May 22, 2023 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, how an undercover agent infiltrated the KKK and, with the help of Superman, exposed them to the world.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and up next, our own
Joey Cortez brings you a story about a fictional character
we all know and love, Superman, and how he would
team up with the real life undercover agent to take
down a truly vicious villain.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Over the years, Superman has fought many villains, including the kkk.
Rick Bowers brings us the story of how the hero
not only fought this villain in the fictional series, but
also in real life. Here's Rick with the backstory.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
The actual Superman character was created by two Jewish kids
in Cleveland in the nineteen thirties. And these two kids
were high school students and they loved science fiction. They
would hold up in their attict studio reading science fiction magazines, books.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
They would go to the movies.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know, cape heroes like Zorro were doing great things
on the big screen, and they were taking all of
that in and they started to create their own characters.
And they created a character and a story called the
Reign of Superman. But in that first iteration, Superman was bad.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
He was an.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Evil scientist doing horrid experiments on homeless men during the depression,
and he had no real superpowers. He was just super evil.
So they were creating some interesting characters, but there was
always something about that character, that original Superman.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
That not quite right.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So they put that on a shelf and let it incubate,
and as Superman lore goes, one night, Jerry Siegel, one
of these two young men who were struggling to get
through the depression, find work and make it in the
field of comic art, had an epiphany, we have it backwards.
(02:20):
What the world really needs is a good Superman. And
that epiphany and the character that evolved from it came
just as publishers in New York City were developing the
first comic books. And the first comic books were actually
compilations of newspaper strips Little Orphan, Annie Popeye, and those
(02:44):
newspaper strips would be put in books and sold for
a dime of peace. But after the supply of newspaper
strips had been exhausted, these publishers needed original content, and
one publisher recalled this set of drawings that these kids
from Cleveland had said with this character called Superman, and
(03:09):
they were in a pinch to launch a comic book
called Action Comics, so they hired Jerry Siegial and Joe
Schuster to put together thirteen pages of Superman stories for
the original edition of Action Comics, and before anyone really
(03:31):
knew what happened, hundreds of thousands of those comic books
had been sold, and the character we all now know
as Superman was born.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Boys and girls, your attention please, presenting a new exciting
radio program.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
In the nineteen forties, The Adventures of Superman on the
Air was created.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious
to bullets up.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
In the sky.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Look, it's a it's a fight.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's Superman, and a creative writer and producer named Bob
Maxwell transformed Superman into a radio show from the Mutual
Broadcasting System in New York, where actors, it sound effects
people would create a radio program three times a week
(04:34):
where Superman took on mad scientists and crime gangs and
evil spectral beings.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And it became a hit.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So Superman was now in comic books, He was a
strip in newspapers, he was a serial in the movie theaters,
and he was reaching four million households three times a
week through the radio.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
As World War.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Two comes, the creators use him more as a weapon
against America's enemies. So he's taking on Nazi spies, he's
taking on German generals, and in one case, he actually
took on Hitler and grabbed him by the scruff and
(05:32):
carried him off to an international tribunal to be tried
for war crimes. So Superman has become a meaningful character
in certain ways. And as the war ended and as
times changed, the creators of the radio program asked a
(05:58):
very perplexing question, what do we do now? It seemed
like the crime bosses and the evil scientists had run
their course. The war was over, so Hitler was no
longer a target, But there was something happening here at
(06:18):
home that got their attention. The ku Klux Klan was
attempting a revival. Six million shoes had just been killed
in Nazi concentration camps. And here we have people in
our own backyard who are preaching a similar philosophy and
(06:41):
who believed that this post war era can belong to them,
that we can bring Americas along to the clan's philosophy,
and we can create an organization with millions of members.
So these two four are very different. One is a
(07:03):
fictional character on the radio in comic books, and one
is an actual real world organization that is actually carrying
out atrocious acts.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Against its enemies.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Who would know that one day they would collide. While
all this was happening, a young man named Stetson Kennedy
was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Even at the age.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Of twelve, he was extremely uncomfortable with the perverse and
pervasive racism of the time. Through the streets of Jacksonville,
plans been marched, some on horseback, dressed in robes and hoods,
and at first he's ought that this was kind of
(08:02):
a club for grown ups and they got to dress
up in costumes every day of the year anytime they
wanted to, But he later learned that this was actually
improved that quote took care of people in colored town,
which means they imposed their will on black citizens.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And it was when the African American made.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
In their house was attacked by the Klan for answering
back a streetcar operator.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Who refused to give her the proper change.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
She was brought home, bloodied and beaten that he realized
what the real clan was all about. And this young man,
obviously being out of step with much of the culture
of his time. Decided at that point that his life
(08:57):
would be dedicated this kind of hate.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And we've been listening to Rick Bowers, and he's the
author of Superman Versus the ku Klux Klan, the true
story of how the iconic superhero battled the men of hate.
When we come back, more of this remarkable story on
our American story, and we're back with our American stories
(09:41):
and the story of Superman versus the KKK. As this
organization grew, there was one real life superhero looking to
stop them, stets And Kennedy. Let's get back to Rick
Bowers with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
In nineteen thirty seven, Stetson Kennedy became an interviewer with
the Florida's Writers Project, which was a new deal program
for unemployed writers, editors, researchers, historians, and they would travel
to the state collecting life stories, tall tales, folk songs,
(10:21):
and fables from common people. But he would record folk
songs from blues singers. He would record stories from field
hands and sharecroppers, and he started to understand that these stories,
these songs, these rituals, these kind of values were what
(10:46):
held people together. It held culture together, and so in
his mind, this was a great insight, and he came
to see that by having this information himself, he could
be a much better writer, communicator, and he could tell
the stories of the common people and inform others of
(11:12):
their plights. So for Stetson Kennedy, it was the injustice
that was being inflicted on these poor people. It was
the racism that was directed at these African American field hands, sharecroppers, fishermen,
(11:32):
and it just hit him at such a level that
he dedicated himself to trying to fix it. And he
was working at the time for an organization called the
Anti Defamation League, and the Anti Defamation League is an
organization that opposes the prejudice against Jewish people and fights
(11:57):
for the rights of all people. They fired him as
an infiltrator to get inside the clan.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
The dangers were very real.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Nineteen forty six, the clan is reviving in Atlanta, Georgia,
and Stetson, through his research.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Knows this.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
He knows that this organization with a long history of violence,
is trying to make a comeback, and it's all happening
in what they called the Imperial City of Atlanta, Georgia.
So he moved to Atlanta, Georgia with the express purpose
of infiltrating the clan. So Stetson, through the ADL, takes
(12:46):
on a false persona. He takes on the persona of
John Perkins, a encyclopedia salesman and the publisher of a
hate sheet. He begins hanging around with klansmen, talking their language.
(13:09):
He begins attending their meetings, and everything he discovers is
filed back to the Anti Defamation League in the form
of a spy report. And he's reporting on some of
the atrocities at the time that are just so brutal
that you know they shake you to the core. Two
(13:30):
black couples driving down a road outside of the Atlanta
in that year nineteen forty six, are dragged from their car,
taken to a river.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Bank, and shot dead.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
A black taxi driver in Atlanta who was seen giving
a ride to a white woman is dragged from his
car and killed. Inside the clan group, Stetson would write
reports about their plans to invade a government armory, seize weapons,
(14:11):
and orchestrate an all out attack on black communities. And
Stetson is in the middle of this the entire time
he was walking this fine line where one wrong step
probably meant death.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Stetson also risked writing columns on her pseudonyms, exposing the
kkks hierarchy, customs, traditions, and most notably, their brutality. Meanwhile,
as we learned earlier, the Superman radio show creator sought
a new type of villain based on real life people
awakening their audience to the evil in their own lives.
(14:55):
Their villain would be the KKK or in their sixteen
part series known as the Clan of the Fiery Cross.
They worked with the ADL and used much of Stetson's findings,
hoping to strip the clan of their mystique and attraction
by revealing what they're actually like behind all the secrecy.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So through sixteen episodes, this arc takes place and people
are kidnapped, people are threatened. Clark, Kent, Lewis Lane have
to put out a special edition of The Daily Planet
to let the public know that this clan group is
threcking people, and of course Superman has to take flight
(15:38):
and round up these clansmen. In Paula Mouth to Jail,
stets and Kennedy always said the wit to take down
the Klan is.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
By ridiculing them.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That is, if you look closely at their rituals, there's
language that they use where everything starts with K. So
the big clan gathering is a klon vocation. This kind
of ridiculous language can be made fun of. These ridiculous
outfits that these people wear, these long robes, these hoods
(16:12):
over their heads, these little slits for eye holes.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
They look like clowns.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They look like kids at Halloween dressed up as ghosts.
So he felt that that was a great way to
undercut the clan.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
Suddenly they come into an opening, and as the car stops,
Chuck gasps at the strange scene before him. In a glade,
casting weird shadows over the nearby hills and lighting the
sky above, burns a huge wooden cross before at neo
half a hundred men clothed in long robes, pointed hoods
slid only at the eyes cover their heads and faces,
and a low guttural chant issues harshly from their hidden lips,
(16:52):
sending an uneasy chill froll Chuck's blood. While the boy
looks about him at the fearsome sight, Matt Riggs duns
a robe and hood on which a pale blue scorpion
is embroidered, then followed by Chucky approaches the Kneeling Hooded Band,
a strangely barbaric company in the dancing light of the
Flaming Cross. Gosh, who are all these guys? An go
mat and why are you wearing the sheets and hoods?
Speaker 7 (17:14):
We're the clan of the Fiery Cross, Chuck, where a
great secret society pledged to purify America. America for Americans
only one race, one religion, one color.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
I don't get it. America's got all kinds of religions
in colors.
Speaker 7 (17:31):
When we get through, there'll only be one, only one.
But the Constitution says all Americans have the same rights
and privileged constitution. We'll change that. I'll be quiet quite
until I call on you a session.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Brothers, all a Trianscorpid.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
And the Klan of the Fiery Cross. Supreme Authority invested
by me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It was a very different kind of program for kids.
It was very resolutiontionary for its time. In the end,
it was extremely successful. The media praise that flowed in
was extraordinary. Industry groups hailed Superman as a hero for tolerance.
(18:17):
Education groups said, now we see that these characters can
play a positive role. Newspapers wrote laudatory articles, some of
them saying that this is great for kids, but make
their parents should listen to it as well. There are
stories that come from actual clansmen that tell the story
(18:41):
of how their kids would listen to that show and
then act it out. So one kid would put on
a Superman outfit, the other one would put a pillow
case over their head and wrap a sheet around themselves,
and then Superman would grab the white kid it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Dragging him off to jail.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
How these are klansmen watching this, So they became very
infuriated with what this show was doing, and they felt
that they were the ridicule of the world, where millions
of people are listening to this and they think we're
a bunch of fools.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The Klan was humiliated. This villain's infamy would soon fiz allows.
In the nineteen twenties, during the clan's peak years, they
had four million members nationwide. Today they have only three thousand,
thanks in part to the Superman character created by two
boys from Cleveland, Ohio and a real life superhero with
(19:46):
the courage to go undercover and expose a villain in
his own backyard.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And great work as always to Joey Cortez and a
special thanks to Rick Bowers sharing the story, and well,
there's not much to add the story of Superman versus
the KKK. Here on our American Story
This is our American stories, and up next, our own
Joey Cortez brings you a story about a fictional character
we all know and love, Superman, and how he would
team up with the real life undercover agent to take
down a truly vicious villain.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Over the years, Superman has fought many villains, including the kkk.
Rick Bowers brings us the story of how the hero
not only fought this villain in the fictional series, but
also in real life. Here's Rick with the backstory.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
The actual Superman character was created by two Jewish kids
in Cleveland in the nineteen thirties. And these two kids
were high school students and they loved science fiction. They
would hold up in their attict studio reading science fiction magazines, books.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
They would go to the movies.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know, cape heroes like Zorro were doing great things
on the big screen, and they were taking all of
that in and they started to create their own characters.
And they created a character and a story called the
Reign of Superman. But in that first iteration, Superman was bad.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
He was an.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Evil scientist doing horrid experiments on homeless men during the depression,
and he had no real superpowers. He was just super evil.
So they were creating some interesting characters, but there was
always something about that character, that original Superman.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
That not quite right.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So they put that on a shelf and let it incubate,
and as Superman lore goes, one night, Jerry Siegel, one
of these two young men who were struggling to get
through the depression, find work and make it in the
field of comic art, had an epiphany, we have it backwards.
(02:20):
What the world really needs is a good Superman. And
that epiphany and the character that evolved from it came
just as publishers in New York City were developing the
first comic books. And the first comic books were actually
compilations of newspaper strips Little Orphan, Annie Popeye, and those
(02:44):
newspaper strips would be put in books and sold for
a dime of peace. But after the supply of newspaper
strips had been exhausted, these publishers needed original content, and
one publisher recalled this set of drawings that these kids
from Cleveland had said with this character called Superman, and
(03:09):
they were in a pinch to launch a comic book
called Action Comics, so they hired Jerry Siegial and Joe
Schuster to put together thirteen pages of Superman stories for
the original edition of Action Comics, and before anyone really
(03:31):
knew what happened, hundreds of thousands of those comic books
had been sold, and the character we all now know
as Superman was born.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Boys and girls, your attention please, presenting a new exciting
radio program.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
In the nineteen forties, The Adventures of Superman on the
Air was created.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious
to bullets up.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
In the sky.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Look, it's a it's a fight.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's Superman, and a creative writer and producer named Bob
Maxwell transformed Superman into a radio show from the Mutual
Broadcasting System in New York, where actors, it sound effects
people would create a radio program three times a week
(04:34):
where Superman took on mad scientists and crime gangs and
evil spectral beings.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And it became a hit.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So Superman was now in comic books, He was a
strip in newspapers, he was a serial in the movie theaters,
and he was reaching four million households three times a
week through the radio.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
As World War.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Two comes, the creators use him more as a weapon
against America's enemies. So he's taking on Nazi spies, he's
taking on German generals, and in one case, he actually
took on Hitler and grabbed him by the scruff and
(05:32):
carried him off to an international tribunal to be tried
for war crimes. So Superman has become a meaningful character
in certain ways. And as the war ended and as
times changed, the creators of the radio program asked a
(05:58):
very perplexing question, what do we do now? It seemed
like the crime bosses and the evil scientists had run
their course. The war was over, so Hitler was no
longer a target, But there was something happening here at
(06:18):
home that got their attention. The ku Klux Klan was
attempting a revival. Six million shoes had just been killed
in Nazi concentration camps. And here we have people in
our own backyard who are preaching a similar philosophy and
(06:41):
who believed that this post war era can belong to them,
that we can bring Americas along to the clan's philosophy,
and we can create an organization with millions of members.
So these two four are very different. One is a
(07:03):
fictional character on the radio in comic books, and one
is an actual real world organization that is actually carrying
out atrocious acts.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Against its enemies.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Who would know that one day they would collide. While
all this was happening, a young man named Stetson Kennedy
was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Even at the age.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Of twelve, he was extremely uncomfortable with the perverse and
pervasive racism of the time. Through the streets of Jacksonville,
plans been marched, some on horseback, dressed in robes and hoods,
and at first he's ought that this was kind of
(08:02):
a club for grown ups and they got to dress
up in costumes every day of the year anytime they
wanted to, But he later learned that this was actually
improved that quote took care of people in colored town,
which means they imposed their will on black citizens.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And it was when the African American made.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
In their house was attacked by the Klan for answering
back a streetcar operator.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Who refused to give her the proper change.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
She was brought home, bloodied and beaten that he realized
what the real clan was all about. And this young man,
obviously being out of step with much of the culture
of his time. Decided at that point that his life
(08:57):
would be dedicated this kind of hate.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And we've been listening to Rick Bowers, and he's the
author of Superman Versus the ku Klux Klan, the true
story of how the iconic superhero battled the men of hate.
When we come back, more of this remarkable story on
our American story, and we're back with our American stories
(09:41):
and the story of Superman versus the KKK. As this
organization grew, there was one real life superhero looking to
stop them, stets And Kennedy. Let's get back to Rick
Bowers with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
In nineteen thirty seven, Stetson Kennedy became an interviewer with
the Florida's Writers Project, which was a new deal program
for unemployed writers, editors, researchers, historians, and they would travel
to the state collecting life stories, tall tales, folk songs,
(10:21):
and fables from common people. But he would record folk
songs from blues singers. He would record stories from field
hands and sharecroppers, and he started to understand that these stories,
these songs, these rituals, these kind of values were what
(10:46):
held people together. It held culture together, and so in
his mind, this was a great insight, and he came
to see that by having this information himself, he could
be a much better writer, communicator, and he could tell
the stories of the common people and inform others of
(11:12):
their plights. So for Stetson Kennedy, it was the injustice
that was being inflicted on these poor people. It was
the racism that was directed at these African American field hands, sharecroppers, fishermen,
(11:32):
and it just hit him at such a level that
he dedicated himself to trying to fix it. And he
was working at the time for an organization called the
Anti Defamation League, and the Anti Defamation League is an
organization that opposes the prejudice against Jewish people and fights
(11:57):
for the rights of all people. They fired him as
an infiltrator to get inside the clan.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
The dangers were very real.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Nineteen forty six, the clan is reviving in Atlanta, Georgia,
and Stetson, through his research.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Knows this.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
He knows that this organization with a long history of violence,
is trying to make a comeback, and it's all happening
in what they called the Imperial City of Atlanta, Georgia.
So he moved to Atlanta, Georgia with the express purpose
of infiltrating the clan. So Stetson, through the ADL, takes
(12:46):
on a false persona. He takes on the persona of
John Perkins, a encyclopedia salesman and the publisher of a
hate sheet. He begins hanging around with klansmen, talking their language.
(13:09):
He begins attending their meetings, and everything he discovers is
filed back to the Anti Defamation League in the form
of a spy report. And he's reporting on some of
the atrocities at the time that are just so brutal
that you know they shake you to the core. Two
(13:30):
black couples driving down a road outside of the Atlanta
in that year nineteen forty six, are dragged from their car,
taken to a river.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Bank, and shot dead.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
A black taxi driver in Atlanta who was seen giving
a ride to a white woman is dragged from his
car and killed. Inside the clan group, Stetson would write
reports about their plans to invade a government armory, seize weapons,
(14:11):
and orchestrate an all out attack on black communities. And
Stetson is in the middle of this the entire time
he was walking this fine line where one wrong step
probably meant death.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Stetson also risked writing columns on her pseudonyms, exposing the
kkks hierarchy, customs, traditions, and most notably, their brutality. Meanwhile,
as we learned earlier, the Superman radio show creator sought
a new type of villain based on real life people
awakening their audience to the evil in their own lives.
(14:55):
Their villain would be the KKK or in their sixteen
part series known as the Clan of the Fiery Cross.
They worked with the ADL and used much of Stetson's findings,
hoping to strip the clan of their mystique and attraction
by revealing what they're actually like behind all the secrecy.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So through sixteen episodes, this arc takes place and people
are kidnapped, people are threatened. Clark, Kent, Lewis Lane have
to put out a special edition of The Daily Planet
to let the public know that this clan group is
threcking people, and of course Superman has to take flight
(15:38):
and round up these clansmen. In Paula Mouth to Jail,
stets and Kennedy always said the wit to take down
the Klan is.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
By ridiculing them.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That is, if you look closely at their rituals, there's
language that they use where everything starts with K. So
the big clan gathering is a klon vocation. This kind
of ridiculous language can be made fun of. These ridiculous
outfits that these people wear, these long robes, these hoods
(16:12):
over their heads, these little slits for eye holes.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
They look like clowns.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They look like kids at Halloween dressed up as ghosts.
So he felt that that was a great way to
undercut the clan.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
Suddenly they come into an opening, and as the car stops,
Chuck gasps at the strange scene before him. In a glade,
casting weird shadows over the nearby hills and lighting the
sky above, burns a huge wooden cross before at neo
half a hundred men clothed in long robes, pointed hoods
slid only at the eyes cover their heads and faces,
and a low guttural chant issues harshly from their hidden lips,
(16:52):
sending an uneasy chill froll Chuck's blood. While the boy
looks about him at the fearsome sight, Matt Riggs duns
a robe and hood on which a pale blue scorpion
is embroidered, then followed by Chucky approaches the Kneeling Hooded Band,
a strangely barbaric company in the dancing light of the
Flaming Cross. Gosh, who are all these guys? An go
mat and why are you wearing the sheets and hoods?
Speaker 7 (17:14):
We're the clan of the Fiery Cross, Chuck, where a
great secret society pledged to purify America. America for Americans
only one race, one religion, one color.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
I don't get it. America's got all kinds of religions
in colors.
Speaker 7 (17:31):
When we get through, there'll only be one, only one.
But the Constitution says all Americans have the same rights
and privileged constitution. We'll change that. I'll be quiet quite
until I call on you a session.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Brothers, all a Trianscorpid.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
And the Klan of the Fiery Cross. Supreme Authority invested
by me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It was a very different kind of program for kids.
It was very resolutiontionary for its time. In the end,
it was extremely successful. The media praise that flowed in
was extraordinary. Industry groups hailed Superman as a hero for tolerance.
(18:17):
Education groups said, now we see that these characters can
play a positive role. Newspapers wrote laudatory articles, some of
them saying that this is great for kids, but make
their parents should listen to it as well. There are
stories that come from actual clansmen that tell the story
(18:41):
of how their kids would listen to that show and
then act it out. So one kid would put on
a Superman outfit, the other one would put a pillow
case over their head and wrap a sheet around themselves,
and then Superman would grab the white kid it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Dragging him off to jail.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
How these are klansmen watching this, So they became very
infuriated with what this show was doing, and they felt
that they were the ridicule of the world, where millions
of people are listening to this and they think we're
a bunch of fools.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The Klan was humiliated. This villain's infamy would soon fiz allows.
In the nineteen twenties, during the clan's peak years, they
had four million members nationwide. Today they have only three thousand,
thanks in part to the Superman character created by two
boys from Cleveland, Ohio and a real life superhero with
(19:46):
the courage to go undercover and expose a villain in
his own backyard.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And great work as always to Joey Cortez and a
special thanks to Rick Bowers sharing the story, and well,
there's not much to add the story of Superman versus
the KKK. Here on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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