Iowa Public Television

 
Elaine Graham Estes Charles P. Howard Dean Philip Hubbard Hon. Harold Hughes James B. Morris, III Arlene Roberts-Morris Robert A Wright, Sr.
1900-1919 A New Century of Hope and the Great War1919-1940 The KKK and the Great Depression1941-1946 A World War and Jim Crow1946-1968 Civil Rights to Vietnam

 

1919-1940 The KKK & the Great Depression

The violent "Blood-Red" summer of 1919 brought the reality to black Americans that their combat victory in France would be met with often overt racism upon their return stateside. The Ku Klux Klan reached 4.5 million members by the mid 1920s with over 100,000 in Iowa. In addition to increased racial resistance, the "Great Depression" drove black Iowans further into poverty and despair and further polarized many small communities across the state.