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ERIC Number: EJ974022
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Aug
Pages: 28
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2680
EISSN: N/A
Red Schoolhouse, Burning Cross: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and Educational Reform
Laats, Adam
History of Education Quarterly, v52 n3 p323-350 Aug 2012
In this article, the author focuses on the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and educational reform. The Klan's meteoric rise to national prominence in the 1920s has attracted a great deal of attention from historians, yet the group and its popularity during this time frame remain poorly understood. This is due in part to the fact that Klan symbols such as the burning cross and hooded nightrider still provoke intense emotions among historians, as among the American public at large. Even more confounding, the secret nature of the organization has made research materials scarce. Another part of the difficulty results from the fact that the Klan was a national group with intensely local interests. In spite of decades of heated historical debate about the nature of the 1920s Klan, historians have not devoted sufficient analysis to the education reform activism of the organization. This essay argues that former Dallas dentist and national Ku Klux Klan leader Hiram Evans tried to use educational reform as the primary issue with which to cement the Klan's status as a mainstream political organization. Evans hoped to promote educational reform as the cure for the long list of social ills that exercised Klan members. A look at the ways the 1920s Klan prescribed school reform as the solution to a host of social problems will illuminate the ways reformers have seen improved schooling as the key to a healthy society. This paper examines the goals and extent of educational activism among national leaders and grassroots Klan organizations. (Contains 3 figures and 110 footnotes.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A