WA Ku Klux Klan Used to Operate out of Belltown, Seattle

Another amazing revelation! Thanks again to Alan Castle! According to the Seattle Times, Ku Klux Klan were big in Belltown in the 1920s and they used to meet in the basement of the Moore Theater (which used to have a pool down there called the Crystal Pool!) Here is a picture to prove it! That is where they operated their state headquarters. This hidden history is being taught as part of a senior-level history class at University of Washington. The KKK had a striking presence here in the 1920s. The newspaper story relates a wedding of Klan members in full regalia, a night parade in Bellingham and rallies in places like Renton and Issaquah that at times drew crowds of up to 50,000. That is about the size of the biggest antiwar rally since I've lived here (for 30 years.) They are also reported to have helped elect public officials across the state and published a Seattle-based newspaper called Watcher on the Tower.

"People in Washington state really have not known about the strength or impact of the KKK here during the 1920s," said James Gregory, UW professor of history who heads the Web site, called the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project.

Since there weren't many blacks in the Pacific NW, they focussed on Catholics and foreigners. They also were big in Oregon, the midwest and the south. They were founded by Confederate Amy vets, to restore white supremacy after the Civil War. During the mid 1920s, they had at least five million members. They appealed to people's Christianity for recruitment, as well as patriotism and xenophobia. We had Mayors and attorneys locally who were open members. In 1929, the Klan held its state convention in Bellingham and the Grand Wizard was introduced by the Mayor and given the Key to the City. The large local rallies which drew crowds up to 50,000 were not all Klan members. They attracted fervor with their rhetoric, with little effort toward disruption or resistance. They finally imploded due to their own internal scandals, both in OR and WA, but they maintained a presence in both states through the 1930s, with the power base shifting from Seattle to Bellingham. Some of the photos are newly discovered and advanced UW students have done alot of the research. While some photos came from the WA State Historical Society, others came from the estate of a local Klan member who was a photographer. The Klan's undoing — at least in Seattle — began around 1924, after it unsuccessfully backed an anti-private-school initiative in this state, aimed at Roman Catholic schools, similar to one it had pushed through in Oregon that was repealed. That plus internal scandals led to the beginning of the Klan's demise.

Comments

[Mr. Demetre]

The Crystal Pool was not in the basement of the Moore Theater, it was on the 2nd & Lenora. http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Crystal_Pool