This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.

We all take history classes throughout our K-12 years, but those just teach the basics — vital basics, but still just the basics. Reading more about different topics in history truly deepens and enriches our understanding of what has occurred in our country and world. And, as the saying goes, if we don’t know our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.

This Book explores a period of history we do NOT want to repeat.

I had never read anything about the Ku Klux Klan (mostly I guess I could say I didn’t want to, really…). But this book taught me about a time a century ago I had no idea about. I was telling my husband about it as I read and his reaction was pretty much what mine was: the Klan was active in the North? In Indiana??

Yep.

Not only active, but for a decade or so, about a third of the population of Indiana in some places belonged to the KKK.

As the book’s description says, “And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows — their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership.”

The Klan was peddled as a family-friendly organization, one that espoused wholesome values, faith and patriotism. And a lot of whites joined.

But almost no one knew the kind of debauchery going on behind the scenes, and the twisted personality of its seemingly saintly leader. Unfortunately, a number of women fell victim to Stephenson’s predations. And one in particular finally was the one to bring him down, and the Klan in Indiana with it.

An absolutely fascinating book, and one that definitely (and unfortunately) echoes some of what we hear in our society and politics today. Timothy Egan makes the point at the end that Stephenson was a charismatic con man. But did he just make dupes of completely innocent people who had no prejudices? No.

“What if the leaders of the 1920s Klan didn’t drive public sentiment, but rode it? A vein of hatred was always there for the tapping. It’s there still, and explains much of the madness threatening American life a hundred years after Stephenson made a mockery of the moral principles of the Heartland. … It’s entirely possible that the Klan fell apart not just because of scandals and high-level hypocrisy, but also because it had achieved all of its major goals—Prohibition, disenfranchisement of African Americans, slamming the door on immigrants whose religion or skin color didn’t match that of the majority.”

A Fever in the Heartland is disturbing, sobering, and jarring. Not just because all of this happened, but because so much of it is echoing today. Prejudices are still alive and well and are being exploited for political gain. This book is fascinating and enlightening and I highly recommend it.

Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 5 instances of moderate profanity, about 15 uses of mild language, and a few instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes references to naked women and debauchery men in leadership positions in the Klan and political leaders of Indiana participated in. There are numerous references to lynchings and other violence (and threats of violence) to Jews, blacks, Catholics and any other groups the Klan had prejudice against. The other most frequent descriptions of violence are the rapes, attempted rapes, and attacks against numerous individual women by the leader of the Klan in Indiana. He was a predator and had some disturbing ways of taking control over women and hurting them.

Click here to purchase your copy of A Fever in the Heartland on Amazon. 

The post A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them appeared first on Rated Reads.