656. The Ku Klux Klan: Birth of a Nation (Part 3)

Episode of The Rest Is History · March 29, 2026 · 1 h 15 min

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook trace the 1915 rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan as a mass fraternal, marketing-driven, anti-Catholic movement.

Summary

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook continued their series on the Ku Klux Klan by examining its second incarnation, founded in Georgia in 1915. Holland opened by reading the Klan's "creed" from the 1922 Kloran, and Sandbrook argued that this Klan differed fundamentally from the Reconstruction-era original: rather than a secretive paramilitary force, it was a public fraternal association claiming between two and five million members, strongest in the Midwest and West rather than the South, and led by advertising men and confidence tricksters rather than former Confederate officers.

Sandbrook traced the Klan's cultural origins to the novelist Thomas Dixon, whose 1905 book The Clansman was adapted by D. W. Griffith into The Birth of a Nation (1915), which Sandbrook called probably the most influential feature film ever made and which was screened at Woodrow Wilson's White House. He noted that the burning cross was an invention of Dixon's fiction later copied by William Joseph Simmons, a failed Methodist preacher and fraternal organiser who relaunched the Klan at Stone Mountain in 1915. The organisation only took off after Simmons hired the publicists Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler in 1920, who ran it as a sales operation with regional "domains", commissioned recruiters and a pyramid-style fee structure, recruiting heavily from Freemasons and Methodist ministers.

The hosts then turned to the Klan's targets. Sandbrook argued that anti-black violence was only a minor theme of the second Klan, whose principal enemies were Catholics and, to a lesser degree, Jews, and whose most unifying cause was the enforcement of Prohibition. He described Klan "moral policing" of bootleggers, adulterers and absent husbands, which Holland compared to Iran's morality police and to a violent Salvation Army, and recounted atrocities at Mer Rouge, Louisiana, in Dallas and Houston, and the reign of terror in Goose Creek, Texas.

The episode closed with the Klan's political breakthrough in 1922, including near-total control of the Oregon legislature, a referendum against Catholic schools there, and the election of avowed Klansman Earl Mayfield to the US Senate from Texas, alongside charitable work such as the Dallas Klan's funding of Hope Cottage. Sandbrook posed the question of which was the Klan's true face, and previewed the next episode on the Klan in the Midwest and the 1924 election.

Chapters

0:12
The Klan's creed and the Kloran
Holland reads the Klan's 1922 creed aloud and the hosts mock its invented Latin-Gothic motto and K-spellings.
2:52
How the second Klan differed from the first
Sandbrook outlines the 1915 Klan as a mass public fraternal body strongest in the Midwest, with Catholics, Jews and bootleggers as targets.
6:20
Thomas Dixon and The Clansman
The story of the novelist Thomas Dixon, his Reconstruction fiction and the controversy around his stage adaptation.
12:17
The Birth of a Nation
D. W. Griffith's film, its technical and commercial impact, Woodrow Wilson's White House screening and the protests it provoked.
18:15
William Joseph Simmons and Stone Mountain
The failed preacher and fraternal organiser who relaunched the Klan in 1915 with a burning cross copied from fiction.
27:24
Clarke, Tyler and the Klan as a business
The Southern Publicity Association's 1920 deal, the domains and Kleagles, and the pyramid-scheme economics of membership.
33:35
Initiation, titles and rituals
Sandbrook describes klecktokens, costumes, klaverns and the invented hierarchy of Cyclopses, Goblins and Kludds.
42:36
Who joined and why
After the break, the hosts examine recruitment from Masons and Methodist ministers and the respectable, middle-class profile of members.
46:45
Enemies: Jews and Catholics
Sandbrook argues anti-black hatred was a minor theme and that anti-Catholicism, rooted in centuries-old rhetoric, was central.
55:26
Prohibition and moral vigilantism
The Klan's commitment to enforcing Prohibition and its violent policing of morality, including the Mer Rouge murders.
1:00:48
Scandal, hearings and growth
The New York World exposé, the Clarke-Tyler hotel scandal and the congressional hearings that left the Klan unscathed and growing.
1:04:19
Political breakthrough in Oregon and Texas
The 1922 elections, the Oregon school referendum, Hope Cottage in Dallas and the terror at Goose Creek.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook states the second Klan's main targets were Catholics and Jews rather than African-Americans.
“its targets are not, by and large, African-Americans, although sometimes they are. But by and large, they are white Catholics and Jews. They are immigrants and bootleggers”
Listen from 3:40 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook argues that the second Klan was a public mass-membership fraternal association rather than a secretive paramilitary group.
“So this is not a secretive paramilitary group. This is a fraternal association with between two and five million members, very public members as well”
Listen from 3:48 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says the second Klan was a product of advertising and mass entertainment rather than slavery and the Civil War, and was strongest outside the South.
“It was a product not of slavery in the Civil War, but of advertising and mass entertainment”
Listen from 4:29 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook notes that at its peak the Klan controlled governorships and most elected offices in several states.
“In Colorado, the Klan's peak, there was only one city in Colorado, Colorado Springs, that was not run by the Ku Klux Klan”
Listen from 5:10 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook calls The Birth of a Nation the most influential feature film ever made and the foundational film of cinema history.
“the result was probably the most influential and important feature film that has ever been made”
Listen from 13:20 · The Birth of a Nation
Tom Holland
Holland observes that America's two great early-twentieth-century film epics both promoted a romanticised fantasy of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
“It is amazing that the two great epics of American cinema in the first half of the 20th century, this and Gone with the Wind, are both basically promoting this kind of fantasy of the Civil War and its aftermath”
Listen from 15:07 · Lost Cause of the Confederacy
Tom Holland
Holland argues that casting oneself as an oppressed underdog licenses violence, which is inherently cinematic.
“if you're the underdog and you cast yourself as oppressed, then you are entitled to inflict violence. And violence is always cinematic”
Listen from 16:00 · Lost Cause of the Confederacy
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says the famous Wilson line about history written with lightning first appeared only in the 1930s, after Wilson's death.
“Actually, that quotation didn't appear until the 1930s after Wilson was dead”
Listen from 18:01 · The Birth of a Nation
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says the burning cross was invented by Dixon's novel and Griffith's film, not used by the original Klan.
“the original clan never burned crosses. This is made up. This was made up by Dixon in his book, by Dixon in his novel”
Listen from 26:09 · Ku Klux Klan
Tom Holland
Holland argues that adopting the name and costume of a racist organisation makes racism intrinsic to the second Klan regardless of its social functions.
“I think if you're taking the name and dressing up as people who were a racist organization, I think that's baked in”
Listen from 27:16 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook describes the revived Klan as a business run by publicists as a sales and marketing operation.
“they approach the clan as a sales and marketing operation. The clan is a business”
Listen from 32:12 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says Klan recruiters were drawn from Masonic lodges and in some places three quarters of Klansmen were already Masons.
“in some places, as many as three out of four members of the clan were already Masons”
Listen from 43:59 · Freemasonry
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook cites estimates that 40,000 Methodist ministers joined the Klan, some rising to senior ranks.
“there are some estimates that 40,000 Methodist ministers became clan members, and some of them rose to be as high as exalted cyclopses or grand dragons”
Listen from 44:35 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook argues that Klan members were typically respectable middle-class professionals rather than people left behind by change.
“The historians who've done loads of work on this have shown that the people who join tend to be respectable, middle-class people”
Listen from 45:34 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook states that anti-black hatred was only a minor theme of the second Klan, which was strongest in states with small black populations, and that the Klan was not involved in the Tulsa massacre.
“Anti-black hatred is only a minor theme of the second glam”
Listen from 49:22 · Tulsa race massacre
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says Catholics were a far more plausible target than Jews because of their numbers and visible political influence.
“There are more than 18 million Catholics in America in the early 20s. And they're much more obviously influential than Jewish Americans are”
Listen from 49:37 · Anti-Catholicism in the United States
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook argues Klan anti-Catholic rhetoric about invading immigrants remains recognisable in twenty-first-century politics.
“As old as the English settlements and very recognizable in the 21st century, no?”
Listen from 52:44 · Anti-Catholicism in the United States
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook contends that Prohibition was indispensable to the Klan's success and, per historian Leonard Moore, the strongest bond among Klansmen.
“If you took prohibition out of this story, the Klan would never have been so successful”
Listen from 55:31 · Prohibition in the United States
Tom Holland
Holland likens the Klan's moral enforcement role to an extremely militant and violent Salvation Army.
“So they're kind of like an unbelievably militant and violent Salvation Army”
Listen from 58:24 · Prohibition in the United States
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook recounts the 1922 Mer Rouge killings in Louisiana, in which local officials were among the perpetrators but none were convicted.
“they whipped them, then they tortured, castrated and murdered two of them and threw their bodies into a lake”
Listen from 1:00:21 · Mer Rouge murders
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says the 1921 congressional hearings cleared the Klan and that the surrounding publicity produced a surge of new applications.
“the hearings ended and the House Rules Committee agreed that the Klan had no case to answer. So they got away with it scot-free”
Listen from 1:03:41 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says the Klan in Oregon won near-total legislative control and pushed through a referendum banning Catholic schools, later struck down by the courts.
“the Klan pushed through a referendum to ban Catholic schools in the state of Oregon. Now, this measure was later thrown out by the courts”
Listen from 1:05:25 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook notes the Klan's 1922 electoral success in Texas, including the election of avowed Klansman Earl Mayfield to the US Senate.
“they elected their first avowed Klansman as a U.S. senator, who was a guy called Earl Mayfield, a Democrat, a fan of prohibition”
Listen from 1:06:47 · Ku Klux Klan
Linked moment · 1:07:17Skip to 1:07:17 using a listen link in the info box.
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook describes the Dallas Klan's funding of Hope Cottage as evidence that the Klan often behaved like an ordinary charitable fraternal body.
“the Dallas branch of the Klan raised $85,000 to restore it. And they presented it as a gift to the city of Dallas at the Texas State Fair”
Listen from 1:07:17 · Ku Klux Klan
Dominic Sandbrook
Sandbrook says Klan violence in Texas towns such as Goose Creek amounted to a reign of terror concealed by local officials who were themselves Klansmen.
“Klan vigilantes had conducted, I mean, genuinely a kind of reign of terror in the small town Goose Creek. The local people had been completely cowed into submission”
Listen from 1:11:34 · Ku Klux Klan

People

In the conversation

Tom HollandEnglish actor cast as Telemachus
Dominic SandbrookBritish historian, author and co-host of The Rest Is History

Discussed

Thomas Dixon Jr.North Carolina novelist, minister and lecturer, author of The Clansman
D. W. GriffithAmerican film director who made The Birth of a Nation
Woodrow WilsonUS president and former academic, a classmate of Dixon at Johns Hopkins
William Joseph SimmonsAlabama-born fraternal organiser who founded the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915
Edward Young ClarkeAtlanta publicist of the Southern Publicity Association who marketed the Klan
Elizabeth TylerPublicist and business partner of Clarke who helped run the Klan's sales operation
Hiram Wesley EvansLater imperial wizard of the second Klan, quoted on Catholics and Jews
Henry FordAmerican car manufacturer who funded distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Earl MayfieldTexas Democrat elected to the US Senate in 1922 as an avowed Klansman
Nathan Bedford ForrestConfederate general and first Klan leader after whom a Klan rank was named
Lothrop StoddardAuthor of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy
Linda GordonHistorian of the second Ku Klux Klan cited by Sandbrook
David ChalmersHistorian, author of Hooded Americanism
Thomas PegramHistorian of the Klan cited on Hope Cottage in Dallas
Al SmithCatholic governor of New York in the 1920s
Margaret MitchellAuthor of Gone with the Wind

Topics

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From the publisher

How did the second incarnation of the clan, born in Georgia in 1915, grow into a seemingly indomitable nation-wide fraternal organisation, numbering millions? Who were its new targets? And, with the Klan’s momentum seemingly unstoppable and an election on the horizon, would their appalling violence be publicly condemned? Join Tom and Dominic as they chart the second rise of the violent, tyrannical, Ku Klux Klan…. _______ Advertise with us: Partnerships@goalhanger.com To read our new newsletter, sign up here: therestishistory.com/newsletters Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at the⁠restishistory.com⁠ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude Senior Producer: Callum Hill Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 27, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: History·Society & Culture·Film History