Historians Reflect on Hate Groups Past and Present After Release of Denver KKK Ledgers

Five Colorado historians gathered for a (virtual) roundtable Wednesday night to discuss the sordid history of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado and the History Colorado museum’s recent unveiling of the Klan’s Denver membership ledgers.

Colorado, and Denver in particular, was a hotspot during a resurgence of Klan activity in the 1920s. The Klan sought to impose their nativist, white supremacist worldview in Colorado by gaining economic and political control and by targeting Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other non-White and non-protestant groups through harassment, intimidation, and violence.

The Klan’s Denver membership records from 1924 to 1926, which History Colorado just released to the public in a searchable digital format, contain nearly 30,000 names – a staggering number that represents a third of the 107,000 adult white males living in Denver at the time.

“As we saw, the second Klan and other hate groups thrive when history is widely misunderstood or even deliberately manipulated or distorted,” said panelist Jared Orsi, a professor of history at Colorado State University. “That’s why the preservation of accurate primary documents like History Colorado’s Klan membership roles is so so important, and to guard against the spread of falsehood it is essential that they be made publicly accessible.”

Read more: https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2021/04/historians-reflect-on-hate-groups-past-and-present-after-release-of-denver-kkk-ledgers/36069/