Klan Activity

The Ku Klux Klan’s purpose was to enforce white supremacy and ensure white control in government in the South after the Civil War. The Klan began in 1865 as a means to intimidate and terrorize newly freed Black persons to prevent Reconstruction progress. Wearing white robes and hoods to create a mysterious quality, members conducted “night rides” and killed thousands of Black people in addition to tar-and-featherings, rape, and other acts of violence. The first “Grand Wizard” was former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest.

This original form of the Klan did not last long because the goals of the Klan became enshrined in Jim Crow laws. The violence continued, but the need for a secretive organization ended.

Protestants in Atlanta, Georgia, revived the Klan in 1915. This time the Klan flourished not only in the South but also in the Midwest; Indiana became its stronghold. The second wave of the KKK expressed its animosity and waged its terror not only against Black people but also Catholics, Jews, and immigrants who were all deemed to undermine “100% Americanism.” The Klan has always tied white supremacy to patriotism.

By 1925, the Klan boasted 4 million members. Klan members were generally considered upstanding citizens. They included businessmen, police officers, government officials, teachers, and preachers. Women joined too and supported both white supremacy and patriarchy by taking on caretaking roles and working to preserve whiteness in schools and communities.

Internal power struggles and sex scandals led to waning influence after its 1920s heyday, but a third wave resurged to oppose the Civil Rights Movement. The Klan fought to preserve segregation. Klansmen were responsible for deadly attacks including the bombing of a Birmingham church, which killed four girls. They also murdered civil rights workers.

At its peak in the 1920s, Michigan is estimated to have had over 100,000 Klan members. Midland has witnessed periodic Klan activity.

In the 1960s, the United Church of Christ, Midland formed, with passion for social justice and civil rights. In response, the Klan planted crosses draped with white cloth emblazoned with “KKK” at several founding members homes.

Many Midlanders also recall Klan demonstrations at the Courthouse in the 1990s.

The day following the 2008 election of the U.S.’s first Black president, Barack Obama, thirty-year old Klan member Randy Gray dressed in his regalia, including his hood although not covering his face, and walked up and down the street at the corner of Eastman Ave. and Saginaw Rd. while carrying an American flag. He also carried a gun, and had a concealed weapons permit legally allowing him to do so.

The police were called although no one claimed he had done anything to violate the law. Passing motorists yelled their disapproval. Gray claimed that his purpose was not just to protest the election of a Black president, but he believed white people were oppressed. Midland Daily News reported the incident on the front page just days after Obama was elected.

The incident would not be the last Midland would hear from Randy Gray. Two years later, in 2010, he spoke at a white nationalist rally held outside the

Midland Courthouse. He appeared alongside James Wickstrom, a Christian Identity leader, Jeff Schoep, a commander of the National Socialist Movement, and Brian Holland, a candidate for U.S. president. (For descriptions of hate groups, see Southern Poverty Law Center’s list.) The group held the rally to protest the “out-of-control government” while using their First Amendment rights to argue that their free speech was oppressed. They also labeled immigration as an “invasion,” which ties back to the Klan’s original talking points a century ago.

Local groups, known as Klaverns, still exist in Michigan and the Great Lakes Bay Region is known to be home to white nationalist leaders.