The Ku Klux Klan repeatedly tried to infiltrate Bloomington. Why it never worked.

Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, The Herald-Times is publishing Black stories, both current and historical, throughout the month of February. A new installment will be published each weekday.

Indiana has a long, deep-seated history with the Ku Klux Klan, but the hate group was never able to grab a stronghold in Bloomington, thanks to ever-vigilant students and some local politicians.

The Indiana KKK is believed to have started in 1920, where it soon grew to large prominence. For the next 15 years, a man named D.C. Stephenson spearheaded the Indiana branch, which would become the most powerful in the nation, according to the Indiana State Library. About 30% of white Hoosier men were members — including half the state Legislature and the governor.

In the decades afterward, especially following Stephenson's murder conviction in 1925, the Klan's influence waned considerably, though it still had a presence in such places as Morgan County and Indianapolis.

In March 1968, KKK members from Morgan County tried to establish a local chapter in Monroe County through a membership drive. The event was to begin with a gathering on the Bloomington courthouse square where members could mingle and recruit residents, eventually culminating with a march through the business district.

City and county officials were staunchly against the planned rally. The Monroe County prosecutor petitioned the court to stop the event from taking place, citing the possibility of widespread violence spurred by the KKK's presence. A Monroe Circuit Court judge, believed to be Nat U. Hill, blocked the KKK's visit by issuing a court order. This would earn Hill the ire of Carlisle Briscoe Jr., a notorious local Klan member who would be later convicted of firebombing the Black Market. According to past H-T coverage, Briscoe also was widely believed to have committed a string of arsons in the county, including burning down Hill's barn, during the 1970s; Briscoe was never formally charged with that crime.

While many Bloomington residents were against the terrorist organization, reader-submitted letters to the H-T reveal a mixed reaction to stopping the event.

"Too bad the mayor and the group had to take the easy — and probably unconstitutional — way out of the KKK matter. What better, and more appropriately American, way would there be to beat the Klan than let the Kluds, Kruds, Klunks and Kleagles come to town, with bugs in their bedsheets and bats in their belfries, and show the community what really gruesome goons they are?" A local resident, identified as K.D. Hoogerhyde, wrote to the H-T. "Much better than to abridge their freedom to do so, seems to me."

Another reader, Bedford resident and doctor Howard T. Hammel, similarly expressed mixed feelings. He discouraged local KKK membership, "lest any patriotic Christian American not be aware of this warning and consider joining the group, I want you to know that they are like rat poison, which contains 95% good wholesome food but the other 5% of its contents will kill you." While the KKK "espouse many good causes," Hammel wrote, they are motivated by hate and would "suppress, supplant and destroy all equality of opportunity, which is guaranteed to all men of good-will by our constitution and by the Christian moral code."

1968: IU rescinded debate invitation to Ku Klux Klan. Here's why.

In the summer of 1968, the Ku Klux Klan was once again supposed to flood Bloomington streets in defense and promotion of their organization — this time, at the Indiana University campus.

According to H-T archives from the time, the IU Forum had invited an unnamed grand dragon of the nearby Ku Klux Klan to engage in a debate on campus. Once news of this invitation spread, a large group of "concerned students" began petitioning then-IU president Elvis Stahr to cancel the event.

In May, Stahr approached the IU faculty and requested the IU Forum organizers to withdraw their invitation.

"The invitation, he noted, came on top of great tension already very evident in the local Negro community which had built up following the Klan's announced intention to demonstrate in the streets of Bloomington. In view of his objective of promoting understanding between the races, Dr. Stahr told the council he had wished to avoid something that seemed clearly to have aroused serious misunderstanding," as described in a 1968 H-T story.

Stahr was quick to point out this was not an official ban of the KKK but rather a withdrawal of the invitation. While it was described as a temporary postponement, a search of the H-T archives did not reveal any such debate happening that year or otherwise.

An H-T reader, Steven D. Hollander, decried this news.

"Indiana University has decided to withdraw an invitation for public debate to the Ku Klux Klan, citing the 'fact' that the Klan's presence would 'insult the black community.' Will the university now decide to ban the teaching of evolution because it 'insults' many God-fearing taxpayers? Will it deny the use of its radio and television stations to speakers who 'insult' Lyndon Johnson? Or George Wallace? Or Mr. Chaney?" Hollander wrote. "A fair debate, as was planned between the Klan and its opponents, could not, in fact, 'insult' anybody. And only a blissfully-ignorant man like Elvis Stahr could believe that a discussion could be anything other than educational."

Despite not having an official promotional event in Bloomington, the KKK made its presence known in more subversive ways. Later in 1968, a man with KKK affiliation firebombed a Black student-run marketplace. Around this time, a local staunch advocate of civil rights, Rev. Ernest Butler, began receiving threatening phone calls at his residence; cards, which read “The Ku Klux Klan is watching you,” also were dropped on his doorstep. Throughout this time, several Black Bloomington residents were terrorized by the organization.

As recently as August 2019, Ku Klux Klan flyers with bags of candy were found along streets and the B-Line Trail in Bloomington. City police investigated the matter but no reports were ever shared about origin of the flyers and candy that were found along public streets and in private parking lots.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Why the Ku Klux Klan never got a foothold in Bloomington, Indiana