The Ku Klux Klan in Texas papers

Collection

Identifier: MS 0727

Staff Only

Finding aid note: Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Content Description

This collection consists of a photograph, correspondence, and a book relating to the Ku Klux Klan Texas chapter and Rice.

Dates

Creation: 1922 - 1925

Creator

Unknown (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

These materials are open for research.

Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, 1922-1925 must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library.

The Woodson Research Center use policy is that researchers assume sole responsibility for any infringement of privacy, literary rights, copyrights, or other rights arising from their use of the archival materials. In addition to any restrictions placed by donors, certain kinds of archival materials are restricted for the life of the creator plus 50 years. These materials include, but are not limited to, student grades, transcripts, and any job applications or recommendations.

Historical Note

On November 25, 1921 a humorous article in the Rice student newspaper, The Thresher described a "Koo Klucks" organization appearing on the campus. In the 1922 Campanile yearbook, a photograph in the student organization section shows several students in white Klan style costume. The "photographer" is listed as A. Klucker. There is no official mention of a Klan chapter in the Rice Institute records.

A supposed presence of the Klan at Rice in the early 1920s coincided with the establishment of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915 in Atlanta, Georgia and the establishment of a Texas clavern (chapter) in Houston in September 1920, Sam Houston Klan No. 1. The new Klansmen adopted the name, the costume, the symoblism, and the language of the first Ku Klux Klan (in operation from 1866 to about 1871) and it embraced a philosophy of fundamentalism, resistence to change, moral certitude, and Americanism.

Greene, Casey. "Guardians Agains Change: The Ku Klux Klan in Houston and Harris County, 1920-1925." The Houston Review, Volume X, Number 1, 1988.