101 years ago, North Dakota's first Ku Klux Klan chapter established in Grand Forks

Nov. 14—GRAND FORKS — In 1918, Grand Forks' First Presbyterian Church hired a popular minister from out of state with hopes of boosting the congregation's dwindling numbers. Within four years, the man was leading North Dakota's first official chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

"North Dakota seemed like it was going to be very peripheral (to the KKK movement)," Kimberly Porter, retired UND history professor, told the Herald. "I don't know if it would have existed if it hadn't been for that one rabble-rouser."

The Ku Klux Klan was originally established in 1865 as a white supremacist organization that opposed the freedom and rights of Black people, as well as anyone in support of Black liberation. The organization formally disbanded in 1869 but, over time, it reemerged with additional minority targets, including gay and lesbian people, Muslims, Jews, Catholics and immigrants.

"We usually have a tendency to think of the Klan as maybe the strongest in the South, Georgia or Mississippi," Porter said. "But the second Klan was actually strongest in the Midwest Great Plains."

While the Klan gained traction during the mid-1910s and 1920s, North Dakota was struggling with post-war economic issues and a mounting fear of communism.

"There was just this need, or this desire, to find somebody to pick on," Porter said. "If you're trying to find somebody to blame, you find somebody that you can identify."

The rabble-rouser, Frederick Halsey Ambrose, identified targets the Grand Forks community could rally against.

"If you looked around at the big categories — socialists, Jews, African Americans — the biggest category is probably going to be the Catholic folks," Porter said. "That's who he found to pick on."

In addition to Catholics, Ambrose targeted the Nonpartisan League, a left-wing political party suspected of holding communist ideals. For this opinion, Ambrose found an ally in Jerry Bacon, publisher of the Grand Forks Herald.

Ambrose held two services each Sunday. A regular sermon took place in the morning, while the evening service was reserved for lectures on topics that concerned Ambrose, according to Herald archives. The topics were advertised in the newspaper and drew crowds to the First Presbyterian Church every week.

"I think, in part, it's entertainment," Porter said. "If everybody else is going to hear the Reverend Halsey, hey, why shouldn't we go see what the Reverend Halsey is up to?"

The church's membership more than doubled from 484 in 1918 to 1,003 in 1925, according to William L. Harwood, who wrote a piece about the Grand Forks Klan for the South Dakota State Historical Society Quarterly in 1971.

Some topics Ambrose covered in his lectures were moralism, prohibition and law and order, according to Herald archives. He opposed divorce, free expression of sexuality, movies and the way society was evolving in the 1920s.

"However, he was primarily against Roman Catholics — and what is ironic is the Catholic Church was opposed to the same things as Ambrose,"

wrote Curt Eriksmoen, a Forum Communications columnist.

Ambrose and many of his followers believed children should be educated in public schools and, if Catholic children weren't, they wouldn't properly assimilate into American society. Instead, they may fall under the Pope's influence and try to sway local politics in his favor, Harwood wrote.

At the time, Lutherans made up a majority of Grand Forks' religious population (4,014). Spread across five denominations, — Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal and Congregational — there were slightly more Protestants (4,125), however. The next-largest religious group was Roman Catholics (2,835), followed by other types of non-Catholic Christians (583) and Jews (387).

"The only other meaningful explanation for the rise of the Klan in Grand Forks must be that its leader, F. Halsey Ambrose, had sufficient charisma to convince the businessmen of Grand Forks and his gullible listeners on Sunday nights that the town's Catholics presented a threat to their livelihoods," Harwood wrote. "It seems reasonable to conclude that the local Klan was a politically oriented, anti-Catholic force which, in reality, had nothing to fear."

In the early 1920s, when a Klan promoter traveled from Indiana to Grand Forks, he decided Ambrose was the perfect candidate to lead the state's first chapter.

The Grand Forks Klan was established in summer 1922. The Herald reported on the first Klan meeting — which are referred to as Konclaves — held 22 miles west of Grand Forks.

"Despite the rain and the muddy roads the Knights held forth in all their glory," the Herald reported. "It is suspected that their white nighties were not heavy enough to shed the rain but a Konclave was held nevertheless."

In the beginning, the local newspaper didn't share concerns about the organization. However, the very first Klan meeting included speeches denouncing Catholics, Jews and immigrants, according to more recent Herald archives.

In January 1923, the North Dakota Senate introduced a bill that would ban anyone over the age of 15 from wearing a mask or head covering to conceal their identity in a public space. Ambrose testified against the bill, saying, "Klansmen were the pillars of society and their identities needed to be protected."

He claimed "only the Klan was preventing a tide of immigrants from overwhelming American civilization and that it had to remain secret to grow and do its valuable work," according to Herald archives.

"Clearly, if you get angry when somebody puts up an anti-masking law, well, you're trying to hide something," Porter said. "I don't know why you don't want your face associated with it, unless you're somewhat embarrassed."

A roster identified numerous industries in which Klansmen reportedly held important positions throughout the Grand Forks area.

Three were bank officials, three were real estate and insurance firm owners, seven were store owners, two were hotel owners, three were lawyers, one was a doctor, one was an architect, one was a clergyman, six were contracting supply and serve firm owners, two were salesmen, two were barbers, one was a farmer and one was a bookkeeper.

"You had a pretty wide group of folks that you'd ordinarily think might be on the semi-intelligent side," Porter said.

Despite Ambrose's efforts to combat the anti-mask bill, it passed by an overwhelming majority in both the House and Senate, and Gov. R. A. Nestos signed it into law on Feb. 5, 1923.

Just months later, 1,000 Klansmen gathered in a field west of Grand Forks, where they set straw and three crosses on fire as Ambrose delivered an address proclaiming Larimore would be the location of North Dakota's second KKK chapter.

In the Herald's coverage of the incident, the newspaper identified Ambrose as the Klansman who gave the principal address at the meeting. Ambrose said this wasn't true and demanded the article be retracted, Harwood wrote.

The Herald admitted the error but did not retract the article. The newspaper noted, instead, that the Klan had violated state law at their meeting, because attendees had their faces covered. It's unclear exactly when Ambrose's relationship with the newspaper began to take a turn, but at this time it became obvious they were no longer allies.

The Grand Forks Klan officially got involved in local politics during the 1924 election. One Klansman won a seat on the city commission, and another defeated the presiding city justice, who was a Catholic. At the state level, Arthur Sorlie, a Grand Forks businessman, beat Nestos and was elected as governor. Sorlie appeared to have the Klan's support, according to Herald archives.

"(The Klan) tried to trot out that Sorlie himself was a Klansman," Porter said. "He denied it all the way to his grave."

Shortly after these elections, the Klan set their sights on the school board. Two Klansmen challenged two Protestant women — Mrs. E. C. Haagenson and Mrs. J.G. Moore — and labeled them as Catholic supporters.

"A hearty number of folks came to their support," Porter said. "Then Halsey comes out and says these women are influenced by the scum of the Earth. I remember that phrase: the scum of the Earth. Excuse me? These are your neighbors."

Support for the women, which included two mass meetings, was highly publicized in the Herald.

"It stated that never before had there been a solid Catholic vote in the city," Harwood wrote of the Herald. "Indeed, no church or fraternal group had ever tried to tell its members how to vote. ... Certainly, continued the paper, this was the first time a Grand Forks minister had ever directed a political campaign from his pulpit."

Despite such strong public support for the women, the Klansmen won both school board seats.

In 1926, the school board voted to require Bible readings in public schools. During the same year, Klansmen took control of the city commission, holding four of five seats, according to Herald archives. With this power, they fired multiple Catholic employees, including the police chief, fire chief, treasurer, electrician, engineer, assessor and janitor.

After the mass removal of Catholics from city jobs, the Herald seemed to stop offering Ambrose and the Grand Forks Klan any publicity.

"By the end of the decade, the Ku Klux Klan was no longer a potent political force in Grand Forks," Harwood wrote. "This decline of local Klan power coincided with the weakening of the Klan nationally."

Ambrose left North Dakota in 1931 for a ministry position in St. Paul.

"In some ways, it's just a classic American tale told in North Dakota," Porter said. "Somebody gets too big for their britches and tries to take somebody down."

When people are faced with adversity, they often look for someone to blame, Porter said. In many places, at many times, many different groups of people become targets. But it's easier to hate someone you don't know, Porter said, and over time, people got to know Catholics and other people Ambrose targeted.

"Soon it's hard to hold up those ideas," she said. "I think that's also one of the reasons it doesn't really last."