Lecture on history of Klan in KCK scheduled tonight

A history lecture on the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City, Kansas, is planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 13, at the Main Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library, second floor auditorium, 625 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

The lecture by Tim Rives, a historian who has written a book on the topic, will discuss the Klan’s rise in the 1920s in Kansas City, Kansas, and its infiltration for 30 years into the city’s political offices.

Rives’ book is “The Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City, Kansas,” published in August 2019.

Following a revival of the Ku Klux Klan nationwide in 1921, the Klan drew thousands of people to events in Kansas City, Kansas, and more than a hundred Klan members were elected to local public offices here. They intimidated immigrants and minorities and had a political machine.

Rives is the deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas.