From West Schuylkill Herald, 28 December 1923, came the first open evidence of the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan at Tower City, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania:
KU KLUX KLAN BURNS CROSS AT TOWER CITY WEDNESDAY
Wednesday night about 8:30, following a loud explosion, a burning cross was plainly visible on the mountain side north of Tower City, and many people rushed from their homes to see the weird spectacle.
There have been rumors afloat for some time of Klan activities in this community, but the burning cross was the first evidence of its actual existence. Incidentally, there is much discussion pro and con on the worth of the organization.
This post is a continuation of the reporting on hate groups that were active in the Lykens Valley area. It was a widely known fact that the Ku Klux Klan had a significant presence in the Lykens Valley and adjacent valleys during the early years of the 20th Century. This iteration of the Klan was strongly white supremacist and was opposed to equal rights for African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants.
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News clipping from Newspapers.com.
This post was first published on The Civil War Blog on 18 May 2018.