What I’m Reading: The Second Coming of the KKK – 69 in a series – “Klan vigilantism sometimes expressly targeted labor unions…”

“Klan vigilantism sometimes expressly targeted labor unions, especially in cases where workers were not “Nordic.” Klan leaders sometimes articulated a general antagonism toward industrial workers but at other times kept silent, perhaps because industrial workers put up the greatest resistance.

But the Klan more often allied with corporate owners, especially if workers were not “right,” which was increasingly the case. In California, the Klan aligned itself with the big growers against the farmworkers, not only those of Mexican descent but also the perfectly “Nordic” “Okies.”72 In the 1930s the Klan openly aided the thugs used by the Associated Farmers and the California Citizens Association against farmworker unionization.”

The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon

What I'm Reading: The Second Coming of the KKK - 1 in a series

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† Available from the LA Public Library2

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