One of the major supporters of National Prohibition in the U.S. (1920-1933) was the anti-alcohol Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Indeed, the KKK supported Prohibition vigorously. It sometimes defended it violently
One of the major supporters of National Prohibition in the U.S. (1920-1933) was the anti-alcohol Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Indeed, the KKK supported Prohibition vigorously. It sometimes defended it violently.
I. The KKK Supported Prohibition
The KKK’s defense of Prohibition explains much of its popularity during the 1920s. In fact, people across the country supported the Klan.
I. The KKK Supported ProhibitionVery Strongly
- Prohibitionists ‘revived [the KKK] in Atlanta in 1915 to defend Prohibition,’ which existed in Georgia at that time.*1
- ‘Prohibition became one of the Klan’s leading issues’2 and the Klan strongly supported both Prohibition and its strict enforcement.3
- The KKK ‘adopted prohibition as a central rallying cry.’4
- ‘Enforcing Prohibition was a cornerstone of the KKK’s ‘reform’ agenda.’5
- ‘Enforcement of Prohibition, in fact, was a central, and perhaps the strongest, goal of the Ku Klux Klan.’6
- ‘Demon Rum… was the most obsessive issue on the Klan mind next to the pope.’7
- The KKK’s ‘support for Prohibition represented the single most important bond between Klansmen throughout the nation.’8 (Emphasis in original.)
- Because it so strongly ‘opposed the sale of alcohol,’9 the new KKK ‘attacked bootlegging.’10
‘The Klan’s resurgence in the 1920s partially stemmed from their role as the extreme militant wing of the temperance movement. In Arkansas, as elsewhere, the Ku Klux Klan marked bootleggers as one of the groups it wanted to purge. In 1922, 200 Klansmen torched saloons that had sprung up in Union County. The national Klan office ended up in Dallas, Texas. But Little Rock was the home of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. The first head of this female auxiliary was a former president of the Arkansas WCTU.’11
- There was much interaction and overlap in membership between the KKK and other prohibition supporters. For example, a Klan leader, Edward Young Clarke, raised funds for both the KKK and the Anti-Saloon League.12
- Its enforcement of prohibition was one of the factors ‘most responsible for the Klan’s great popularity.’13
- The KKK challenged bootleggers by organizing armed patrols to intercept shipments of alcohol.14
- ‘The Ku Klux Klan associated itself with the campaign against alcohol.’ One of the major KKK activities in the 1920s was rooting out bootleggers and breaking up speakeasies.15
- ‘widespread were Klan efforts to put bootleggers out of business.’16
- The KKK tarred, feathered and ran bootleggers out of town.17
- Williamson County in Illinois was the scene of great violence. “[B]attles between the operators of wide-open taverns and the ‘dry’ Ku Klux Klan killed 14 people in 1924-25.”18
- Although Prohibition became increasingly unpopular with the passage of time, the KKK strongly and actively opposed its repeal.19
In the 1920s, over 25 percent of native-born men in Indiana were official members of the KKK. The Klan’s membership was many times larger than any of the popular veterans’ organizations. It was even larger than the Methodist church, the state’s biggest Protestant