I really enjoyed this gallery. I was curious about the picture of the Klansmen riding the Ferris Wheel.
Here is the story:
In April 1926, dozens of Ku Klux Klan members in Cañon City, Colorado walked down Main Street and enjoyed some fun and frivolity on the Ferris wheel set up by a traveling carnival. There they posed for a photo at the carnival owner’s insistence and a story about it appeared on the front page of the local newspaper the next day. At the time, the Klan were one of the most popular groups in America and free to conduct their business in the open with the government’s blessing. Local Klansman’s children were even known to write “KKK” on their school uniforms and call themselves the Ku Klux Kids.
I found out in researching this that Colorado was a hotbed of Kan activity, and had the second-largest Klan contingent among the states. I didn’t expect that.
In Colorado, the Klan held significant political power in the mid-1920s, with a Klansman serving as governor (Clarence Morley) and another as Denver’s mayor (Benjamin Stapleton). History Colorado has digitized extensive records of Klan membership ledgers from this period, which are available to the public for research.
#1 also surprised me: Indiana.
Indiana being # 1 didn’t surprise me. As a recent ex-Hoosier who lived there 45+ years, I had knowledge that as recently as 10 years ago, the Klax was still active in parts of SW Indiana, particularly in parts of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties.
It’s not that I didn’t believe Indiana could be racist. It’s just that I didn’t think it could possibly have more racists than Texas, which had a much larger population, even in 1920.
There are probably components there that I don’t understand, like for example, maybe racists had to hide under a hood in Indiana, but that wasn’t necessary in Texas, where racism was universal, and in fact probably mandated by the state constitution.
Indiana is the South’s middle finger to the North.
Its shape and placement on the map is appropriate.
Especially the southern portion.
Because Cleveland is so very rust-belt and Columbus is classic Midwest, a lot of people don’t realize that Cincinnati and everything around it in Ohio and Indiana is basically part of the South.
As someone who has lived in Indiana, it doesn’t surprise me at all.
Given our country’s history though, what does surprise me is that some people think that institutional racism doesn’t exist.
Well, look who we vote for.
Some people argue that Obama’s election demonstrated the death or at least the severe weakening of racism, but the truth is that Obama lost the white vote in a landslide. White voters were 74% of the electorate, and they split 41-33 for McCain. Obama won the election because the other fourth of the electorate got behind him so completely. Black voters were 13% of the electorate, and he almost won that segment 13-0. Hispanics were 9%, and he won that group 6-3.
That election didn’t demonstrate how we had come together. It demonstrated how far apart we are.
And everything since then has been people getting their revenge for Obama .
White people
I certainly never believed that Obama’s election meant there was no more racism in the United States, but I am one of those people who believe his election demonstrated that the power of racism and racists was weaker than it used to be. I thought that was pretty much indisputable, even if you just look at the USA since I was born. I was three months old when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. If the Democratic Party had nominated a Black man for president in 1968, I doubt he would have only lost the White vote by 8 points. Also, not every White person who voted against Obama did that because he was Black. I was one of the White people who voted against Obama, and I didn’t care about his race. I was a Republican who disagreed with Obama’s ideology. Out of curiosity, I looked up the percentage of White voters who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Trump beat Biden 58% to 41%. You can look at that as saying Trump had twice the landslide among Whites than McCain did, but you can also say that Joe Biden won the same percentage of White voters that Obama did. According to the Google AI, as of the April 2024 Pew Research Center report, 56% of non-Hispanic White voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party nationally. In contrast, 41% of White voters align with the Democratic Party.
Racism is still alive and well in this country, but it has been significantly reduced in power over the last 58 years. It also appears that Democrats have difficulty winning more than 41% of the White vote, regardless of their candidate’s race.
Your facts are right, your conclusion is fuzzy,
You reinforced my original point: Obama’s election did not prove that anything had changed, as many had claimed …
He was elected because non-white people turned out:
Black voters were 13% of the electorate, and voted for him almost unanimously. (12.5-.5) Other non-whites were another 13%, and gave Obama an 8-5 edge.
So from that 26% of the population, he took 20.5 points to 5.5 for McCain., leaving McCain with an insurmountable deficit. Given that white women usually split about 50/50, McCain would have needed something like 70% of the white male vote – an insurmountable hurdle.
In plain terms, non-white people elected Obama, while everything else stayed the same, which hardly pointed to a diminution of racism.
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By the way, southern Democrats have done fairly well with the white vote. LBJ carried it, while Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter came very close. Al Gore was an exception, but he’s obviously not a typical southern politician. At heart, he’s a Massachusetts Democrat with a weird accent.
Al Gore lived in Washington D.C most of his life.
It’s unfortunate Al Gore was such a strange person because he was right on nearly everything.
1.He was right on the ‘lock box’ for the surplus.
2.He was right on ‘the people vs. the powerful.’
3.He was right on global warming.
4.He was right on the internet, even if he didn’t invent it.
It was Al Gore who was the primary Congressperson who pushed for funding for the internet.
If Gore had carried his home state in 2000, Florida wouldn’t have mattered.
Scoop, I wasn’t disagreeing with the second part of your statement, that Obama lost the White vote in a landslide. I disagree with your implication that those who say “that Obama’s election demonstrated the death or at least the severe weakening of racism” were incorrect. However, whether there is less racism in this country really depends on what date you start measuring from. Do we start measuring since the Bill of Rights was signed? Since the Civil War? Since the Montgomery bus boycotts and the start of the modern civil rights movement? I was arguing since I was born on January 1, 1968. If instead of Jimmy Carter, the Democrats had nominated a Black man as their presidential candidate in 1976, would he have gotten 41% of the vote? I doubt it. Of course, I am basing that primarily on all the racist things I heard White people saying in the 1970s. However, you were an adult in 1976. Do you think I’m wrong about that?
Now, where we probably agree is whether or not there is more racism in this country today than there was in 2008. I tend to think there is more racism, or at least that the racists who were around in 2008 feel a lot more comfortable saying and doing racist things since we elected orange Voldemort as president.