KKK had state headquarters in Seattle, says history project

November 13, 11:07 PMSeattle History ExaminerBenjamin Lukoff

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Ku Klux Klan gathering at the Crystal Pool Natatorium
at 2nd & Lenora, March 23, 1923. Courtesy Washington
State Historical Society.

An article in today's Seattle Times called my attention to what looks like the latest addition to the University of Washington's Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project Web site: The Ku Klux Klan in Washington State, 1920s.

"Wait a sec," you might say. "The Klan? In Washington? Surely not. Well, maybe in Eastern Washington. But not in Puget Sound — and certainly not in Seattle." But it should be remembered that Seattle's racial history is far from spotless, beginning with the Battle of Seattle and the execution of Chief Leschi, and continuing with the anti-Chinese riots of 30 years later, the Japanese internment during World War II, the Fort Lawton lynching incident, and the countless racial covenants that applied to sections of most neighborhoods and to the entirety of — to name a few — Blue Ridge, Broadmoor, Hawthorne Hills, Innis Arden, Normandy Park, and the Sand Point Country Club.

August 1923 cover of The Watcher on
the Tower, the Washington KKK's
monthly magazine.

So yes, as the article and project pages explain, the Klan was in Washington, and their state headquarters were in Belltown. The photo at top right is of Klansmen gathering at the old Crystal Pool Natatorium at 2nd & Lenora 85 years ago, and the image at bottom right the front cover of the August 1923 issue of their monthly magazine, The Watcher on the Tower. There are many, many more photos, clippings, and documents on the SCRLHP's Web site.

Apparently that incarnation of the Klan didn't last long here. In the early '20s they managed to draw as much as 70,000 people to their rallies, but their anti-Catholic, anti-private school Initiative 49, which went down to defeat in November 1924, was the beginning of their end in Washington. Apparently their power base shifted north to Bellingham, and by the end of the '30s they were pretty much done for.

However, a little digging on Google turned up a "Northwest Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" in Tacoma and the "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Realm of Washington" in Seattle (there's a page on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Web site listing a number of regional Klan and Neo-Nazi outfits). Neither appears to have a Web site of their own, so I have no idea about when they were formed or how many members they claim.

Looks like, though I haven't seen anyone in a white sheet and hood around here lately, these sorts of people are still in our midst. Something to keep in mind, especially next time you're down in Belltown.