Susan Anderson, former Director of El Progreso Memorial Library and current Director of Planning for the City of Uvalde presented a historical talk on the history of the KKK in Uvalde on Thursday April 21st, 2022 at the Uvalde Memorial Library.
According to Anderson, the KKK originated during the post Civil War reconstruction era as a response to reparation rules imposed on the Southern States by the United States Government. The example. Farmers were required to go through the Freedmen’s Bureau to buy seeds telling them where they could buy the seeds.
According to the National Archives, “The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Record Group 105), also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established in the War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. The Bureau was responsible for the supervision and management of all matters relating to the refugees and freedmen and lands abandoned or seized during the Civil War, duties previously shared by military commanders and US Treasury Department officials.
Although the Bureau was not abolished until 1872, the bulk of its work was conducted from June 1865 to December 1868. While a major part of the Bureau’s early activities included the supervision of abandoned and confiscated property, its mission was to provide relief and help formerly enslaved people become self-sufficient.
Bureau functions included issuing rations and clothing, operating hospitals and refugee camps, and supervising labor contracts between planters and freed people. The Bureau also managed apprenticeship disputes and complaints, assisted benevolent societies in the establishment of schools, helped in legalizing marriages entered into during slavery, and provided transportation to refugees and freed people who were attempting to reunite with their family or relocate to other parts of the country. As Congress extended the life of the Bureau, it added other duties, such as assisting Black soldiers and sailors in obtaining back pay, bounty payments, and pensions.” (https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau)
“After the Civil War, it was really rough in Uvalde. In addition to the economic issues, the Union soldiers were sent to northeast Texas to deal with the KKK there. This left settlers to deal with outlaws and Indians on their own. ” Anderson said.
Following the Civil War, the KKK organization waned until the early 20th Century when William Joseph Simmons started the modern KKK in 1915 following the release of the movie, The Birth of a Nation. The film was deemed controversial and it depicted black men as preying on white women and other propaganda.
The resurgence of the KKK in Texas started in Beaumont and in the East Texas region while Uvalde was late to get a chapter established.
According to Anderson, the KKK of post Civil War 1800’s and the KKK in the early 20th Century were different in terms of numbers involved and how openly they met. The early version met in the dark of night whereas the KKK of the early 20th century operated more out in the open. Also, there were more members of the KKK between 1915 and 1925 as the KKK was established as a type of fraternal organization with members consisting of doctors. pastors, government officials and business owners
In 1919, Prohibition was passed in the United States and this caused further division between citizens.
“The KKK divided the town, Friends stopped speaking to each other. The Klan would march up Getty Street in white robes.” Anderson said. The Uvalde Chapter of the KKK took it upon themselves to police morality of the town. According to Anderson, your ethnicity did not matter. A story Anderson told was of members of the Klan paying a night time visit to a husband who was reported to beat his wife. They ran the husband out of town. The Klan opposed any immigrants, Catholics, Jews and Labor Unions. According to Anderson, since the majority of Hispanics in South Texas were Catholics, they had two strikes against them. The height of the Klan’s popularity peaked during 1924. That was the year they had candidates for local, state and national offices and the year that Levi Old was murdered in the Stein building. Afterwards, the KKK experienced a decline during the following decades.
The Historic Stein Building
Reading Black’s home and store, a two story rock building was built on this location. After the Civil War, Black was murdered in the store by his brother-inlaw, Tom Wall. This building was built in 1891 for the Uvalde National Bank. Harry Hornby began his newspaper upstairs. The first radio station was upstairs as well. The first telephone exchange was here and the post office was in the back of the building until the current one was built. After the bank closed in 1922, the men of the town continued to meet upstairs. While votes were being counted during a hotly contested election in 1924, attorney Levy Old was shot here probably over his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan party.
From Main Street Uvalde: https://downtowntx.org/uvalde-texas/100-s-east-st-uvalde-tx-78801
