The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas: How Protestant White Nationalism Came to Rule a State (Hardcover)

The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas: How Protestant White Nationalism Came to Rule a State By Kenneth C. Barnes Cover Image
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Winner, 2022 J.G. Ragsdale Book Award, Arkansas Historical Association

The Ku Klux Klan established a significant foothold in Arkansas in the 1920s, boasting more than 150 state chapters and tens of thousands of members at its zenith. Propelled by the prominence of state leaders such as Grand Dragon James Comer and head of Women of the KKK Robbie Gill Comer, the Klan established Little Rock as a seat of power second only to Atlanta. In The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas, Kenneth C. Barnes traces this explosion of white nationalism and its impact on the state’s development.

Barnes shows that the Klan seemed to wield power everywhere in 1920s Arkansas. Klansmen led businesses and held elected offices and prominent roles in legal, medical, and religious institutions, while the women of the Klan supported rallies and charitable activities and planned social gatherings where cross burnings were regular occurrences. Inside their organization, Klan members bonded during picnic barbeques and parades and over shared religious traditions. Outside of it, they united to direct armed threats, merciless physical brutality, and torrents of hateful rhetoric against individuals who did not conform to their exclusionary vision.

By the mid-1920s, internal divisions, scandals, and an overzealous attempt to dominate local and state elections caused Arkansas’s Klan to fall apart nearly as quickly as it had risen. Yet as the organization dissolved and the formal trappings of its flamboyant presence receded, the attitudes the Klan embraced never fully disappeared. In documenting this history, Barnes shows how the Klan’s early success still casts a long shadow on the state to this day.

About the Author


Kenneth C. Barnes is professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of Who Killed John Clayton?: Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South and Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas: How Politicians, the Press, the Klan, and Religious Leaders Imagined an Enemy, 1910–1960, winner of the J. G. Ragsdale Book Award in Arkansas History.

Praise For…


 “Ken Barnes has skillfully produced a work that is accessible to a general audience and one that offers new insights for historians. An undeniable contribution to Arkansas and American history.”


—Ben F. Johnson III, author of Arkansas in Modern America



“A welcome addition to what has become a revival of scholarly interest regarding the Second Ku Klux Klan at the centennial of the organization’s spread across the United States. Localized and statewide studies, as Barnes’s publication demonstrates, are crucial pieces in understanding not only the complexities of groups like the KKK, but also how deeply intertwined its key tenets were to mainstream American society.”
—Sean Rost, Missouri Historical Review

“As with his previous books, Barnes strikes the right balance with vignettes that will prove especially compelling to readers within Arkansas but will have wide appeal to readers outside the state. As the KKK’s ideas reverberate today, this book is essential reading for teachers and public officials.”
—Barclay Key, Journal of Southern History, April 2022

“On the surface, the spectacular rise of the Arkansas Klan may appear to have derived from the ambition and charisma of the Comers, who enjoyed the support of Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans and other national leaders of the Invisible Empire. Yet, as Kenneth C. Barnes demonstrates in this exhaustively researched and careful study, the Klan stirred deep responses in Arkansas society that tapped into powerful popular beliefs about community and order as well as fears of change among the state’s overwhelmingly Protestant white population. … Barnes’ updated and insightful history of the Klan movement in one of its most interesting strongholds advances historical analysis of of the Klan wave of the 1920s. For those seeking to understand Arkansas in the first half of the twentieth century, Barnes has contributed an essential study.”
—Thomas R. Pegram, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Winter 2021


Product Details
ISBN: 9781682261590
ISBN-10: 168226159X
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Publication Date: March 26th, 2021
Pages: 248
Language: English