Residents Event Calendar

Our speaker is Southgate resident, John McClymer. The title of his presentation is “Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s: An American Fascism?” In 1926 the editors of the prestigious North American Review asked Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard and Emperor of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, to write the opening piece of a symposium on the place of the Klan in American Life. Evans described the Klan as “an idea, a faith, a purpose, an organized crusade. No recruit of the cause has ever been really lost… there are millions who have never joined, but who think and feel and — when called on — fight with us. This is our real strength, and no one who ignores it can hope to understand America today.” Was Evans right? Do we, if we wish to understand the origins of modern America, have to grapple with the meaning of the KKK’s great popularity and influence in the 1920s? We will seek some answers, admittedly tentative. John McClymer taught American History at Assumption College for 48 years. All are welcome to the presentation.

We will be streaming a pre-recorded Broadway show in the theatre in its entirety. Production title will be posted.