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A nascent organization — mysterious in origin but with a growing local and national following — could aid authorities in combating these evils, promised Mark Elliott, then-pastor of the Winona Church of Christ.
The organization had been tarred by accusations of vigilante violence and secrecy — but most allegations were unfounded, and the group’s covert activities were necessary to combat criminals, Elliott told a packed audience at the church.
With a flaming cross and 10 white-hooded men sharing his altar, Elliott said the Ku Klux Klan was “pledged to law and order.”
“The Klan is not anti-negro; it is not anti-Jew; it is not anti-Catholic,” said Elliott, as reported by the Winona Republican-Herald. “The Klan is the best friend the negro has.”
Elliott’s sermon, delivered on July 13, 1924, was the first of several attempts by Winona-area supporters that month to promote the Klan as “founded on the Bible and the Constitution.” It’s part of the fascinating — if unpleasant — local history of a group that has become synonymous with hatred and violence.
It’s not clear from the 1924 articles, kept in a file at the Winona County Historical Society, how long the Klan was active in Winona or how many members it claimed at its peak.
But another major pro-Klan event took place shortly after Elliott’s sermon on July 26, 1924, when more than a thousand Klan supporters rallied near Stockton for speeches, music and “possibly initiations,” the Republican-Herald reported. The paper also wrote that robed and hooded Klansmen distributed literature to passing motorists during the rally.
Though Elliott insisted the Klan was not a prejudiced organization, his sermon outlined 16 Klan principles, one of which was white supremacy. His sermon was the first public defense of the Klan
in Winona, the Republican-Herald reported, “although numerous burning crosses on the bluffs across Lake Winona have given silent evidence of the activity of a Klan in Winona.”
At least one Winonan, William R. Walsh, spoke out against Elliott and the Klan in two op-eds that ran in the Republican-Herald in July 1924. Walsh, who particularly criticized the Klan’s anti-Catholic stance, cited “a dozen acts of violence, including several murders committed on negroes” that were linked to Klan members.
“This is certainly contrary to the traditions of the American people, who are tolerant, peaceful and peace-loving,” Walsh wrote. “It is also the strangest kind of Christianity.”
El Uno wrote on Oct 21, 2008 1:14 PM: