https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558306/a-fever-in-the-heartland-by-timothy-egan/
A Fever in the Heartland
THE KU KLUX KLAN'S PLOT TO TAKE OVER AMERICA, AND THE WOMAN WHO STOPPED THEM
By Timothy Egan
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist
With narrative elan, Egan gives us a riveting saga of how a predatory con man became one of the most powerful people in 1920s America, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, with a plan to rule the countryand how a grisly murder of a woman brought him down. Compelling and chillingly resonant with our own time. Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile
The Roaring Twentiesthe Jazz Agehas been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. 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, hed 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. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman Madge Oberholtzer who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.
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(I grew up in the neighborhood.
Their children and grandkids are alive and well and many are carrying on the family tradition.)