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New Book Shines Light on History of Indiana’s KKK

by Craig Coley The Ku Klux Klan’s iconic white hoods and burning crosses have become symbols of white supremacy, but the Klan’s place in the American consciousness outstrips most people’s understanding. In a new book, Bloomington historian James H. Madison dispels misconceptions about an organization whose membership for a time included one-third of Indiana’s native-born white men. To Madison, a retired professor of history at Indiana University, the story of the Klan is highly relevant today. “Klan-type thinking and Klan-type ideals are still with us,” Madison says. “Maybe even more so.”

Author and editor of several books, including two Indiana state histories, Madison, 76, for many years resisted delving

James H. Madison. Photo by Matthew Levandowski

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deep into this topic because of its unpleasantness. “What pushed me to do it was that in decades of teaching at IU and speaking around the state and elsewhere, the question I most often got was about the Klan,” Madison says. The Klan flourished in three eras: post-Civil War, the 1920s, and the 1960s. Madison’s book, The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland, published this year by IU Press, tells the story of the Klan in Indiana. It focuses on the 1920s but continues through the 1960s, when Klan members firebombed the Black Market, a Black-owned store on East Kirkwood, and up to the present. The Indiana Klan of the 1920s considered Catholics the biggest threat, followed by Jews and Black Americans. Their overarching belief was in the superiority of the “100% American,” who was white, nativeborn, and Protestant. They had a weekly newspaper and a political machine that dominated state politics.

Madison dismisses the claim of some writers that most Klan members were uneducated people ignorant of the group’s goals. “The people who joined the Klan were ‘good Hoosiers’ by the definitions of the day,” Madison says. “They were lawyers, protestant ministers, school teachers, factory foremen, retail merchants, church women. Many of the people who joined were true believers. They paid a lot of money in dues and fees and robes and time.”

Madison devotes a chapter to people who resisted the Klan, and concludes by discussing its legacy. “The Klan in the ’20s had a powerful definition of America that attracted a lot of attention,” Madison says. “And right now, we’re in the midst of a debate over the questions, ‘Who is an American?’, ‘What is America?’, ‘What are our ideals?’ It’s really about the future of our democracy.” *

Informatics Prof Is IU’s 7th MacArthur Fellow

by Carmen Siering The MacArthur Fellows Program offers a $625,000 “genius grant” to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the potential for making future advances. The program is highly selective and rather secretive. It’s also kind of sneaky. The announcement is made each fall, but recipients find out they have joined the elite group only slightly sooner than the rest of the world.

Mary L. Gray, one of 21 winners in 2020, is an associate professor of informatics at the Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. She is the seventh winner from IU, and the first since 2003. Like most recipients, Gray was unaware of her selection. Fellows are recommended by a constantly changing pool of anonymous nominators and chosen by committee.

To set the stage, the director of the program contacted Gray and asked for a meeting to discuss an anthropologist being considering for the award. Due to her heavy research schedule, Gray says, “I was kind of put out and kind of envious. But I wanted to be a good citizen, so I put it on my schedule.”

When the call came, she was quickly told the whole thing was a ruse. “I kind of lost focus,” she laughingly admits. “I asked if they were considering me, and when they explained I had been selected, I just started swearing like a sailor.”

A California native, Gray, 51, did her field work in rural communities bordering Kentucky and came to IU when a job that was “a perfect fit” opened up in the former Department of Communication and Culture.

An anthropologist and media scholar by training, Gray’s work focuses on how everyday technologies transform the lives of two groups she cares deeply about: those who work in the world of contract labor and LGBTQ youth. She was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation for “investigating the ways in which labor, identity, and human rights are transformed by the digital economy.”

She plans to use the award money to continue work she started as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It involves technologies and community health workers and building relationships of trust,” she says.

In addition to being a Luddy faculty member, Gray is a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. *

Mary L. Gray Courtesy photo