History Minute (088): KKK says "You must join" if you are decent, unlike the Catholics

“You must either join the Klan and throw your influence on the side of decency, Christianity and law enforcement, or join the law breakers, negro preachers, Roman Catholics and Jews,” says the tract Principles and Purposes of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

As conveyed by Gustaf Forsell in his article Blood, Cross and Flag: The Influence of Race on Ku Klux Klan Theology in the 1920s, “Hiram Wesley Evans’ chief indictment against Catholicism was ‘that it is, fundamentally and irredeemably, in its leadership, in politics, in thought, and largely in membership, actually and actively alien, un-American and usually anti-American’.”

Read more:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21567689.2020.1809384