In 2019, I wrote seven articles on the Klan in Colorado during the 1920s, plus I put together a timeline (that I need to update, so small caveat there).
– An Overview of the Klan in Colorado, Part 1 – Chronological Context
– When the Klan Came to Colorado, Part 2 – Rise to Power
– When the Klan Came to Colorado, Part 3 — Denouement
– How the Klan Took Over Colorado, Part 4 — Shrewd Planning, Crafted Messaging
– Colorado Women of the Ku Klux Klan, Part 5
– The Klan in Colorado Part 6 — Bringing Religion into It
– The Klan in Northern Colorado, Part 7 — We Weren’t Immune
– Timeline of the KKK in (mostly northern) Colorado in the 1920s — An Appendix
Since that time, I have been giving talks on the Klan for rotary clubs, libraries, historical societies and other organizations. If you would like me to give a talk on the Klan to your group, just let me know!
If you’d like to do a deeper dive into this topic, here are some additional resources you can explore.
Book List
On the topic of the First Klan
Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth, and Disbandment, by J. C. Lester and D. L. Wilson (1905). [An online copy of this early work is available for free through Google Books – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31819 ]
Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866-1871, by Stanley F. Horn (1939). [An online copy of this early work is available for free through Archive.org — https://archive.org/details/invisibleempires00hornrich/mode/2up ]
White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, by Allen W. Trelease (1971). [This book can be accessed online with a free account through the Internet Archive. archive.org ]
Reconstruction Violence and the Ku Klux Klan Hearings: A Brief History with Documents, by Shawn Alexander (2010).
Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction, by Elaine Frantz Parsons (2019).
Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror, by Charles Lane (2019).
Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, by Fergus M. Bordewich (2023).
On the topic of the 1920s Klan
Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, by Robert Alan Goldberg (1981).
This book is out of print, but you can download it for free from a couple locations:
- CORE – Connecting Repositories: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/276286256.pdf
- Digital Public Library of America: https://dp.la/item/5b3ba73f59510eabef26dca3d85e3518
Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s, by Kathleen M. Blee (1991).
Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, by Nancy MacLean (1994).
The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, edited by Shawn Lay (2004).
One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, by Thomas Pegram (2011).
The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, by Linda Gordon (2017).
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan (2023). This is a historical thriller that is both engrossing and intensely disturbing. It includes a lot of factual information about the Klan from this time period but reads more like a story.
On the topic of Religion and White Supremacy
Race, Religion & Racism, by Frederick Price (1999)
Seeds of Racism in the Soul of America, by Paul R. Griffin (2000).
Under Our Skin: Getting Real About Race and Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us, by Benjamin Watson (2015).
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi (2016).
Doctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism Between the Wars, by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews (2017).
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin Diangelo (2018).
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, by Mark Charles (2019).
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, by Jemar Tisby (2019).
White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, by Robert P. Jones (2020).
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020).
The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy, by J. Russell Hawkins (2021).
White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, by Anthea Butler (2024).
The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christianity, by Michael O. Emerson (2024).
The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money is the Root of Racism and How the Church can Create a New Way Forward, by Malcolm Foley (2025).
Resource List
Civil War and Reconstruction
“What really started the American Civil War?” by Robert Gumstead on the Colorado State University website.
https://source.colostate.edu/what-really-started-the-american-civil-war
Succession documents from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states.
Summary of the First Iteration of the Ku Klux Klan
“The Ku Klux Klan,” by Kathleen L. Gorman.
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-ku-klux-klan.html
United Daughters of the Confederacy
“United Daughters of the Confederacy,” Encyclopedia Virginia.
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/united-daughters-of-the-confederacy/
United Daughters of the Confederacy website – https://hqudc.org
1920s Klan in General
“Hatred and Profits: Getting Under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan,” by Roland G. Fryer, Jr. and Steven D. Levitt (2007). This paper is available as a pdf online at https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcebookspublic.2007616543/?pdfPage=1https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcebookspublic.2007616543
1920s Klan in Colorado
In addition to Robert Goldberg’s book (see book list), there is also…
Colorado Experience: KKK. Season 4, Episode 7. Available online through Rocky Mountain PBS — https://video.rmpbs.org/video/colorado-experience-kkk/ or on Youtube — https://youtu.be/PO5PMbtF1t8?si=o8B0A5ALfmmeiivC
NorthernColoradoHistory.com – 8-part series on the Klan in Colorado. https://www.northerncoloradohistory.com/an-overview-of-the-ku-klux-klan-in-colorado/
History Colorado – Ku Klux Klan Ledgers: Learn more about the ledgers that are stored with History Colorado. https://www.historycolorado.org/kkkledgers
Colorado Encyclopedia: Ku Klux Klan. https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ku-klux-klan
The Rocky Mountain American: The Klan’s Colorado Newspaper. https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/rocky-mountain-american-kkks-colorado-newspaper
What Happened When The Colorado KKK Tried To Build A Dam. https://www.kunc.org/news/2019-01-02/what-happened-when-the-colorado-kkk-tried-to-build-a-dam
1920s Klan Music
“Thrift store record with mysterious Michigan history turns out to be Klan music” – https://youtu.be/SsKSGPvqNmI?si=-cbFs8vX-OcP6Zqn (Or search on YouTube using that title, “Thrift store record with mysterious….”
“A Case Study on White Supremacist Music,” on the Johns Hopikins Library website. https://exhibits.library.jhu.edu/omeka-s/s/white-supremacist-music/page/ku-klux-klan
Civil Rights History in Larimer County
“The History of the Civil Rights Movement in Fort Collins, Colorado: Criminal Injustice in Fort Collins (1863–1974),” by McDoux Preservation LLC (2023). https://www.fcgov.com/historicpreservation/files/fc-7-criminal-injustice.pdf
For more lots of shorter deep-dives into specific parts of Fort Collins history, check out this page on the Historic Preservation Department’s website: https://www.fcgov.com/historicpreservation/research-projects
Here you’ll find information on Fort Collins’ Hispanic heritage, Germans from Russia, LGBTQ+, Jewish, Asian, Indigenous histories and so much more.
Women and the Klan
Medical Frontiers: Women Physicians and the Politics and Practice of Medicine in the American West, 1870-193,0 by Jacqueline D. Antonovich. (Includes information on Minnie C. T. Love.) https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/145867
Alma White’s book, The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy, is available online at:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822004645693&seq=127