Episode 2, 2012: Fiery Cross
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Jan Hazel: My name is Jan Hazel. I live in Friendsville, Tennessee.
About 12 years ago, I bought an old record player in an antique store in a small town in
Indiana. There was all sorts of music in there, but one record stood out. The title on one side
was “The Bright Fiery Cross” and the title on the other side, “The Jolly Old Klansman”,
spelled with a “K”. These seem to be references to the Ku Klux Klan.
Tukufu Zuberi: Now, when I first heard about this story… I’m like, you know, it could be
interesting… but who wants to talk about the Klan? Then when I thought about that, I was
like, you know, it’s actually important to talk about the Klan.
So can we take a look at the record you wanted to show me?
Okay. “Our Song” - “The Bright Fiery Cross.” “The Jolly Old Klansman.”
Tukufu: Do you collect Klan materials?
Jan: No, not at all. It made me really kind of sad that if it is a Klan record, that they would use
something like that to promote themselves.
Tukufu: Jan tried to play the 78 RPM disc, but the sound was bad and she didn’t want to
damage it, or the record player, a model she thinks dates to 1918.
Jan: After I found that record, sometime later, I came across this.
Tukufu: KKK Records. Yes.
Jan: Mhmm.
Tukufu: This is interesting. What do you want to know?
Jan: I would like to know if it is a Klan record.
Tukufu: Mhmm
Jan: And, were they really so prevalent that they produced records for people to purchase?
Tukufu: So I’m going to take good care of your record and your record cover. Get ‘em both
back to you when I have some answers for.
Jan: Ok, thank you very much
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Tukufu: Thank you.
The title suggests a Klan connection, but I’ve never heard of them recording music or selling
it.
Our Song – ‘The Bright Fiery Cross’ sung by 100% Americans." You know, those are just
words. They take on a different meaning, however, when you're talking about the Klan. Any
time they say 100% anything, I know I'm not included.
She already tried to play this, she wasn't successful. So I'm going to let an expert play it for
me. I do see that there's some etchings of some numbers on here: 11462. I have no idea
what that means. Let’s try "The Bright Fiery Cross."
Ok. I do have something here, I have the lyrics. Wow.
Listen to this, "Over all the U.S.A., the fiery cross we display." This gives me very violent
imagery in my head. This was a cross that you put on someone’s lawn because you didn’t
want them to live in your neighborhood. This was a cross you burned in front of a church
because you didn’t want that church there.
Threats, beatings, and murder were all part of the Klan’s brutal tactics, but where does this
disc fit in? Now we do have some clues here, “American Record Shop, 130 Virginia Avenue,
Indianapolis, Indiana.”
So I’m going to go and see what we can find in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m meeting a
professor of African American Studies, Cornelius Bynum, who’s an expert on the Klan.
Now how did you get into the Klan?
Cornelius Bynum: I’m interested in issues of race and class, and the Klan figures
prominently.
Tukufu: Here’s what I’ve got. Have you ever seen anything like this before?
Cornelius: I don't believe that I have.
Cornelius and Tukufu: "The Bright Fiery Cross".
Tukufu: Sung by 100% Americans.
Cornelius: Mm – Okay, well, that's a pretty important clue right there. The Klan has a
particular phrase that it uses in its second iteration, in the 1920s, that talks about 100%
Americanism. And of course in Indiana, there was a Klan publication called The Fiery Cross.
And so, those two pieces of information suggest to me that this is a Klan production.
Tukufu: Professor Bynum explains how the Ku Klux Klan formed in the 1860s to suppress
newly freed blacks. But he suspects our disc is propaganda from a second period of
organizing shortly after World War I.
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Cornelius: As we move from the 1910s into the 1920s, increasingly, native whites become
concerned about immigration, about ethnicity and religion. And certainly, are concerned
about African-Americans leaving the South and moving North, seeking, um, better economic
and social opportunity. And in the 1920s the Klan find new life in the Midwest, the West and
the North. And this notion of 100% Americanism is central to how the Klan markets itself
outside of the south.
Tukufu: Professor Bynum says Jan’s record could be an example of how the Klan used
mass media to organize on a national stage. By the mid 1920s, Klan propaganda had
helped pull in over 3 million members with some estimates as high as eight million
nationwide.
Bynum: Perhaps the most important cultural production of Klan propaganda, ah, in the early
20th century is a film called "Birth of a Nation", which is the D. W. Griffith adaptation of
Thomas Dixon's, "The Clansman", which is this kind of celebratory retrospective of the Klan
and the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
Tukufu: While “Birth of a Nation” wasn’t made by the Klan, it did help inspire their
resurgence. But Professor Bynum thinks our record was probably Klan-made and sold by
local groups.
Cornelius: One of the things that strikes me about this record is that on the sleeve it says
Indianapolis. And in fact that does make sense to me, because Indianapolis and Indiana
generally is a really important pathway for the Klan out of the South and into the Midwest.
Tukufu: The Indiana Klan integrated itself into the mainstream through politics. But it also
employed an intimidation tactic prevalent in this second wave of organizing: the burning of a
bright, fiery cross.
Cornelius: It represents, on the one hand, the light of salvation, but it also is representative
of purification. Purifying the American culture of the scourge of inferior races, inferior
cultures.
Tukufu: So historically it has been used to terrify African-Americans and other groups.
Cornelius: It's a warning.
Tukufu: Now, would they have used something like this to play over the radio, to invoke
fear?
Cornelius: I don't think it would have been used to invoke fear. But rather, just as with "Birth
of a Nation", to try to recast the violent past of the Klan as a heroic effort to preserve
something essentially American, essentially white.
Tukufu: But the Klan’s message was also associated with fearful consequences. Professor
Bynum suggests that a lynching such as this one in Marion, Indiana in 1930 could be more
easily justified if a man was viewed as less than 100% American.
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Cornelius: There's no horror displayed in the faces of any of the individuals in the audience.
They're in fact, giving legitimacy, uh, to the taking of life in this particular context. And again,
it connects directly to the kind of propaganda efforts represented by this record, to recast this
kind of shadowy violence as something heroic, as something noble.
Tukufu: Where did this record come from?
Cornelius: Well, things like this were widely available, and could be purchased openly at
most stores, in communities around the country. But to find out where this record
specifically came from, you'd have to talk to a records expert.
Tukufu: Look, thank you very much. You've been a great help, I really appreciate it.
Cornelius: You're welcome.
Tukufu: This is a Klan recording, no doubt. But my conversation with Professor Bynum
brings up more questions about who made this and where? So, I’m meeting with Phil
Oldham, a record collector with a special knowledge of early Klan music.
How you doing, Phil?
Phil Oldham: Good to see you.
Tukufu: He’s brought a turntable that can safely play a 78 RPM disc.
[Music playing]: "Over all the U.S.A., the fiery cross we display, the emblem of Klansmen’s
domain.”
Phil: That was put out by the Indiana Klan.
Tukufu: Where does this song come from?
Phil Oldham: This song is a rewrite of "The Old Rugged Cross," a Protestant hymn, that was
copyrighted in about 1905, by Reverend George Bennard. They stole his music and put new
words to it.
Tukufu: How big would a record like this have been? How many would have sold?
Phil: They would probably have been in the low thousands.
Tukufu: Phil confirms that recordings such as this were sold by local Klan groups. He’s
unearthed a couple of items, including the publication Professor Bynum referred to.
Phil: This is "The Fiery Cross," newspaper and it was published every Friday here in
Indianapolis. Let's look at some the ads from the paper. Here's one for the American Record
Shop.
Tukufu: So, is this an advertisement for our record?
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Phil: It is. "The Bright Fiery Cross," yeah. The Klan headquarters were also on Virginia
Avenue in that same block.
Tukufu: And who are these guys?
Phil: This is the Logansport KKK Quartet, from Logansport, Indiana. This is the group that
sings on your…
Tukufu: Wait, these are the guys?
Phil: These are the guys.
Tukufu: Where was this record made?
Phil: I believe it was made in Richmond, Indiana. At a company called The Starr Gennett
Company.
Tukufu: So my four guys would have made their way to Richmond, to where?
Phil: The Starr Gennett factory.
Tukufu: Phil tells me these etchings are matrix numbers, and says they may provide more
information. He suggests I visit the Indiana Historical Society.
Alright, so here are the matrix numbers that Phil has guided us to. Bam, found ‘em. We
have our 11-4-6-2 and our 11-4-6-2-A, and now we know exactly when our record was
recorded, May 16th, 1923. “The Bright Fiery Cross.” “The Jolly Old Klansman.” Star
Gennette wasn’t just making Klan Records, that’s for sure. New Orleans Rhythm Kings…
that don’t sound Klan-ish at all. King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band, you’re not going to
have any Klan group calling themselves Creole anything. And King Oliver is one of the most
important names in early jazz. This is getting interesting.
I’m here to meet with Rick Kennedy to find out about the Starr Gennett Recording Studio.
I’ve mostly answered Jan’s questions, but this new information has added a totally new twist.
They got Creole bands. They got blues bands, and then they got Klan bands? What’s going
on? I need some answers.
How you doing?
Rick Kennedy: Hey, good to see you. Welcome to Richmond, Indiana.
Tukufu: Thanks a lot. So tell me, uh, 1920. Richmond, Indiana.
Rick: Right.
Tukufu: What's going on in this city?
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Rick: Well, this is a boom town. This is a boom industrial city. It was also the time of a rise of
the Ku Klux Klan.
Tukufu: Rick says, like much of Indiana at the time, Richmond had a significant Klan
population.
Rick: It's been estimated that one out of three protestant males in Richmond at that time, in
the early 1920s, were Klan members.
Tukufu: So talk to me about Gennett Music Company.
Rick: Well, Gennett Records was a subsidiary of a big piano company, called Starr Pianos.
Tukufu: Okay.
Rick: Run by the Gennett family.
Tukufu: Alright. These people members of the Klan?
Rick: They were not at all members of the Klan. The Gennett family, they were Italians by
descent. It would have been a complete oxymoron.
Tukufu: The Gennett Company was not “100 % American” by Klan standards, but according
to Rick, for the Klan and the Gennetts, it was a marriage of convenience.
Rick: There was no other record company in the Midwest as-as important as Gennett
Records, so it's simply a business proposition of coming in with a singer and maybe a band
or a piano play, and then doing what they call vanity records. They would just give them
cash up front, the Gennetts would record them and press them.
This is what’s pretty much left of the Starr-Piano factory, Gennett Records division.
Tukufu: Okay so this is the record. What can you tell me?
Rick: You notice, you see no reference to Richmond, Indiana – no reference to Gennett.
Tukufu: Rick explains the Gennett family took the Klan’s money to make their records, but
had no desire to be associated with the final product. He says that Jan’s disc was recorded
in the same studio where Gennett had only recently made music history.
Rick: Five weeks before this record was made, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, with this shy
second coronetist name Louis Armstrong, comes down to this very spot to record a series of
fantastic records, including “Chime's Blues”, the first solo recording of Louis Armstrong.
Tukufu: The same talented engineer who had recorded the Klan’s disc also captured the
beauty of Louis Armstrong’s coronet.
Rick: The studio engineer was a man named Ezra Wickemeyer.
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Tukufu: Wickemeyer had helped make history that day. But it seems he had a history of his
own.
You wanted to know where your record came from.
[Music playing]: We will be forever true, to the red, white, and blue, and Americans always
remain.”
Jan: It makes me really sad that – that they used a spiritual hymn to convey their really
terrible message.
Tukufu: I explain how her disc was a record of a time when the Klan was growing rapidly in
the cities of the North and Midwest. At the same time, the Gennett Music Company was
doing something else very different.
Here we have "Chimes Blues," in which Louis Armstrong plays his first recorded solo. This is
the guy who produced both of those songs. This is Ezra Wickemeyer.
Rick: And he was a member of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. And then he was also in
charge of recording this particular record here on May 16th, 1923, just five weeks later.
Tukufu: So these songs really represent the contradiction of race in America, that you would
have the same engineer producing this, "The Bright Fiery Cross", for the purposes of the
Klan, also producing this beautiful music which becomes historic and groundbreaking. We
can only speculate on Wickemeyer’s motivations, but the contradictions between his political
beliefs and his work illustrate the complex racial environment of the time.
Jan: It seems that the, uh, jazz and the good music and the goodness of the, the black
culture has risen to the top, and overcome the darkness of that song.
Tukufu: I couldn't have said it more clearly. Thank you very much.
Jan: You’re welcome.
Tukufu: “The Bright Fiery Cross” was recorded at the height of the Indiana Klan’s power. By
1925, sex and corruption scandals among the state’s KKK leadership led to a mass drop off
in membership. Jan is looking into donating the record to a museum or historical society.
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