The Klan in Utah | Larry R. Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah

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For most of us, mention of the Ku Klux Klan conjures up visions of the Deep South—night riders in white robes, burning crosses, and, as the lyrics of “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holiday’s jazz classic, state, “Black body swaying in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” In reality, the Klan was a nationwide movement which combined fraternalism, patriotism, Protestantism, and political activism. The Klan has been active in America at various periods and exists today. It was most active in the 1920s when its national membership exceeded two million, making it the “largest nativist-vigilante movement in American history.” 

As Larry R. Gerlach demonstrates in Blazing Crosses in Zion, the “Invisible Empire,” particularly during these years, was “not alien to the historical experience of the Intermountain West in general [or] the Beehive state in particular.” With the exception of Colorado, Gerlach asserts, the Klan was not “as influential in the Inter mountain West as elsewhere,” but it was “a force nonetheless.” 

Because the Klan was “a local institution organized in response to conditions peculiar to a generalized locale,” studies of the Klan at the state and regional level are important. Such studies help us better understand the overall components of a social-political movement that was at once both national and local in character. 

In Utah the Klan was organized in 1921 and grew slowly until “it enjoyed a tremendous spurt of growth statewide in 1924-1925 because of intensive organizational activities” (p. xvii). This was its peak in terms of visibility, influence, and acceptance. In 1926, internal dissent, in competent leadership, media opposition, hostile public opinion, governmental attacks including the passage of “anti-mask” ordinances, and “the single most important factor”—the opposition of the Mormon Church—combined to bring about its decline. 

Though the Klan in Utah was, in Gerlach’s words, a “dismal failure” following an intense flurry of activity, it was not without impact. Many Utahns, particularly immigrants, believed that the secret order was a tangible threat to them. And, as Gerlach demonstrates, not without cause. 

Gerlach’s study sheds light on the chronological development of the Klan. Moreover, Gerlach explores the conditions prevalent in the post World War I period that led a handful of Utahns to join the secret order; provides information on the kinds of people who made up Utah Klan craft during its flourishing and, perhaps most significantly, examines the impact that opposition from the LDS Church had on the chances of success for the Klan in Zion. 

Gerlach observes that Utah Klansmen, with some exceptions, were not simply hell raisers, but rather were “largely decent, generous and principled” individuals who believed that their actions, and their affiliations, were “anything but un-American.” As Gerlach states, one cannot, no matter how reprehensible Klan ideology and practice might be, “dismiss the Klan as a band of simple minded fanatics,” for there is “too much of the bigot and racist in each of us for such facile self-righteousness” (p. xxi). 

Klan membership in Utah resembled patterns elsewhere. It was male, white, native-born, and Protestant. Like their counterparts throughout the country, Utah Klansmen were middle-aged and middle class, not marginal. 

Why then did these respectable men don hood and robe? “First and foremost” among reasons was nativism, xenophobia, and bigotry. Additionally, adherents of the Klan believed they stood for law and order, honest government, the chastity of women, traditional American morality, and social stability. They were knights in the battle against social disorder and rampant vice. 

The Klan seized the fears of a generation of Americans living through a period of disillusionment, wrapped those fears in the flag, and offered tangible solutions to those who were “confused and afraid” of the trends they saw in American society. In particular, the Klan exploited the fears of some Americans who saw immigrants and blacks as advocating alien ideologies. 

These fears also existed in Utah, yet the KKK failed in Utah, as it did elsewhere, because most people, even sympathizers, recognized that the Klan advocated racism and violence in the name of loyal Americanism. At the same time, the Klan failed in Utah for a reason not prevalent anywhere else—the active, open, and clear opposition of the Mormon Church. 

Mormon opposition to Klancraft, according to Gerlach, was motivated by “secular and sectarian” factors; but it was unmistakable and genuine. He notes: 

In addition to anti-Klan editorials in the Deseret News, LDS leaders ex pressed their opposition to the Klan in directly through law-and-order exhortations at church conferences and through notices of Klan activity in Utah and elsewhere in . . . the Improvement Era. For many Mormons the final word on the subject came during the church’s semi-annual conference in October 1922. Following President Heber J. Grant’s firm admonition to “sustain and live the law,” Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley specifically named the Ku Klux Klan in condemning secret societies formed in times of contention, (p. 36) 

Nibley argued that organizations like the Klan had “undertaken to administer what they call justice independent of Constitutional law, and the rights of men.” Furthermore, Nibley asserted that the Klan had taken actions against “certain people” which have resulted in “disorder, turmoil, strife” as well as the breakdown of law. For Mormons, comments Gerlach, the message was clear: “avoid secret societies such as the Klan and render strict obedience to duly constituted laws” (p. 37). 

The leaders of Utah Klancraft were placed in an ambivalent position toward Mormons. On one hand, Mormons were ideal potential members because they were “overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon, intensely patriotic, culturally puritanical and ori ented toward social regulation.” Yet Klan leaders were also aware that in a strict sense Mormons were not technically Prot estants and thus ineligible for membership. This ambivalence inhibited growth because it tended to reduce significantly the pool of possible numbers, particularly among the state’s dominant faith. 

Other western Klansmen were openly hostile to the LDS Church. At the 1923 “Imperial Klonvocation,” for example, the Grand Dragon of Wyoming told his fellow Klansmen that in both Utah and the West, the LDS Church was an enemy “more subtle and far more cunning” than the Roman Catholic Church: Mormons were clannish, voted en bloc, opposed law which conflicted with their “peculiar” religious beliefs, were theocratic, and devoted ultimately to their prophet. 

Klan insistance on the absolute separation of church and state further alarmed Mormons who were accustomed to hearing these code words used time and time again to oppose the Church. More importantly, Gerlach recognizes that “in a very real sense, Mormonism rendered the Ku Klux Klan superfluous in Utah” because the Church discharged effectively the “moral function” espoused by the Invisible Empire (p. 37). 

The fact that the Mormon Church emerges from Gerlach’s study not only as an opponent of the Klan, but as the major force in thwarting its growth in Utah is both important and ironic. It is important because it helps us understand that in early twentieth-century Utah no social, political, or economic movement had a chance to succeed without either the support or, at least, tacit neutrality of the LDS Church. It is ironic because Gerlach’s attempts to fully explore Mormon opposition to Utah Klancraft were limited by his inability to gain access to key documents in the Church archives when he did his research in 1980. He notes that the Heber J. Grant papers were closed to him because they were being catalogued, and that “officials of the Historical Department” denied his requests to “examine two files in the correspondence of the First Presidency labelled “Secret Societies 1921-26′.” Gerlach may be too gentle concerning the policies of the Historical Department. I doubt whether any scholar at this point could gain access to the Grant papers, irrespective of their cataloging status. Moreover, access to the First Presidency files Gerlach requested is, realistically speaking, unlikely since usage requires the permission of the First Presidency. 

Not only does Gerlach’s study suffer because he was denied access to these important documents, but as long as key materials are denied to scholars, efforts to chronicle Utah history and the history of the LDS church will be seriously hindered. A final irony is that if these documents were unavailable for fear they might be used to discredit the church, Gerlach’s study, and the efforts of most scholars, suggest the opposite result. 

Blazing Crosses in Zion examines a previously unexamined aspect of social history providing insight into the culture and politics of Utah during a crucial time. Moreover, it places that history within the larger context of the Klan in the Intermountain West and across the nation. While the book is sometimes repetitive and has a few minor errors of fact, Larry Gerlach asks new questions and addresses new areas of research. His work will un doubtedly give others incentive to under take similar studies of other aspects of the contemporary Utah experience. 

Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah by Larry R. Gerlach (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1982), 248 pp., $17.50.