KLAN ATTEMPT TO PARADE THROUGH CARNEGIE STOPPED
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (JFK+50) On April 26, 1923, the Associated Press reports "one man was killed...and an unknown number of others" were injured at midnight tonight when citizens of the Pittsburgh suburb of Carnegie* "clashed with robed members of the Ku Klux Klan."
The confrontation took place at the Glendale bridge over Chartiers creek. A police motorcycle squad has been sent in to stop further attempts by KKK members to enter the town.
The AP estimates that 10,000 Klansmen had gathered on the hill above Carnegie preceding an attempt to march through the town. The KKK had no permit from officials to conduct the parade.
JFK+50 NOTE
The good citizens of Carnegie parked their automobiles on the bridge at the entrance of their town to prevent Klansmen from entering and conducting a parade.
According to Linda Gordon, the KKK of the 1920s "largely flourished" north of the Mason-Dixon Line & boasted of an army of 4 to 6 million. Ms. Gordon says that the KKK of that decade became a "major political force."
*Carnegie is a borough of Allegheny County, PA & part of the Pittsburgh metro area. It was formed in 1894 by the merger of the towns of Mansfield & Chartiers which faced each other on opposite sides of Chartiers Creek.
SOURCES
"One Slain, Many Hurt As Crowd Attacks Klansmen Parade," The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., August 26, 1923, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
"The second coming of the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition," by Linda Gordon, Smithsonian, www.si.edu/
