Oberholtzer was complicit in her own rape—was a disastrous idea to suggest to a jury, but it’s a sign of the times that a group of high-powered attorneys considered this one of the key elements of their strategy.

“When hate was on the ballot, especially in the guise of virtue, a majority of voters knew exactly what to do.”

As Klansmen won elections across the state of Indiana, open admission of membership proved “no encumbrance” to holding public office. So confident was Stephenson in his ability to bribe or coerce his way out of a prison sentence—everyone, after all, owed him favors—that he didn’t worry about the outcome of his trial. At the height of its popularity, in fact, the Klan held such sway over the citizenry that members boasted openly about their affiliation with the terror group. The Klan had become normalized.

“As W.E.B. Du Bois had written, behind ‘the yelling, cruel-eyed demons who break, destroy, maim, lynch, and burn at the stake is a knot, large or small, of normal human beings, and these human beings at heart are desperately afraid of something.’”

Sociologist and historian Du Bois describes the link between fear and hate. Hate does not exist in a vacuum, nor does it erupt out of thin air. It is often a symptom masking an underlying fear. In the case of the Klan, the fear of losing power and privilege to a group they once oppressed—not to mention fear of a changing demographic—drove them to brutal and sadistic behavior. These “normal” human beings are a validation of Hannah Arendt’s theory of The Banality of Evil, when otherwise ordinary people are driven to unspeakable acts.

“Two Americas would converge—the Ku Klux Klan at the peak of popular support, and the inexorable workings of the rule of law.”

As Stephenson’s trial was set to begin, and Evans staged a massive rally in Washington, DC, America was put to the test, raising questions of whether bigotry and exclusion would prevail over the nation’s foundational ethics—the Constitution, the notion that all people are created equal. In the end, the rule of law was victorious, but the outcome was far from certain. The narrow margin by which democracy survived is a clear indication of The Fragility of Democracy. If not for the persistence of William Remy and the dedication of a jury to their sworn duty, Stephenson may have walked free, even more powerful than before.

“Though the mills of the gods grind slowly, yet they grind.”

George Dale, broke but “not broken” and sensing that Stephenson’s time as Klan overlord was ending, sent him a note during his trial. The poetic language serves as a warning—justice may take time, but it would catch up eventually. Perhaps Stephenson could also feel a change on the wind, because when he read Dale’s note, he “appeared startled.” Indeed, all the moving parts of the justice system fell into place in this case, and Stephenson was finally dethroned.

“In hundreds of small ways these loyalists could make things worse for those who are not white Protestants.”

It can be easy to dismiss local government as trivial and unimportant, but municipal leaders and city councils affect the daily lives of citizens in more immediate ways than the federal government ever does, and when the Klan swept local elections in Indianapolis, the ramifications were clear. Klan ideology would soon inform housing, law enforcement, and education. Black children would not be entitled to a public education; Black families would be relegated to fringe neighborhoods; and oversight on hiring would be virtually nonexistent. Ironically, while Stephenson’s apparatus of power was being dismantled, Klan power surged in local government.

“I am the law.”

Stephenson’s Achilles’s heel was his hubris, and this simple declaration of power ultimately brought him down to earth. While he had hundreds of thousands of followers—they had been entranced by his public persona, his smooth rhetoric, and his façade of patriotism—not until his trial did they see the real Stephenson: the braggart, the sexual predator, and the man who considered himself above the law. In his courtroom strategy, Remy used the Grand Wizard’s words against him, appealing to the jury’s midwestern humility and true American sense of justice.

“Democracy was a fragile thing, stable and steady until it was broken and trampled.”

Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.” Democracy’s virtues have been memorialized by political philosophers and politicians for centuries—its dedication to equity and representation, to the idea that people should have a voice in how they are governed—but its fragility is only discussed when democracy teeters. Such teetering can happen easily, as one conman in the 1920s proved. When government rests in the hands of the people, and those people are swayed by comforting lies, democracy is only as strong as those whose hearts and minds uphold it.

“’Isn’t it strange that with all our educational advantages,’ noted the Hoosier writer Meredith Nicholson, so many ‘Indiana citizens could be induced to pay $10 for the privilege of hating their neighbors and wearing a sheet?’”

Education is often touted as the panacea to hate, but Stephenson realized a greater truth: No amount of education could trump the fear that lies dormant in the human heart. An education doesn’t insulate one from powerful rhetorical appeals rooted in misplaced fear.