The Institute for Public Knowledge will host historian Linda Gordon for the launch of “The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and American Political Tradition” (Liveright) on Wed., Oct. 25.

Linda Gordon's “The Second Coming of the KKK”

New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge will host historian Linda Gordon for the launch of “The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and American Political Tradition” (Liveright) on Wed., Oct. 25, 6-8 p.m. at 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor (between 5th and 6th Streets).

Gordon, a professor in NYU’s Department of History, will discuss her new work with Caroline Kitchener, an associate editor at the Atlantic and author of “Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College,” and Eric K. Ward, a long-time civil rights strategist and the incoming executive director at Western States Center.

A new Ku Klux Klan arose in the early 1920s—a less violent but equally poisonous descendant of the terrorist Klan begun in the 1870s South. This “second Klan” flourished above the Mason-Dixon Line by targeting Catholics, Jews, and people of color as a threat to America’s destiny. In “The Second Coming of the KKK,” Gordon demonstrates that the second Klan’s bigotry differed only in intensity from that of millions of other WASP Americans. Klan membership was not only respectable but even conferred prestige, offering an entrée into the “middle class” for many members.  

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Space limited to availability. For more information, please call 212.998.8466.

Subways: 6 (Astor Place, Bleecker Street); R, W (8th Street)

 

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James Devitt
James Devitt
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