I was watching a story about D.C Stephenson today and thought I had written a piece about him. I did say a few things about him but I left out most of his story. He was the Grand Dragon.. or whatever of The Indiana Klu Klux Klan in the 1920’s and was responsible for the demise of the second era of the Klan. He was convicted of the kidnapping, murder and rape of Madge Oberholtzer, a state employee who ran a program for adult illiteracy. On September 9, 1927, Stephenson released lists of public officials who were or had been on the Klan payroll. As a result of diminished reputation, the Klan membership plummeted from a high of almost 5 million to less than a few thousand. On March 25, 1950, he was paroled after spending 25 years for his crimes. Stephenson subsequently violated his parole by leaving the state. He was later captured in Minneapolis, Minnesota and given 10 years. Six years later the state paroled him again on condition that he leave Indiana and never return. Stephenson then moved to Jonesborough, Tennessee where he was employed at the Herald & Tribune newspaper. In 1961, at the age of 70, Stephenson was arrested in Independence, Missouri on charges of attempting to sexually assault a 16-year-old girl. ( I would give anything to know if the girl was African American…) He was released after paying a $300 fine because the charges were dropped on grounds of insufficient evidence. He was ordered to leave Missouri immediately. Some people wanted it cut off, but that’s another story.. In 1966 Stephenson died at his home in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Because he was an honorably discharged veteran he was buried at the USVA Mountain Home National Cemetery in Johnson City, Tennessee. In 1997 the Clinton Administration signed legislation that barred Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber and anyone convicted of a capitol offense from being buried in a National Cemetery. McVeigh was an Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War. One hundred and sixty eight people were killed in the Alfred P Murrah building in Oklahoma, including nineteen children. Six hundred and fifty more were injured in the blast. McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. In 2013 President Obama signed the Hallowed Grounds Act, which barred sex offenders and those convicted of aggravated sexual abuse, or sexual abuse or abusive sexual contact against a minor under age 13 from being buried in Nationals Cemeteries. So that’s that.. Now back to our original story publish February 28, 2019 © Hill1News.
Sojourner Truth Housing Project
Did you know that there were three distinct Klu Klux Klan era’s? Maybe I should frame it like this.. do you really give a #@@! if there were three different Klan era’s? Okay, I know what some of you are thinking and lawd… can we just be civil for a second. In 1943 at the end of the second Klan era, the membership numbered around two thousand nationwide. Down from the beginning of the second era in 1920, when it had over four million members. The first era begin in 1865 and lasted through the 1870’s. The first era didn’t last that long because federal troops were still stationed down South. Internal divisions, criminal behavior by leaders, one in particular, David Stephenson, who was convicted for abduction and rape, and external opposition brought about a collapse in the membership at the end of the second era. Now for sure, I don’t give a care how many Klan era’s there were either. I just brought it up to say it doesn’t take a lot of little black hearted, small johnson, racist to buy a couple sheets, some matches, meet in a dark field and get their anti negro on.
Case in point, on this day in 1942, a Detroit housing development, primarily intended for blacks, was named Sojourner Truth, in honor of the prominent Civil War abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. Local whites fiercely opposed allowing blacks to move into the development which was next to the ethnic Polish, all-white neighborhood. On January 20, 1942, the federal housing office responded to the Detroit Housing Commission’s concerns, saying that the Sojourner Truth housing project would be used for whites and another would be selected for blacks. But when a suitable site for blacks could not be found, government officials from the Washington D.C. Housing Authority agreed to allow blacks into the Sojourner Truth project, beginning February 28, 1942. On February 27, 1942, some 150 local ethnic Polish whites vowed to keep out any black tenants in the new project. Some were already scheduled to move in. In a nearby field, a cross was burning, alluding to the presence of the Klu Klux Klan. By the following morning, the crowd of whites, many armed, had grown to 1,200. Blacks who had already signed leases and paid rent tried to pass through the whites’ picket line, leading to a clash between white and black groups. Despite the mounting opposition from white groups, six black families had moved into the project by the end of April.
To prevent more violence, Detroit Mayor Edward Jeffries ordered the Detroit Police Department and state troops to keep the peace during this period. More than 1,100 city and state police officers and 1,600 Michigan National Guard troops (who were largely white) were mobilized and sent to the area around Nevada and Fenelon streets to guard the six African-American families who moved into the Sojourner Truth homes. Eventually, 168 black families moved into the homes. The police arrested 220 people, and 40 people were injured in the conflict. Twenty years earlier by 1920, Detroit had become the fourth-largest city in the United States, with an industrial and population boom driven by the rapid expansion of the automobile industry. In this era of continuing high immigration from southern and eastern Europe, the Klu Klux Klan had established a substantial presence in Detroit. The time also coincided with what was known as the “Great Migration,” which began in 1916 and lasted through the 70’s. Over six million African Americans moved from the Deep South to the urban area’s of the Northeast, Midwest and Western municipalities of the United States.
In 1941 at the beginning of the war, blacks numbered nearly 150,000 in Detroit, which had a total population of 1,623,452. Many African Americans had migrated from the South to Detroit as early as 1915 to as late as 1930 due to the auto industry new job opportunities. By 1942, Detroit’s population reached more than 2 million, absorbing some 400,000 whites and an additional 50,000 black migrants, mostly from the South. So this was the atmosphere these black men and women came to. Living in substandard housing… fighting for jobs and dignity… sneaking out at night to put out that 7 ft 2′ cross burning in front of town hall, because the light kept them up at night…. okay I’ll stop… anyway, it all came to a head on June 20, 1943.
Altercations between youths started on June 20, 1943. It was warm Sunday evening on Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River off Detroit’s mainland. In what was considered a communal disorder, youths fought intermittently through the afternoon. The brawl eventually grew into a confrontation between groups of whites and blacks on the long Belle Isle Bridge, crowded with more than 100,000 day trippers returning to the city from Belle Isle park. From there the riot spread into the city. Sailors joined the fight against blacks. The riot escalated in the city after a false rumor spread that a mob of whites had thrown an African-American mother and her baby into the Detroit River. Blacks looted and destroyed white property as retaliation. An equally false rumor that blacks had raped and murdered a white woman on the Belle Isle Bridge swept through white neighborhoods.
Angry mobs of whites spilled onto Woodward Avenue near the Roxy Theater around 4 a.m., beating blacks as they were getting off street cars on their way to work. They also went to the black neighborhood of Paradise Valley, one of the oldest and poorest neighborhoods in Detroit, attacking blacks who were trying to defend their homes. Blacks attacked white-owned businesses saying, “You knew about me, the fake ID, cases in Virginia, body in D.C. Woe, oh is me, that’s what I get for trickin’ Pay my own bail, commence to ass kickin’ Kick in the door, wavin’ the four-four, All you heard was, “Poppa don’t hit me no more.” It was hot!!
Okay, they ain’t say that, but they did start attacking white owned businesses. The clashes soon escalated to the point where mobs of whites and blacks were “assaulting one another, beating innocent motorists, pedestrians and streetcar passengers, burning cars, destroying storefronts and looting businesses.”Both sides were said to have encouraged others to join in the riots with false claims that one of “their own” had been attacked unjustly. Blacks were outnumbered by a large margin, and suffered many more deaths, personal injuries and property damage.
The riots lasted three days and ended only after Mayor Jeffries and Governor Harry Kelly asked President Franklin Roosevelt to intervene. He ordered in Federal troops. A total of 6,000 troops imposed a curfew, restored peace and occupied the streets of Detroit. Over the course of three days of rioting, 34 people had been killed. 24 were African Americans; 17 were killed by the police (their forces were predominantly white and dominated by ethnic whites..). Thirteen deaths remain unsolved. Nine deaths reported were white, and out of the 1,800 arrests made, 85% of them were African American, and only 15% were white. Of the approximately 600 persons injured, more than 75 percent were black people.
Well that’s it… well almost.. I didn’t talk about the third era. The third era started in the early to mid 50’s of the 20th century. It ended in 1965 after Viola Liuzzo, a white mother of five children was shot to death in the third Selma to Montgomery march by Klan members. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech publicly condemning the Klan and announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the murder. Cases of Klan-related violence became more isolated in the decades to follow, though fragmented groups became aligned with neo-Nazi or other right-wing extremist organizations from the 1970s onward. In the early 1990s, the Klan was estimated to have between 6,000 and 10,000 active members, mostly in the Deep South.
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