The Klan: The White Cancer

Explore the history of the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest when Dr. Michael Luick-Thram presents “The Klan: The White Cancer” on Friday, Oct. 26, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Oak Park Public Library.

Hear the stories behind the three waves of the Ku Klux Klan, with emphasis on the Second Wave, which in the 1920s stormed the American Heartland but was less anti-African American than it was rabidly anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. Some Midwest communities or counties contained unusually high numbers of KKK members.

Dr. Luick-Thram is an American historian currently based in Erfurt, Germany. He has a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council to present programs in Chicago Public Libraries this fall. The programs are built around historical case studies that lend themselves to community-wide discussions. In the matter of the KKK, his knowledge began personally, because his great-grandfather was the Klan leader in the Iowa town where he was raised, a situation which affected the entire family.

This program is a collaboration of the Oak Park Friends and the Oak Park Public Library.