While I was going through documents related to the history of UD, I stumbled upon an interesting article about the Dayton Ku Klux Klan's tense relationship with UD. The second wave of the KKK movement started in the early 20th century with an updated hate list, new targets such as catholics, Jewish people, and immigrants were added to this infamous list. The Dayton KKK movement had a lot influence in the area, because government officials, business owners, and newspapers all supported it. The catholic community suffered from this situation, as the Klan burned Crosses in their yards and it was also urging people to boycott catholic products, businesses and schools. In 1920, the Klan began provocative actions guided towards UD by holding cross burning events at a fairground located near UD. However, this was an indirect provocation.
It was not until fall 1923, that the Klan began to take their provocation practices directly to the campus of UD. In fact, Klan members burned a large amount of Crosses on UD property during that period. This intimidation technique did not seen to be very effective, because sometimes the Klan encountered resistance from students. During these altercations, outnumbered Klansmen always ended up running away. Moreover, the tension between UD and the KKK reached its peak on December 19, 1923. This day marked the beginning of winter break for UD, therefore most of students had already left campus for home. The Klan took advantage of the low number of students on campus to start a new intimidation campaign. This time, they placed bombs in different parts of campus. These bombs, fortunately, did not make any casualty. UD contacted Dayton police about this event, but the police did not do anything about it since some of the officers were part of the KKK or at least supported it. To pressure the police, UD filed a formal report with the U.S army since the ROTC arsenal was kept on campus. In the following year, klan activity decreased significantly around the UD area.
No comments:
Post a Comment