Fever in the Heartland

I'm reading a disturbing book called Fever In The Heartland--the story of the birth and rise of the KKK. Prize-winning author Timothy Egan takes the reader to Indiana of all places where Klan groups spewed hate toward anyone who wasn't a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.  

White Supremacy infiltrated churches, schools, politics, and business.  While making a big show of charity toward poor (white) orphans by day,  Klansmen donned their robes and pointy hats and committed atrocities at night.  They hated Blacks, Asians, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans, and, well, all immigrants from anywhere. 

While many of the leaders were womanizers, alcoholics, woman beaters, and generally sleazy by any standards, they pretended to be all about morality--no drinking, no card playing, no dancing to immoral jazz.  They were often church members of large Protestant churches, pious, angry, hate-filled good ole boys

The seeds of the Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy we see today were planted by the Klan a hundred years ago in Indiana--the largest Klan membership in the country.  To the leaders, truth never mattered; if a lie were told often enough people would believe it.  

Even then, a hundred years ago, the goals of White Supremacists were to fill congress, courts, and law enforcement with KKK members.  Klan judges and police  looked the other way if anyone bothered to report hangings or beatings.  One judge said, after a particular cruel torture of a man who'd done nothing wrong: "He probably deserved it."

Meanwhile, Klan leaders became rich and powerful.

I'm not even to the middle of the book yet, but I'm intrigued by the subtitle:  "The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them."