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Essay Directory
2007 - 2008 Essays
Liberty Ladies
College: A Modern Educational Experience
by Alyssa Emery
Liberty Rising:
the 1934 Fire
by Rachel Ibok
Zerelda Mimms James:
Lover of a
Bandit
by Lindsey Melvin
2006 - 2007 Essays
Convention City
by
Lilia Toson
David Rice Atchison:
A Champion of the
People
by
Jesus Lopez
Dr. Seymore Pearley -
Clay County's First
African American Dentist
by Hayley VanderStel
Humphrey “Yankee” Smith
by Jonathan Entzminger
Missouri City in Black and White
or
Rebuilding a Culture
by Devin DeMoure
The Drake Constitution: When Missouri White
Men Could Not Vote
by
Kali Shipley
The Other James Brother
by Madison McGraw
White Oak: A Tender Side
of the Racial
Divide
by
Evelaca Dobbins
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 Lilia Toson,
political science major, is a May ‘07, William Jewell College alum. Her
research interests include race relations in the United States and abroad
as well as the racial implications of United States policy both foreign
and domestic. She is currently attending law school at the New York
University School of Law. Following the completion of her Juris
Doctorate, Lilia plans on becoming a public servant and policy advocate.
Convention City
It seems that attracting
large conventions is constantly an issue in the Kansas City metropolitan
area. In fact, the mayoral election between Mark Funkhouser and Alvin
Brooks centered on how much to use tax incentives to build the
infrastructure to accomplish just that goal. The votes split largely
between those North and South of the Missouri River. Such lines of
division are a reminder of a time when Kansas City, including the
Northland and its other surrounding areas, was a welcoming home to one
convention that only politics was the concern.
The
year was 1924, and the event was the second convention of the National
Imperial Klonvocation of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan. The
first convention was held in St. Louis, Missouri in 1922. In 1924, five
thousand individuals were in attendance at the event, and the Imperial
Wizard Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans of Atlanta supplied insight as to the choice
of the Kansas City metropolitan area as the location for their meeting.
He said, “This Klonvocation, held here in the great Middle West, is
assembled on the battlefield of the immediate future. Some of the Eastern
states are today lost to true Americanism and must be rewon; but the great
American population of the Middle West, of the South, and of the Southwest
are (sic) left to do valiant battle.”
A
group of three thousand individuals eager to engage in that battle,
including Klansmen and their families, gathered for another Klan meeting
on May 23rd, 1924. That gathering occurred in a pasture on the
west side of Liberty, Missouri and constituted one of the largest Ku Klux
Klan meetings in the history of Clay County, a county north of the
Missouri river in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The attendees of
this summit waited while more than 600 of their fellow Klansmen marched
around the Liberty city square in full Klan regalia before joining the
assembly.
While
Klansmen marched to join the battle for the ‘true Americanism’ espoused by
Dr. Evans, across the state line in Kansas, another man was ready to wage
a war on his own-William Allen White, writer and Editor of the Emporia
Gazette. White’s experience was not limited to this ‘great Middle
West’ though. He had been an observer for the Red Cross during World War
One and become a national figure through that endeavor and numerous other
activities. The New York Times called him “straightforward, unaffected,
and hard-hitting”. However, White’s war would not be one of journalism,
but rather one of politics.
1924
was also the year of a gubernatorial race in Kansas. At the very time of
Klonvocation, White was researching the candidates for the state’s highest
office. He did not like what he found; his research indicated that both
the Republican candidate and the Democratic incumbent had received the
support of the Klan in their primaries. It was at that point that White
became a politician and the Independent candidate for Governor.
In a
statement reprinted in the New York Times on Monday, October 6th,
1924, White explained:
"I want to be the Governor to free Kansas from the disgrace
of the Ku Klux Klan; and I want to offer to Kansans, afraid of the Klan
and ashamed of that disgrace, a candidate who shares their fear and shame.
. . The thought that Kansas should have a government beholden to this
hooded gang of masked fanatics, ignorant and tyrannical in their ruthless
oppression, is what calls me out of the pleasant ways of my life, into
this distasteful, but necessary, task. . . It is a nation-wide menace,
this Klan. It knows no party. It knows no country. It knows bigotry,
malice and terror. Our national Government is founded on reason and the
Golden Rule. This Klan is preaching and practicing terror and force. Its
only prototype is the Soviet of Russia. So I feel that I am walking the
path of duty in going into this race."
The
Klan did not take so kindly to the new Independent candidate’s
conclusions. At Klonvocation, the Klansmen labeled a goat with White’s
name and paraded it about as they laughed. They did not remotely consider
voting for him. Neither did most of the rest of Kansas it seems, for
William Allen White lost the election.
Though it was not the central issue in the election, one has to wonder if
the economic interest of such a relatively huge convention influenced the
race. Luckily, Mr. White never let such issues cloud his judgment. One
may or may not be able to say the same for today’s Kansas City area
politicians, who seem more concerned with conventions and tax increment
financing than with race relations or broader moral issues.
Works Cited
“Ku Klux Klan in
Liberty in the Early 1920’s.” Liberty
Sun.10 March 1982.
New
York Times.
6 October 1924.
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