New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Ku Klux Klan

Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst

by 3 Comments

Charles Ferguson’s enlistment picture into the Army Air Corps, 1941.In a book dedicated to Wilfred Ferguson, the son of Charles Ferguson, teacher and historian Christopher Verga resurrects the story of two Roosevelt, New York brothers killed by a Freeport police officer in 1946.

Verga opens The Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst (History Press, 2022) with an account of the long history of racism on Long Island and in the Freeport area including Ku Klux Klan activity. The background to the 1946 killings takes up the first third of the book. The book is well researched and referenced with extended quotes from official court documents and newspaper accounts. [Read more…] about Ferguson Brothers Lynchings on Long Island: A Civil Rights Catalyst

Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life

by Leave a Comment

Benjamin Franklin Butler A Noisy, Fearless LifeBenjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

In her new biography, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2022), Elizabeth D. Leonard chronicles Butler’s successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln’s premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of fugitives from enslavement as the nation advanced toward emancipation. [Read more…] about Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life

Catskills Klan: The KKK in Sullivan County, New York

by 1 Comment

KKK cross burning LOCMany people – even those with more than a passing interest in Sullivan County history – are surprised to learn that the Ku Klux Klan was once fairly active in parts of the county. And yet, throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, there were several chapters in the Catskills, most set up by recruiters from the Binghamton area.

These Klan chapters, whether in Livingston Manor, Jeffersonville, Liberty, Woodbourne or some other hamlet, often started out as social organizations, and it was not unusual to see newspaper articles and even advertisements about their charitable activities or their clambakes, sometimes in conjunction with the Kamelias, the organization’s women’s auxiliary. [Read more…] about Catskills Klan: The KKK in Sullivan County, New York

The Clansman: The Novel That Helped Reignite The KKK (Virtual Program)

by Leave a Comment

Theatrical release poster for The Birth of a Nation, distributed by Epoch Film CoD.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent epic, The Birth of a Nation is said to be one of the most influential films of all time, particularly in advancing the cause of the Ku Klux Klan, heroic myths about The South and stereotypes about Black people.

The film was based on a work of fiction published in 1905, The Clansman by Thomas Dixon, Jr., which enjoyed great popularity. Part of a historical romance trilogy, the novel is more blatant than the movie in advancing White superiority and a need to oppose by state law the Reconstruction Amendments to The United States Constitution. The book is not that readily available, but the movie is. [Read more…] about The Clansman: The Novel That Helped Reignite The KKK (Virtual Program)

When The Klan Ruled In Freeport, Long Island

by 5 Comments

First public appearance of women of the K.K.K. on Long Island, 1924One of the most horrific anti-Semitic events in United States history happened in Marietta, Georgia. On August 17, 1915, Leo Frank, former director of the local National Pencil Company factory who was falsely convicted of murdering a teenage female factory worker, was dragged out of a state prison cell, taken to Marietta, and lynched.

A decade later, while Congress was sharply restricting immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and a revitalized Ku Klux Klan was attracting adherents nationwide, Ernest Louis, a Jewish pharmacist living and working in Freeport, NY, on Long Island, was falsely accused of molesting a local teenage girl and forced to flee the Long Island town with his family. [Read more…] about When The Klan Ruled In Freeport, Long Island

1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York

by 31 Comments

BrthNation posterWhile we often look back fondly on the Roaring 20s for a number of reasons, it was a very dark period in the North Country in at least one regard: bigotry. For several years, the region was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity during a high-profile recruiting effort.

The assumption today might be that the effort failed miserably among the good people of the north. But the truth is, the Klan did quite well, signing thousands of new members to their ranks. [Read more…] about 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York

1920s: The North Country Rises Against the KKK

by Leave a Comment

KKK hdline1924NYHLast week in this space, I addressed the subject of cross-burnings in the North Country, which became common in the 1920s during a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Throughout the region, meetings were conducted by Klan leaders, and thousands of followers were added to their ranks. For many of us, it’s an uncomfortable part of Adirondack history, but there is another side to the story. Despite widespread intimidation spawned by secret meetings, robed figures, and fiery crosses, New York’s citizenry rose in opposition to the Klan policies of bigotry and exclusion.

Speaking out against the KKK carried inherent risks for average folks, and for politicians as well. Between 1915 and 1922, more than a dozen senators and government officials in Washington were acknowledged members of the Klan, and the organization played a role in the national elections of 1924 and 1928. But in spite of their rise to power behind claims of patriotism and “Americanism,” the KKK was judged by many as a blight on society and distinctly un-American. [Read more…] about 1920s: The North Country Rises Against the KKK

New York’s Anti-Mask Law Has Roots In The Anti-Rent War

by 3 Comments

murray249Halloween has swung the spotlight of history back on New York’s anti-mask law.

It was one of the first tools used by New York City police to break up the Occupy Wall Street in 2011. Within days of donning Guy Fawkes masks, demonstrators were charged by police for violating the anti-mask law, section 240.35(4) of the New York Penal Law. Its origins go back to a statute passed in 1845 to suppress armed uprisings by tenant farmers in the Hudson Valley who were using disguises to attack law enforcement officers. [Read more…] about New York’s Anti-Mask Law Has Roots In The Anti-Rent War