Oregon Was Once a Slave State

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by SlyPokerDog, Jan 13, 2014.

  1. BLAZINGGIANTS

    BLAZINGGIANTS Well-Known Member

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    I have no doubt the KKK was in Idaho. But from what I've read, Portland was the center of it on the West Coast. If you know something further, please do share. It's kind of a fascinating thing to me, considering here Portland Metro is nowadays.
     
  2. KeepOnRollin

    KeepOnRollin Well-Known Member

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    Nah, you are right. For North Idaho it was the Aryan Nation capital of the US. They have similar (to the same) values but not the same group.
     
  3. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Ku Klux Klan


    Oregon Historical Society Research Library bb002067





    Fiery crosses and marchers in Ku Klux Klan regalia were common sights in Oregon and the nation during the 1920s. The social and economic problems following World War I only partly explain why this organization, with its southern heritage of racism and violence, appealed to the overwhelmingly white, native-born, and Protestant population of Oregon.

    While the Klan may have been new to the state, the attitudes and issues it exploited were not. Racism, religious bigotry, and anti-immigrant sentiments were deeply entrenched in the laws, culture, and social life of Oregon, and few Oregonians questioned the Klan's doctrines of white supremacy, Protestantism, and "One-Hundred Per Cent Americanism."

    The first Klan organizers (Kleagles) arrived in Oregon from California and the South in early 1921. Maj. Luther I. Powell, a gregarious Louisianan, swore in the first Oregon Klansmen in Medford while his fellow Kleagles recruited in Portland, Eugene, Salem, Astoria, Hood River, Pendleton, and other communities. Historians estimate that the national Klan attracted more than two million members during the 1920s, and by 1923 Oregon Klan leaders claimed 35,000 members in more than sixty local chapters and provisional Klans. Hundreds of other Oregonians joined the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, the Junior Order of Klansmen for teenagers, and the Royal Riders of the Red Robe for foreign-born Protestants.

    The Klan spread rapidly in Oregon, but internal strife plagued it from the beginning. After his election as the first Exalted Cyclops (leader) of Klan No. 1 in Portland, Fred L. Gifford forced Powell from Oregon and became the Grand Dragon (head) of the state Klan. From their Portland headquarters, Gifford and his cronies—including Lem Dever, the colorful editor of the Oregon Klan's newspaper, The Western American—turned the organization into a potent and controversial political machine during the elections of 1922 and 1924.

    The Klan's appeals to morality and patriotism initially masked the reality: the political intrigue and social conflict and the loyalty to the Klan that transcended political party affiliations. In 1922, Klansmen won election to local and county offices throughout Oregon, and some Klansmen won seats in the state legislature. The Klan helped elect LaGrande Democrat Walter M. Pierce as governor and played a significant role in passing an initiative measure requiring all children eight to sixteen years of age to attend public schools. While targeting Roman Catholics, the compulsory school bill would have eliminated other private and denominational schools. As the only state to pass such a law, Oregon gained notoriety and faced numerous legal challenges. The law was never implemented, and the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1925.
    Klansmen and their allies in the 1923 legislature resurrected controversial racial and religious issues rejected in earlier years. A bill prohibiting the ownership of land by aliens, aimed primarily at Japanese immigrants, passed easily. Other successful bills with connections to the Klan banned teachers from wearing religious garb in the public schools and blocked public schools from using civics and history textbooks with negative remarks about the Founding Fathers and American heroes. The Klan's political agenda also included support for bills to improve state roads and public education.

    The Klan's influence on social and cultural life was more damaging and longer lasting than its political successes. The Oregon Klan had its share of charlatans and characters, but the overwhelming majority of members were ordinary Oregonians who represented a cross-section of their communities. Few members engaged in violence. Many local Klans strengthened fraternal bonds by organizing bands, baseball teams, family picnics, and charitable activities. But members also used the Klan to impose their moral and cultural beliefs on other Oregonians, often splintering communities, churches, and social organizations. Numerous Protestant ministers, largely fundamentalist and evangelical, joined or supported the Klan, and several became prominent spokesmen for its anti-Catholic crusade. As the official Klan Lecturer in Oregon, the Rev. Reuben H. Sawyer enthusiastically proclaimed "The Truth about the Ku Klux Klan" to many audiences, including a crowd of several thousand at Portland's Municipal Auditorium in December 1921.

    Opponents of the Klan struggled to find allies. Most Oregonians did not join the Klan, but many supported its agenda and others declined to challenge it. Members of some religious denominations and social and fraternal organizations, minority groups, and a few politicians, including Republican Governor Ben Olcott, vigorously opposed it. The Medford Tribune, the Salem Capital Journal, the Hood River News, the Pendleton East Oregonian, the Portland Telegram, the Portland Advocate, and the Catholic Sentinel editorialized against the Klan, while most local newspapers supported it or took a neutral stance.

    Dramatically successful initially, Gifford soon alienated members with his dictatorial style. By 1924, Klansmen outside Portland, long wary, turned against him. As charges of corruption and sexual scandals plagued the Klan in other states, most Oregon Klansmen quit the organization. Some local Klans survived into the 1930s, but attempts to revive the state organization failed. During the Civil Rights Era, when new waves of Klan violence swept the South, the hooded order was only a fading memory in Oregon. Newer extremist groups, while often more militant, have been much smaller and far less successful in Oregon than the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.


    http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ku_klux_klan/
     
  4. Hobbesarable

    Hobbesarable Cartoon Character

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  5. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Not Klan related but to give you a glimpse into what Portland was like Bugsy Siegel originally wanted to put his casino down at Swan Island.

    Also Sammy Davis Jr left his family act and started performing as a solo act in a strip club in downtown Portland. Performed there for a few years before finally getting famous.
     
  6. MarAzul

    MarAzul LongShip

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    I wonder what organization or people they are meaning to highlight with this innuendo, " Newer extremist groups, while often more militant..."?
     
  7. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Jews with guns.

    See Further for example.
     
  8. Eastoff

    Eastoff But it was a beginning.

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    Mary's?
     
  9. Eastoff

    Eastoff But it was a beginning.

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    There was still redlining until 1990s
    http://www.ccrh.org/center/posters/nepassage/history.htm
     
  10. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    Clover Room.
     
  11. Nikolokolus

    Nikolokolus There's always next year

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    Medford as a hotbed of Klan activity doesn't surprise me in the least (I grew up in a rural area close to it).
     
  12. BlazerWookee

    BlazerWookee UNTILT THE DAMN PINWHEEL!

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    L'Chaim, and pass the ammunition!
     
  13. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    Small towns in Washington like Sedro Woolley are still full of racists who run blacks off their farms. I used to work with someone like that who hung around the City Council for influence.
     
  14. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    Hey Marzhul. You oughtta work for Loggers and Contractors in Sedro Woolley like I did. It would grow some hair on your chest.
     
  15. MarAzul

    MarAzul LongShip

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    I put in my days as a Rigging slinger and Faller, how do suppose I know what a Jillpoke is?
     
  16. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    You ever sat on a low branch and sawed down the trunk with you on it?
     
  17. BLAZINGGIANTS

    BLAZINGGIANTS Well-Known Member

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    Rouche much?
     
  18. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Beautiful Central Oregon Once had Camels, Flamingos, and Sabertooth Tigers

    ...
     
  19. MickZagger

    MickZagger Well-Known Member

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    I worked security at a Slipknot concert about 6 or 7 years ago and the Aryan Nations came from Salem and it got out of hand. They were going around sucker punching people. We had to call the PPD. I was BSing with a cop a couple weeks later and he said Oregon has a huge Aryan Nations problem. Not sure if true or he just wanted to tell a good story.
     
  20. ehizzy3

    ehizzy3 RIP mgb

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    Oregon has a pretty embarrassing racist past
     

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