Hate and hope on the Iron Range

A century ago, Iron Rangers cheered, fretted and fought the rise of the Ku Klux Klan across the Mesabi. The hate and hope of this time remain with us today.

Word of the Klan arrived much earlier. A hit movie, “The Birth of a Nation,’ played in Duluth and Iron Range theaters in 1915 and ’16. This silent film, which relies on a number of racist stereotypes, portrays the KKK as a force of good, restoring order to the South after the U.S. Civil War. 

This complicated film held enormous power over American pop culture, creating a model for Hollywood blockbusters while transmitting 19th century white supremacy to a modern audience. But arguably its worst legacy was reviving the Ku Klux Klan. “Birth of a Nation” made this long dormant terrorist organization — one that killed and disenfranchised newly freed Black men, women and children — into something “cool.” Some of the first Klan chapters in the North appeared on college campuses.

In subsequent years, the Associated Press breathlessly reported Klan activity in wire reports. Almost every day, reports of lynchings of Black men in the South appeared on the front page of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Each year, the stories got closer to home. Southern contempt for freed Blacks was easily transferred to recent immigrants in places like the Iron Range. 

On July 21, 1923 Klansmen burned two crosses on both ends of Virginia. They sought to intimidate Catholic immigrant voters the night before the school board elections. By October, a Klan recruiter was working his way through businesses and civic organizations across the Mesabi. On two separate occasions that month, a burning cross was lit on a mine dump overlooking the mostly Catholic Hibbing neighborhood of Brooklyn. In November 1923, the Klan held meetings in Hibbing and Virginia. On Christmas Eve, another cross burned over Virginia.

The year 1924 saw the Klan go mainstream on the Mesabi. One Sunday, Klansmen filed into a Nashwauk church. To reassure startled congregants, they stated they were there on a “mission of peace” and left a bag of money on the back pew. Klan chapters held a Rangewide picnic in August. On Sept. 7, 1924, a Klan speaker held a public lecture at the Virginia recreational building.

The immigrants targeted by the burning crosses fought back in their own way. At great personal peril, men stormed up the mine dumps to extinguish the fiery specters as soon as they were seen. The Knights of Columbus and several Iron Range churches sponsored lectures decrying the hate and division of the Klan.

In 1924, Iron Range citizens began formal resistance to the Klan, starting with the first meeting of the Iron Range Tolerance League. Frank Harris, a farmer from Balkan Township, led the meeting held March 18 in Chisholm. Featured speakers included William McEwen, the editor of the Duluth Labor World, and State Rep. George Lommen of Biwabik. McEwen was a prominent Farmer-Labor Party member and Lommen was a Republican. (At the time, the Democratic Party was a non-factor in Minnesota politics).

McEwen said the Klan’s function was “to spread hatred and dissension among the working classes to make them forget their struggle for more bread and economic liberty.” 

The fight wasn’t over. Burning crosses persisted into 1925. Then, in March, armed men in masks ambushed a plainclothes Hibbing police detective and his family as they drove home to their farm on the edge of town. The bandits held the family at gunpoint and kidnapped the officer. At another location, they warned the officer against interfering with the Klan. This kind of lawlessness started to change public opinion.

On the Iron Range, the Klan and Tolerance League both faded during the Great Depression. Instead, communities — aided by the policies of the New Deal — joined together to help people survive economic hardship. By the 1940s, miners joined the United Steelworkers. Together with other industrial and trade unions — along with churches, local governments and civic organizations — these workers created the Iron Range most living people remember.

Conflicting forces have long battled on the Iron Range. Some push for the dominance of the most powerful social groups while others argue for acceptance of differences. Motives vary, though hate, fear and economic competition always fuel the discord. The lines between opposing groups shift with time. They are not always confined to certain political parties or religions. Sometimes friends and family fall on different sides. 

This was true when the Klan organized on the Mesabi Range and it’s true now. We can learn from the people who stood up for tolerance. They set the table for 43 nationalities — including different ethnicities, religions and political views — to sit together. No, we don’t agree. But we must work together or perish apart. 

If you’re interested, I’ll be delivering a lecture for the Northern Lights Music Festival entitled “American Values: How Early Iron Rangers Fought the KKK and Anti-Semitism.” The talk will take place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 11 at the B’nai Abraham Cultural Center at 328 5th Street South in Virginia.

I will also be giving a NLMF lecture entitled, “Best in the Nation: How Iron Range Education Led the Nation and Could Again.” That talk will take place at 7 p.m. on Monday, July 15 at the Veda Zupancic Auditorium at Mesabi East High School in Aurora. I’ll preview that talk next week.

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Saturday, July 6, 2024 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.