Thank you for this article. I recommend also the work entitled “Sundown Towns” and its corollary web site that looks at demographics state by state that suggest the kind of history you document here. It has the ability then for anecdotal and researched details county by county, state by state. I am originally from Seattle, have lived in Houston, Texas, Chicago, IL, and now live in Madison, WI. I continue to be distressed by the myopia in this country concerning our own history and how it still carries forward into the present. But I have another query. My maternal grandfather was a Budget Director for the State of Oregon, though originally from Minnesota, and I have documented family history that he was active in opposing the deportation of Japanese citizens, as was Gov. Sprague, though they were both over-ruled by FDR. At that moment, he was mayor of the town of Ontario — and this is family anecdote with all the problematics of anecdote— and apparently went out to oppose a mob threatening a Japanese American family, leaving my grandmother terrified and weeping. All fine and well, but I am concerned not only about the truth element of this particular story, but more generally, any involvement with any Klan activities at all. I’d rather know than pretend. His name, George K. Aiken. I should add, except for Milwaukee, which is still divided but has some progress relative to its history of being “the Selma of the North” — true, see stories of Father Grappi— the state I live in now has a pretty terrible record itself of racial divide by design, and has a majority fairly unconscious of its own nature relative to this. Let’s also not forget anti-Semitism, anti-native American-ism. We had a cabin in Vilas Co WI and never displayed our identifiable last name in a place that had restaurants that had only recently removed signs: “No Jews, Indians, or dogs.” Summer a year ago a small town north of Milwaukee put up a sign on the lawn of a long-time resident who happened to be Jewish—- Leave town; and at the edge of town, a sign indicating that the town should be “cleansed” of Jews. What a country!

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