The Rest Is History, Episode 657: The Ku Klux Klan: American Fascists (Part 4) Original Air Date: April 1, 2026 Hosts: Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook

Episode Overview

In part four of their deep dive into the Ku Klux Klan, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook analyze the apex and decline of the "Second Klan" in the 1920s. The episode centers on how the Klan combined spectacular public celebrations with brutal violence and political corruption, especially in Indiana, culminating in the shocking Madge Oberholtzer murder scandal. The hosts examine the Klan’s contradictions—its blend of mass appeal, moral posturing, and criminality—and explore bigger questions about American fascism, vigilantism, and myth-making.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Kokomo Klan Picnic: Spectacle and Recruitment

• Dominic recounts a 1923 Klan rally/picnic at Kokomo, Indiana, described in the Klan's own newspaper The Fiery Cross, as a patriotic, Christian, all-American event:
  • Quote [01:29]: “It saw staunch American farmers with their wives, merchants of repute... Today, Kokomo may well boast that she has royally entertained the biggest crowd of 100% red-blooded Americans ... to do homage to God, the flag and the home.”
• These gatherings featured thousands (estimates range from 50,000 to 200,000 attendees), carnival attractions, airshows, and cross burnings [06:46].
• Dominic: “This is the Klan as family fun, as a fun day out ... it's part of this huge social calendar.” [09:27]
• Picnics, pageantry, and community events normalized the Klan’s presence and drew in millions, making it an ‘ordinary, taken for granted, part of the life of the white Protestant majority’ (Kathleen Blee quoted at [09:54]).

The Appeal to Women

• Women’s auxiliary organizations like the Women of the Ku Klux Klan played a huge role—an estimated 500,000 women members [10:09].
• Women ran logistics, events, and were active in recruitment; sometimes they were more progressive on social issues (e.g., suffrage) but entirely immersed in the Klan’s bigotry.
• Notable figure: Daisy Barr, “Imperial Empress of the Queens of the Golden Mask,” progressive Quaker, activist, and major Klan recruiter:
  • “You look at someone like that and you say, well, is she far-right...or is she a progressive? ... The truth, of course, is that she’s both and neither.” [12:04]

Family Fun and Public Violence: The Klan’s Double Life

• Despite the image of wholesome fun, violence was never far away. Klan Day at the Texas State Fair saw 150,000 attendees, but the organizing Klan chapter was infamous for kidnapping and flogging [14:25].
• Grand Dragon Hiram Evans delivered overtly racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Catholic speeches at these events [14:10].
• Klan violence varied by state—less lynching than assumed (lynchings peaked before the Klan’s 1920s boom) but plenty of nocturnal, vigilante assaults, kidnappings, and intimidation, especially in rural Midwest and South [15:48].

Williamson County, Illinois: Vigilante Paramilitarism

• Dominic details the Klan's campaign of extralegal violence led by S. Glenn Young—a former Prohibition agent turned warlord—in Williamson County [18:16]:
  • “[Young] forms paramilitary squads of Klansmen ... they take hundreds of people prisoner because they’re working in cahoots with the kind of local cops.” [19:16]
  • Klan-linked assaults led to protests from foreign consuls, National Guard intervention, and ultimately massive indictments against local government [20:24].
  • Young was killed in a gunfight with a bootlegger; his funeral drew 40,000 Klan mourners [22:22].

The Klan's Internal Power Struggles

• The inner circle of William Simmons (founder), PR experts Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler, and “Grand Goblins” was rife with embezzlement, whiskey-fueled scandals, and coups [23:05, 23:46, 24:09].
• Hiram Evans (the “Texas Stalin” dentist) orchestrated a palace coup, deposing the founders through bureaucratic maneuvering, bribery, and legal wrangling [26:00].
• By 1924, Evans was in charge after paying off Simmons (original founder), who failed to successfully launch a rival group, the “Knights of the Flaming Sword" [30:50].

Politics and Mainstream Ambitions

• Under Evans, the Klan tried to clean up and wield political influence, claiming presidents like Grover Cleveland as their model—despite irony and contradiction [32:06].
• Evans even moved Klan HQ to Washington by selling the Atlanta Imperial Palace to the Catholic Church [33:19].

Indiana as the Klan’s Heartland: The Stevenson Era

David C. Stevenson: Crooked Kingpin

• Described as a “fat and jolly,” ruthless conman who lied about his origins, Stevenson engineered the Klan’s triumph in Indiana [37:03]:
  • “Within a year, he has persuaded...one third of the entire adult white male population to join the Klan.” [40:05]
  • Organized mass boycotts of minority businesses, worked with local officials, and ran the Klan like a political machine.
• He made a theatrical entrance at Kokomo in a purple robe, pretending to have just counseled the President—"my worthy subjects, citizens of the invisible Empire..." [42:34]
• Stevenson’s inner circle included politicians and law enforcement; the Klan controlled Indiana’s elections at every level in 1924 [45:18].

The Madge Oberholtzer Scandal (CONTENT WARNING)

• Stevenson was a sexual predator with multiple accusations and a known pattern of violence [43:53].
• In 1925, Stevenson abducted and raped Madge Oberholtzer, a shy Methodist woman, inflicting horrific bite wounds. She attempted suicide via mercury poisoning, died weeks later, and her death was linked directly to his assault [53:41–57:34].
  • Quote [54:20], Stevenson to Oberholtzer: “I am the law in Indiana.”
• Stevenson is convicted of murder, but when denied a pardon, exposes his political accomplices, triggering a political earthquake and the Klan’s total collapse in Indiana [57:34–58:03].

Decline of the Second Klan

Causes of Collapse

• Scandals, infighting, and negative publicity rapidly eroded Klan membership by the late 1920s [58:03–59:00].
• The organization’s negative, regressive message was out of step with a diversifying, urbanizing America.
• Many of their legislative aims (anti-immigration, eugenics laws) became mainstream, diminishing the organization’s perceived necessity [59:00].
• Attempts to rebrand as “anti-communist” failed; the organization splintered and ultimately dissolved for tax reasons in 1939 [61:00].
• The “third Klan” (post-1946) was and is a marginal, reactionary group with few members, overshadowed today by other far-right organizations [63:15].

Comparative and Analytical Reflections

Is the Klan America’s Fascist Party?

• Tom: “To the extent that there’s a fascist party in America, would the Klan be it?” [63:58]
• Dominic:
  • “It doesn't have a dynamic figurehead, doesn't have a cult of the leader...The Klan is quite isolationist; it's much less forward looking than Italian fascism, more backward-looking...But absolutely, there are huge similarities: victimhood, the family, hatred of the outsider, paramilitary violence, costumes, parades, rituals, torchlight processions...” [64:24–65:11]
  • Demographically, the 1920s Klan resembled the Nazis’ base: “Protestant, small businessmen, salesman...people who feel threatened by ... change...” [65:19]

The Myth of Vigilantism in American Culture

• American myths of heroic vigilantes (Batman, the Wild West) resonate with the Klan’s self-image:
  • “Indiana had always had this tradition of vigilantes ... not that long since Indiana had been on the frontier.” [66:43]

Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “This is the Klan as family fun...as a fun day out.” (Dominic, [09:27])
• “You look at someone like that and you say, well, is she far-right...or is she a progressive? ... The truth, of course, is that she’s both and neither.” (Dominic, [12:04])
• “I am the law in Indiana.” — Stevenson to Madge Oberholtzer ([54:20])
• “So, Dominic, a prefiguring there of the series that we’ll be doing after this, which is about 12th century Japan, right?” (Tom, on the Klan’s emperor-figure becoming a figurehead, [29:02])
• “To the extent that there’s a fascist party in America, would the Klan be that party?” (Tom, [63:58])
• “I think American mythology absolutely has a cult of the vigilante, the kind of Batman...” (Dominic, [66:43])
• “If you want to imagine what a mass fascist movement would look like in the US, it would look not unlike the 1920s Klan.” (Dominic, [65:19])

Key Segments [Timestamps]

• [01:29] – Kokomo Klan picnic: spectacle, social calendar, and recruitment
• [10:09] – Women's roles and strange progressivism in the Klan
• [14:25] – Hidden violence: Texas State Fair, Dallas ‘flogging field’
• [18:16] – Williamson County, IL: paramilitary rule
• [23:05] – Klan leadership power struggles—Clark, Tyler, Simmons, Evans coup
• [32:06] – Mainstream ambitions: Grover Cleveland as Klan ‘hero’
• [35:16] – Indiana as Klan stronghold; anti-Catholic paranoia
• [37:03] – David C. Stevenson biography and ascent to power
• [42:34] – Stevenson’s Kokomo coronation speech and political machine
• [53:41] – The murder of Madge Oberholtzer, trial, and fallout
• [58:03] – Klan’s collapse: membership crash, political failures
• [63:58] – Is the Klan a fascist party? Comparative analysis
• [66:43] – Vigilantism’s place in American mythology

Episode Tone & Style

• Conversational, insightful, and often darkly humorous, with Tom and Dominic drawing parallels to modern pop culture, European history, and American myth-making.
• A blend of storytelling and critical analysis, not shying from the Klan’s horrors but also unpicking its complex place in American society.
• Content warning: The section on Madge Oberholtzer is explicit and grim, reflecting the horrific realities of Klan violence.

Conclusion

Episode 657 presents a sweeping, gripping, and disturbing account of the Klan’s 1920s heyday and rapid implosion. The hosts demonstrate that beneath the veneer of barbecues and picnics lay a vicious, violent organization shaped by American anxieties, pathologies, and politics. The Second Klan, they conclude, is as close as America came to a mass fascist movement—before it collapsed under its contradictions, scandals, and the changing tide of society.

Next Episode Preview: The series takes a sharp turn to medieval Japan to explore the origin of the samurai—featuring legends of flying heads and ghostly crabs! [68:12]