In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan expanded into New England and tried to make Boston a capital of their invisible empire. However, their deep hatred for Catholics and Jews, as well as their promotion of “100% Americanism,” made the KKK a hard sell in an area where the population was growing rapidly, with a constant stream of Jewish and Catholic immigrants. After staying on the sidelines at first, Boston’s colorful mayor James Michael Curley made it his mission to drive the KKK out of Boston. After a few highly publicized Klan rallies in and around Boston, Curley began to fight them with rhetoric and questionably legal manipulation of the city permitting process.
Continue reading Mayor Curley’s Plan to Ban the Klan (episode 148)
