A review by Kathrine Grimm

One of the goals of the East Side Freedom Library is to place the past and the present in conversation with each other.  As a summer collaborator at ESFL, I was drawn to a book which does precisely that. In The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, Linda Gordon reflects on how the second version of the Ku Klux Klan impacted America during the 1920s and how the Klan’s rhetoric is projected in the modern world. In the book, she also details how the Klan was able to rise and maintain its influence nationally. Linda Gordon, highlighting the different aspects of the KKK, proves that what the Klan believed and preached in the 1920s is essential for understanding how America functions today.

During the reconstruction era, the original version of the Klan was a powerful terrorist group that mainly focused on undermining Republican candidates that often supported integration of Black Americans while advancing the cause of white supremacy. We must care about this version of the Klan. There is a line that leads from racial intimidation in which the Klan partook, to the subsequent introduction of Jim Crow laws in the south, to the civil rights movement. 

In her effort to analyze the “second” KKK that rose in the post-WWI North, Gordon explores many aspects of the Klan, including the political, economic, organizational operations and its value system.

The Klan used its influence, combining their popular social strategies to advance their goals. They used social events as recruitment tools, bragging to politicians about the size and importance of the Klan. Their exaggerated tales increased their appeal in northern cities and helped grow memberships across the country. Importantly, as Gordon points out, the Klan exploited the decentralized federal government to influence states and cities through the electoral process.  

With regard to the Klan’s economic structure, Gordon points out that it operated like a decentralized pyramid scheme. Recruitment was very regimented and allowed those at the top to pocket most of the revenue gained through recruitment and membership. 

With attention to detail, she discussed how the Klan’s ideology took hold in the United States, but most centrally, Gordon reminds us that Klan’s doctrine was not different from the public’s viewpoints, “(I)n short, there was nothing unusual aberrant in the Klan’s racial hierarchy.” A point that I tend to forget how the Klan normalized their viewpoints on race, immigration and other issues were with the general public. They were able to evolve during that time to become tolerable to all classes of white americans. And to that end, it also shows how the Klan used politics to improve their standing and importance within society.

It is important to remember, the Klan had around 50 percent urban residents during this time. This demonstrates the Klan’s lingering power and influence in cities, which is backed up by the legal strategies they used to win elections and tailor their messages to their local populations. 

Gordon uses great detail to show that the Klan’s ideology and teachings are almost a mirror of today’s political rhetoric. From attacking big-city liberals or “the government,” reflecting present-day America from their image, the rhetoric is not a long way from what politicians on the right are discussing. Gordon puts this concisely by saying, “The biggest Klan victory was equally consequential but less tangible, it influenced public conversation, the universe of tolerable discourse.” This book should serve as a lesson and warning for us all because it demonstrates the potential adverse effects of changing the public conversation about sensitive topics such as race. This book should also remind people that patterns in history often repeat themselves.

When you work through the modern biases about the Klan and what it means to society today, you see that the way that they operated seems almost modern in comparison to other organizations at that time. Their social and economic structure included recruiting people using radio and even television, something new and foreign at the time.  

Gordon’s book is well resourced. She reflects upon how the Klan was able to become so successful and how that relates to American society at large today. In addition to her scholarship, Gordon also shows off a glossary that details all of the Klan’s vocabulary. You would be surprised with how many words start with K. It’s a lot!

ESFL is about getting the story of our society told in its truest terms. We want our conversations to be well-informed. The Second Coming of the KKK is a good tool in helping us remember our American past and recognize our society’s present. 

Katherine Grimm is a collaborator at the East Side Freedom Library during the Summer of 2022. She focused on reading books that have direct connections to the present political landscape. She also is working on growing the East Side Freedom Library’s community on Instagram.