At the funeral of Albert Bloom, a miner who was fatally injured in a dynamite explosion at the colliery where he was employed, the Lutheran pastor refused to allow hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan to enter the church. So the Klan took their “respects” to the cemetery where they conducted rites at the grave.
From the Mount Carmel Item, August 31, 1925:
HOODED KLANSMEN ARE REFUSED ADMITTANCE TO CHURCH AT FUNERAL
Undaunted in their purpose, eight hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan who were denied the privilege of conducting services in the church at the funeral of the late Albert Bloom, of Aristes, yesterday morning, were reported to have held solemn and unique ceremonies at the cemetery.
The Klansmen who sought to hold services in the church were refused the right by the pastor on account of being masked.
Short services for the deceased, who was fatally hurt in a dynamite explosion at the Continental Colliery, were held at his father’s home in Natalie, where the body was removed after death, after which the funeral cortege moved to Numidia where further services were conducted in the Lutheran church. It was one of the largest funerals ever held in that town. Fraternal brothers of the P. O. S. of A. and I. O. O. F. attended.
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 article from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.