Historical Book Club: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America

Take a book back in time! This month we will be reading "A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them," by Timothy Egan.

No registration needed.

The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has 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, 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. 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.

A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.

You may also like the following events from Lawrenceburg Public Library District Genealogy & Local History:

• Next Tuesday, 12th August, 10:00 am, Cemetery Tour - St. John's Lutheran Hubbles Corner in Sunman
• This October, 4th October, 11:00 am, Genealogy Roundtable: Global Genealogy Journey in Lawrenceburg

Also check out other Entertainment events in Lawrenceburg, Performances in Lawrenceburg, Music events in Lawrenceburg.