Superman Takes on the Klan | Episode 04

It's all been building to this, but as Superman goes up against the Klan, will audiences listen? And what will that mean for the real people struggling to find their own American Dream in a world in the midst of remaking itself?

_____________

This podcast was hosted by Marc Bernardin and Roth Cornet.

Created and Executive Produced
Roth Cornet 

Executive Producers
Max Dionne and Michael Chiang

Producers and Writers:
Nancy Rosenbaum
Loretta Williams
Teru Brach
Michelle Dunn
Eileen Guo
Billy Patterson
Gordie Loewen
Brett Boham 
Roth Cornet
and Marc Bernardin

Audio Engineer
Brett Boham

Researchers
Lauren Schwein
Ilana Strauss

Fact Checker
Steven Crighton

Recording was done by
Forever Dog Productions
Voice Trax

Special Thanks To:
Caleb Schneider
Sasha Perl-Raver
Brett Weiner
Eric Eisenberg
Soni Benson
Anne Brashier
Shanna Whitlow
Joe Starr
Avital Ash
Dena Crowder
Danielle Radford
Spencer Gilbert
Lon Harris
Pei Chiu

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today we began a brand new story, a story of
baseball and the discovery of a menace that will laid
Superman and his friend through many dangerous that venture.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
The problem was in post World War two America. Superman
has exhausted all his traditional enemies in.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
A glade, casting weird shadows over the nearby hills and
lighting the sky above, burns a huge wooden cross before
a new half one hundred men clothed in a long rolls.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
I think it was actually pretty bold to have Superman
fight the CAKK in nineteen forty six, because I think
a lot of white Americans are pretty sympathetic to what
the Cakek was arguing for.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
Honestly, I can't understand, mister Candace, why the Fiery Cross
Clan should burn across in front of Tommy Lee's house,
But they're nice people.

Speaker 6 (00:52):
We're back with episode four of our podcast, and we're
racing towards the climax of the ultimate showdown between Superman
and the KKK and their conflicting messages about what it
means to be one hundred percent American, a.

Speaker 7 (01:03):
Message they each packaged and sold back to the American people.

Speaker 6 (01:07):
In our previous episode, we talked about how Superman emerged
as a prominent figure in defining American values while also
ascending the Superman brand to financial dominance.

Speaker 7 (01:17):
But while Superman was taking it to the Nazis with
America's brand of truth, justice in the American way and
selling a lot of merch along the way, another war
was being fucked concurrently, this one on the home front.

Speaker 6 (01:28):
In this episode, we'll explore post World War II America,
an attempted resurgence of the KKK, and what Superman and
the radio show's producers decided to do about it.

Speaker 7 (01:38):
I'm Mark Bernardo.

Speaker 6 (01:39):
And I'm Roth Cornett, and this is Fandom presents Superman
Versus the KKK. After years of building Superman's mass appeal
and supporting the unification of Americans against a common enemy,
the end of the war threw a serious wrench in
the plans of the writers and sponsors of the Superman
Radio Show.

Speaker 7 (01:58):
While World War II was still raging, Superman almost exclusively
battled villains who were proxies for the Axis Powers like
De Teufel and the Wolf.

Speaker 6 (02:07):
And while many of the show's listeners were enthralled by
storylines tied directly to the war, abroad. The truth was
America's war within itself was still ongoing.

Speaker 7 (02:15):
The second iteration of the KKK basically collapsed by nineteen
forty four, but in the late forties people were already
plotting the return of the organization.

Speaker 6 (02:24):
As we'll see ideology that embedded does not simply go
away due to one organization's devolvement. Let's take a step
back and look at the status of race relations in
America during the nineteen forties.

Speaker 7 (02:35):
Starting in the mid nineteen tens, millions of black Americans,
looking to escape the brutality of Jim Crow and lured
by economic opportunity, moved out of the rural South and
into the industrial North. It's known as the Great Migration.

Speaker 6 (02:46):
So when American industries had to switch gears toward manufacturing
and supplying materials for the war effort in the nineteen forties,
it prompted what some historians called the Second Great Migration.

Speaker 7 (02:58):
Many of the white men of fighting age that were
trained foreign held these types of jobs, were sent off
to war, and despite a great need for workers, many
white business owners still refused to hire African Americans to
fill the thousands of vacant positions.

Speaker 6 (03:10):
Enter labor unionist and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph,
who proposed march on Washington in nineteen forty one to
publicize the blatant discrimination compromising the war effort. Here he
is in his own words from a satellite news feed
produced by the Labor Institute of Public Affairs.

Speaker 8 (03:27):
I called for conference with the President. The president as
his first comment, he said, phil Rando, we can't have
one hundred thousand mid rugs marching on Washington. If anything
such as that would occur, you wouldn't be able to
manage them. We might have bloodshed and death.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
He said.

Speaker 8 (03:47):
Now, let us get ound the business here and find.

Speaker 9 (03:50):
Out what can be done.

Speaker 6 (03:51):
You know it doesn't like being put on blast fd R.
He did not. It also cannot be overstated how much
of an act of rebellion such as the one Randolph
was proposing would upset the American unity messaging the government
worked so hard to circulate.

Speaker 7 (04:07):
So the President issued in executive order remember those that
banned discrimination in defense industries. This led to a large
influx of African Americans to join Southern whites in seeking
work in northern and Midwestern cities.

Speaker 6 (04:19):
And all these new migrants were now competing against one
another for jobs in space, particularly housing. It's no coincidence
that the KKK and its ideology became entrenched in many
of these same places.

Speaker 7 (04:31):
For example, Detroit, with a Klan already had a strong presence, and.

Speaker 6 (04:34):
With auto factories shifting their focus toward the war effort,
a lot of in demand jobs were up for grabs
between competing workers of a very diversity.

Speaker 7 (04:41):
Here's Duke University historian Adrian Lentz Smith.

Speaker 10 (04:44):
I don't think it's a coincidence that the Klan is
incredibly powerful in a place like Detroit, for example, by
the Night by the late nineteen twenties, because white Detroiters,
some of whom were white Southern migrants, but any of
them are folks who've lived in Detroit for longer, are
crafting their response through the institutions and behaviors that they've

(05:12):
seen others use.

Speaker 6 (05:14):
So after years of racial antagonism, inflamed by the likes
of the KKK, tensions finally boiled over in the late
spring of nineteen forty three when a large scale riot
broke out in the middle of Detroit.

Speaker 7 (05:25):
When all was said and done, upwards of eighteen hundred
people were arrested, six hundred injured and thirty four people
lost their lives, not to mention millions and looting losses
and property down.

Speaker 6 (05:34):
At the time, media broadcasts insinuated that angry black citizens
incited the violence. Here's a clip from a special CBS
radio program entitled Open Letter on Race Hatred, which aired
on July twenty fourth, nineteen forty three.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
At bloody Monday, What What Avenue? The White Boulevard which
divides the city became a hunting ground upon which no
Negro was safe. Along Hayestate Street, in the heart of
Paradise Valley, bans of Negroes fired by roamers, smashed the
windows of white store keepers, overturned the cars of white motorists,
and were shot by the police. On What What Avenue,
one hundred thousand white men armed with lengths of pipe

(06:07):
and bare bottles beat up Negroes until their arms Like.

Speaker 6 (06:12):
I just want to point out that it is insane
that this report is noting that the attacker's arms are aching.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (06:20):
The reason we're highlighting how the media talked about this
is because the way certain events are characterized and how
specific citizens are represented in the media, both in journalistic
retailings and fictional depictions says a lot about how different
parts of society are culturally viewed.

Speaker 6 (06:34):
If some groups are described as violent as a default assumption,
that starts to become a prevailing view, and that's a
trend that's still pretty relevant today. In any event, The
Detroit Metro Times did a re examination of the riot
on the seventy fifth anniversary, and they found that many
white Detroiters traveled to black neighborhoods and attacked the residents unprovoked.

Speaker 7 (06:55):
And it wasn't just Detroit. Within a month, riots broke
out in Mobile, Alabama and Beaumont, Texas after DR's executive
order banned racial discrimination in war department hiring.

Speaker 6 (07:04):
So there's obviously a clear disconnect between the version of
American unity that we've talked about that was being packaged
and sold by the media and the government, the American
way that was created, and then much of what's actually
happening in reality. And of course all of this is
also occurring during Japanese Internment.

Speaker 7 (07:20):
Yes, precisely, as we've discussed. After Pearl Harbor, it was
the policy of the US government for people of Japanese descent,
including US citizens, to be incarcerated and isolated in camps.

Speaker 6 (07:30):
And in the same window, there was a push for
the Superman radio show to find new ways of embodying
and fighting for American values.

Speaker 7 (07:36):
And ideals, to fight for justice.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
Yes, and of course, the need for justice implies the
existence of injustice.

Speaker 7 (07:44):
In the same period, when the US entered the war
in nineteen forty one, many black Americans went to war
and fought for this country.

Speaker 6 (07:50):
Here's a clip from the nineteen forties radio show New
World to Come in.

Speaker 11 (07:54):
The Negro may not be able to predict his future,
but he knows what he wants and peace and an
enriched life free of want, oppression, violence, and prescription. In
a word, he wants democracy cleansed and refreshed face to day.
With fascism or democracy, Negro's choice is simple. He's against

(08:18):
fascism both at home and abroad.

Speaker 7 (08:22):
Imagine this. You're eighteen years old and you just graduated
from a segregated high school in rural Alabama. Your economic
opportunities are limited thanks to Jim Crow laws, the state
and local statutes that legalize racial segregation rampant since the
end of reconstruction, and duty calls. So you join the
United States Army to fight alongside your brothers in arms
against fascism in Western Europe.

Speaker 6 (08:42):
But from day one you're assigned to a separate unit
made up of only black infantrymen, eat separate meals, sleep
in separate quarters from the rest of the units.

Speaker 7 (08:49):
Then he dropped into a war zone, fighting shoulder to
shoulder in the mud, shedding the same blood as everyone else.
But get this, if you get injured German prisoners of war,
you know not had access to faster medical care from
the white doctors that wouldn't treat you.

Speaker 6 (09:04):
All the while, you've been receiving unequal paid benefits and
limited opportunities for upward mobility within the military.

Speaker 7 (09:09):
But hey, hooray, the war is over. American and its
allies have defeated the enemy. Our soldiers are coming home.
We can now expect universal peace and prosperity from here
on out.

Speaker 6 (09:20):
No, no, remember everything we just talked.

Speaker 7 (09:23):
About, right, We got a bit carried away there. In reality,
the end of the war was a bit like a
mirage that all was right in the world. See, it
was easier to push unity messaging when we as a
country were all united against the same foreign adversaries.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
But once those adversaries were defeated and victory celebrations faded away.
America was on a crash course short of very real racial, social,
and political reckoning.

Speaker 7 (09:47):
Ah, not so fast, Roth, you're telling me America was
about to come to terms with the racial and socio
political divisions that have essentially been a part of the
Union since its inception.

Speaker 6 (09:58):
Right, No, now I'm the one getting carried away. Here's
what actually happened. After the war, the government introduced the
GI Bill for troops returning home, which gave veterans access
to education benefits and employment benefits, jobs orch help, and
guaranteed home.

Speaker 7 (10:12):
Loans, you know, the way to build a middle class.
But here's the kicker. The benefits were administered by state
and local governments, so they didn't actually dole out any
of those things equally.

Speaker 6 (10:22):
Right, So, our black veteran returns to Alabama, back to
the harsh realities of Jim Crow, and decides he wants
to move his new family out of the South. But
black veterans often faced challenges accessing the same benefits of
the GI Bill, and that included access to mortgages. And
even if he was able to cut through the red
tape and buy a house. He very well maybe met
with harsh resistance from his new white neighbors, therefore risking

(10:46):
the emotional and physical well being of both himself and
his family.

Speaker 7 (10:49):
Here's Matthew Delmont, a professor of history at Dartmouth College,
on O Day short, a black man who with his
family attempted to break the color barrier in Fontana, California.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
This is a family that move into what had been
a whites only neighborhood in nineteen forty six, so just
after the end of World War Two. Their family was
harassed as soon as they moved in, and then subsequently
a group of a group of whites who were potentially
linked to the KKK bombed the house, killing both parents,
the mother and father, and as well as two young children.

(11:21):
It was just a horrendous act of violence, completely unwarranted.
It was just a family was trying to sort of
live the post World War two middle class dream of
home owning a home in southern California. It really got
hardly any attention in the white press, but for the
black press, they really saw it as an outrage both

(11:42):
to the family itself but also to really a set
of American ideals. So if the United States had just
finished fighting a war that was theoretically about democracy and freedom,
but yet black family is like the Short family, couldn't
even feel safe in their own home. That really raised
serious questions about what what America was about and what
it actually valued.

Speaker 7 (12:02):
And noticed that there are even in this case, different
versions of America being disseminated by the media depending on
what they're choosing to focus on.

Speaker 6 (12:09):
It's true and the tragedy that befell Ode shortened his
family was terrorism akin to the KKK, and just one
of the many acts of violence that Black Americans faced
on their own soil.

Speaker 7 (12:20):
With wages dropping and inflation spiking, economic insecurity once again
stoked the flames of racial resentment, and.

Speaker 6 (12:26):
Once again the US was a powder keg on the
verge of exploding.

Speaker 7 (12:30):
At the same time, many citizens were suddenly learning about
and seeing with their very own eyes, the atrocities committed
by the Nazis.

Speaker 6 (12:37):
In May of nineteen forty five, Life Magazine published some
of the first images of the Holocaust ever seen by Americans.
The series of brutal photographs exposed the inhumane and barbaric
nature of concentration camps.

Speaker 7 (12:49):
And the American public was understandably shaken. Here's Matthew Delmont again.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
So once Americans recognized the the horrors and brutality that
the Nazis against Jews during the Second World War in
the Holocaust, the ideas of anti Semitism and of that
kind of extreme prejudice become very dangerous, and so people
recognize that something rightly needs to doubt about this.

Speaker 6 (13:15):
It's the combination of these circumstances, citizens bearing witness to
the horror of the Holocaust and violence at home that
may have opened the door to many Americans defining themselves
as much by what they are as by what they
are not Nazis.

Speaker 7 (13:30):
And this in turn opened the door to media and
pop culture continuing to extol the virtues of tolerance and
unity and disavow racial hate at home, as we'll see
Superman does. And that brings us back to the main
villain of our story, the Ku Klux Klan.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
When last we left them, the KKK had reconstituted themselves
as a money making enterprise, selling merch and memberships and
monetizing hate. Under the leadership of William Simmons and the
Southern Publicity Association, the PR firm he hired. But then
in nineteen forty four, the IRS came a knockin.

Speaker 7 (14:02):
Turns out the organization had racked up quite an impressive
debt in back taxes.

Speaker 6 (14:06):
A tip for all you haters out there, always pay
your taxes.

Speaker 7 (14:10):
Or maybe not skip your tax payments. It's fine. But
rather than pay the debt, the organization ended up dissolving.
One wonders did they have a going out of hatefulness?

Speaker 6 (14:21):
So you know, Mark, Fortunately, used white sheets are really
never in that high demand. But even with the organization
and financial ruin, the exclusionary ideology that the clan propagated
in the nineteen twenties and thirties, their American way, it
lived on, and quite prolifically at that.

Speaker 7 (14:38):
I guess hatred really never goes out of style, No.

Speaker 6 (14:41):
It festers on. And even with the IRS up the robes,
they weren't gone for long.

Speaker 7 (14:45):
In May of nineteen forty six, the KKK held their
first new public member initiation since the start of the war,
though they had been, of course initiating in private. This
excerpt from Life magazine details the event.

Speaker 12 (14:57):
On the evening of May ninth, at eight p a
mob of fully grown men solemnly paraded up to a
wide plateau of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta, Georgia, and got
down on their knees on the ground before one hundred
white sheeted and hooded Atlantans in the eerie light of
a half moon and a fiery cross. They stumbled in

(15:17):
lockstep up to a great stone altar and knelt there
in the dirt while the Grand Dragon went through the
mumbo jumbo of initiating them into the Ku Klux Klan.
Then one new member was selected from the mob and
ceremoniously knighted into the organization on behalf of all the
rest of its fellow bigots.

Speaker 6 (15:37):
Kneeling in the dirt. Sounds right.

Speaker 7 (15:39):
Samuel Green, the aforementioned Green Dragon, wasn't afraid to stage
these elaborate KKK events and even welcome the press to
cover them. The event at Stone Mountain was documented by
Life magazine in the series of photographs featuring dozens of
men in white hoods gathered around in prayer circles, holding
guns and hanging nooses, even mimicking Hitler's patented salute, and
it culminated in a cross being set ablaze.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
It is really just very bad Bible fan fiction. They're
using all this Christian iconography almost like they're justifying what
they're doing as moral or ethical and ordained by God.
And also, can we just note they're already integrating Nazi
imagery that's pretty unpatriotic given the war that we just fought.
Of course, Hitler was also notably very inspired.

Speaker 7 (16:21):
By the Klan, the Mutual Admiration Society at its worst,
well with the KKK's multi level marketing scheme to recruit
more members hindered thanks to the irs, the clan resort.
It's a good old fashioned public displays of terrorism to
get their messaging across to the.

Speaker 6 (16:35):
Masses, and it worked too. I mean, these images like
the burning cross and white hoods are still used today
in all kinds of media just as a shorthand for
racial hate. You know exactly what it is and what
it means when you look at it precisely. Also, I'm sorry,
but can we pause for a moment and reflect on
the irony that the pointy clan hoods with the eyes
cut out very much resemble a dunce cap.

Speaker 7 (16:55):
There's also the fact that they even appropriated that headgear
from a Catholic uniform. Used for centuries in Spain and
Hispanic countries as an active penance. All the while the
clan has been incorporating anti Catholicism into their ideology and
very obviously not paying any penance.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
No, they're really not so dunce cap right good.

Speaker 7 (17:13):
But not everything the Klan did was so public. Take
for instance, the alleged white supremacist infiltration of the police
and government offices. A twenty twenty report from the Brennan
Center for Justice said.

Speaker 12 (17:23):
Where the laws were deemed insufficient to dissuade non whites
and non Protestants from exercising their civil rights, reactionary groups
such as the Ku Klux Klan used terrorist violence to
enforce white supremacy. Law enforcement officials often participated in this
violence directly or supported it by refusing to fulfill their
duty to protect the peace and hold lawbreakers to account.

Speaker 6 (17:46):
Here's Rick Bauers on the clandestine nature of the kkks
ties to the police and the government.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
So that's how ingrained the Klan was with uh the authority.
The politicians needed them for votes. The police were right
in lockstep as far as their point of view went,
and in those gatherings on Stone Mountain when hundreds and

(18:15):
thousands of klansmen would be driving up the mountain for
the big rally, the police were in clan garb directing
traffic and you could see their police boots under their ropes.
So there was this intertwining of the social system that

(18:39):
kept a lot of the reality from coming out, and
we lived without reality for decades without addressing it. Most
people didn't even know about it.

Speaker 7 (18:52):
N FBI Threat assessment from twenty sixteen titled White Supremacist
Infiltration of Law Enforcement stated the.

Speaker 12 (18:58):
Ku Klux Klan is notable among white supremacist groups for
historically having found support in many communities, which often translated
into ties to local law enforcement.

Speaker 7 (19:07):
These sorts of modern day investigations helped to explain the
clan's longevity, at for the most part, evading legal prosecution
and consequences over the past century.

Speaker 6 (19:16):
And if you were thinking, hey, maybe the Ira should
come welcome again. While some clan leaders became ordained ministers
in order to conduct their business under the cover of
an organized and therefore tax exempt church, such as the
Soldiers of the Cross Training Institute, So.

Speaker 7 (19:32):
With their hateful rhetoric continuing to spread and no force
having the ability or responsibility to hold them accountable. The
KKK had free reign to continue their terrorist actions against
whomever they chose to target, while influencing others to join
their cause.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
At the same time, the producers and sponsors of the
Adventures of Superman were looking for a way to reinvigorate
their radio show in a post war era.

Speaker 7 (19:53):
Might there be a fascism v Fantasy figure face off
in the mere future?

Speaker 6 (20:00):
I held that, by the way, it's not easy fashion
fantasy figure face in the near future. So Superman had
spent the last few years almost exclusively fighting proxies for
the Axis Powers, but.

Speaker 7 (20:12):
Now that the war was over, the writers needed something
to re energize the series, so they had to create
new villains for Superman to go up against the next
the problem being they were hopelessly directionless. See you know what, they.

Speaker 6 (20:24):
Did A bunch of crazy stuff that we're going to
run down for you right now.

Speaker 7 (20:30):
A series of episodes that ran in September nineteen forty five.
So a Superman do battle with Doctor Blythe's Confidence Gang.
The aforementioned Doctor Blythe lives under an amusement park and
tries to frame Lowis Lane from murder.

Speaker 13 (20:41):
Take a listen, sustain is a double field, Dixie?

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, I swear it was me.

Speaker 14 (20:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (20:49):
So when all those witnesses who saw you shoot the
federal man, I've got it. God, what doc you take something? Jackson?
I see the way out of our difficulty. Yeah, all
our troubles are over, Fie. This is perfect, absolutely perfect.

Speaker 6 (21:10):
Do you want to venture Mark?

Speaker 7 (21:12):
Yes? Please?

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Good?

Speaker 6 (21:13):
Well how about the wild storyline of the Radar Rocket
where Jimmy Wilsen and a mad scientist are trapped on
an out of control rocket.

Speaker 15 (21:21):
To the moon.

Speaker 5 (21:22):
To the moon in order.

Speaker 6 (21:24):
To get the word of their troubles back to Earth.
Jimmy Wilsen comes up with quite an unusual plan. Listen
to this, thanks, Professor thinks the pigeons.

Speaker 11 (21:32):
The pigeons, the pigeons, pigeons.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Got oh no, no, you don't understand what a pisons
used for?

Speaker 16 (21:38):
Well, some people eat the ho oh if that's.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
What you have, not sad?

Speaker 17 (21:43):
What else? Let's my bad.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
I'm really not a pigeon, ex but the o.

Speaker 18 (21:46):
Thank.

Speaker 5 (21:47):
Professor thinks pigeons. Why don't say, well, yeah, they carry messages.

Speaker 19 (21:52):
Don't say carry message?

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Oh you've heard of carrier pigeons.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
That's my good.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
Yeah, that's what we're gonna do. We'll send those pigeons
back to Earth with messages.

Speaker 7 (22:00):
So wait, they attach S O S messages to pigeons
and then try to send them back through space towards Earth.
And does it work.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
It does work, shockingly yes. And I'm guessing a they
had tiny little space outfits. There were tiny little cosmonauts.
I don't know why the Russian, but they are in
my version of the story. I'm guessing the writers tried
it out, killed a lot of pigeons, and the rest
was SUPERMANI history.

Speaker 7 (22:25):
I mean, okay, I hope everyone likes cats and mind control.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
What happened?

Speaker 20 (22:41):
You know?

Speaker 5 (22:41):
What about?

Speaker 21 (22:44):
What you mean?

Speaker 19 (22:47):
Talk?

Speaker 20 (22:48):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
He help me?

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Help me?

Speaker 20 (22:54):
Mister?

Speaker 22 (22:54):
Why help me?

Speaker 5 (22:57):
Leap?

Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's miss laying help me.

Speaker 19 (23:03):
Help me?

Speaker 6 (23:04):
Okay, that one's not that weird. Kats definitely have some
telepathic tendencies. But what we're trying to get at is
the writers were flattering. I mean, they were really stretching
themselves to find worthy adversaries for our boy in blue.
In fact, they also tried reviving plotlines from big World
War two hits involving villains like Detoifel, but those wartime

(23:25):
foes didn't quite pack the same punch that they once did.

Speaker 7 (23:29):
We think of Superman as very tame as compared to
edgier comic book superheroes like Batman, in part because of
his unbreachable, albeit somewhat boring code of conduct.

Speaker 6 (23:38):
As we've seen, that's actually not really how he was created.
He became far more of a boy scout along the
way as goody goody as he was in that period, though,
parent teacher organizations and child psychologists were still incessantly claiming
that kids radio shows like the Adventures of Superman were
too violent and compromising the ethical development of children.

Speaker 7 (23:58):
With all this going on, one of the producers were
so lost, and with the show searching for fresh storylines,
compelling enemies, and the claim to more leadership that was
part of Superman's character during the war, the producers and
Kellogg's were highly motivated to find a path forward for
Big Blue. Here's Rick Bauers again.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
The problem was in post World War two America, Superman
had exhausted all of his traditional enemies, you know, the Nazis,
the uh Axis, powers, the mad scientists, the criminal masterminds
were all kind of tired, they'd been done, And it

(24:37):
was someone at the agency that represented Kellogg's who said,
you know what if Superman took on real life hate groups.
And this was the same year that that Life magazine
photo spread of the clan revival on Stone Mountain came out,

(25:01):
So everyone in the country was witnessed to the revival
of the Ku Klux Klan and this burning cross with
a thousand people around it.

Speaker 6 (25:11):
So let's break this down. Kenyaadakard, the advertising agency that
represented Kellogg's, had always played an active role in the
show and provided vital support to the producers throughout the years.

Speaker 7 (25:23):
After all, Kellogg's had a huge financial stake in keeping
audiences tuned in. Here's doctor Bai Lingshaw, dean of the
College of Communications at California State University in Fullerton.

Speaker 15 (25:33):
Brands and their leaders, whether they are CEOs or whether
they are spokespersons, Brands have a platform, brands have a
sphere of influence, and brands have choices. Now, what we've
seen in the current context is some companies have chosen

(25:54):
to speak out about issues that they perceive to be important. So,
you know, Starbucks has spoken out about hiring immigrants, you know,
there's a lot of other companies that have taken a
public position about social questions. Now, whether they do that

(26:17):
because they have moral clarity in their leaders, or whether
they're doing that because they can't afford to alienate a
certain segment of their market share is a question that
I can't really answer.

Speaker 6 (26:30):
Doctor Shaw is basically saying that brands have incredible influence
regardless of their motives are for profit or principle, And
when it came to Kellogg's as a brand and a
sponsor for the radio show, their motives could easily have
been just as nuanced.

Speaker 7 (26:43):
So it was William B. Lewis, vice president of Kenyon
and Eckhart, that first suggested that the Big Blue Boy
Scout start tackling contemporary social issues like racism and anti semitism.
I mean, these issues weren't going away anytime soon. They'd
always be relevant. So why not you, Superman to teach
children the values of tolerance and the importance of accepting
other kids regardless of race, religion, or national origin. There's

(27:05):
no way Batman could mock that, Although to be fair,
Batman is a notorious dbag.

Speaker 6 (27:10):
He is and so debatable on the mockery, but either way,
this approach would also seemingly satisfy the parents clamoring for
moral values aimed at youth listeners, and to give Superman
purpose in a post War war era where so many
of the same issues that played Western Europe were happening
right here at home.

Speaker 7 (27:27):
And importantly, Superman was already very much a part of
the government in mass media movement to solidify, package and
sell American citizens a version in the American Way that
had equality at its center.

Speaker 6 (27:38):
This American Way stood in direct opposition to the America
that the Klan was packaging and selling to its members.

Speaker 7 (27:44):
Here's Wendy Wall, author of inventing the American Way.

Speaker 23 (27:47):
If you think about it, this was a time when
all of those those sort of ethnic Americans from southern
Eastern European backgrounds Jews and Catholics, et cetera, they had
in the in the twenties and thirties often been still
in what people of the time would have called ethnic ghettos.

(28:08):
They went off to World War Two, they served as
GI's and the forties and fifties they were moving into
the suburbs, they were moving into the middle class, and
a lot of that audience also had an interest in
feeling fully included, and so that was part of, you know,
the notion that this was good for business.

Speaker 7 (28:26):
Also, Interoperation Intolerance que the mission impossible soundtrack, No, Nope, nope,
mix that because we can't afford the.

Speaker 9 (28:34):
Data changing changing money.

Speaker 7 (28:37):
Nonetheless, Operation Intolerance brought to you by.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Kellogg's right superman and his role of content mild mannag reporter,
Face to faith with the most dangerous maners in the world.

Speaker 6 (28:51):
Um Mark, I hate to do this, but we have
to sidebar here for a minute. In keeping with the
theme of America as a series of contradictions in quagmires,
the Kellogg brothers reportedly have ties to eugenics.

Speaker 7 (29:04):
Ah, eugenics, okay for those who don't know or think
that eugenics is just a war they fought in Star Trek.
Eugenics is a racist school of scientific thought. It became
popular among American academics in the late nineteenth century. It
argues essentially that science has an obligation and a right
to clean the gene pool by excluding people of color
from having children.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Right.

Speaker 6 (29:25):
And the ties to Kellogg's cereal is complex, but essentially
John Kellogg, the brother who pretty much accidentally created cornflakes
had ties to eugenics, though notably he did not form
the Kellogg's company. His brother Will did, and boy was
that a whole big mess of lawsuits and whatever. But
that is an entirely other podcast.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Yes, along with all the business about masturbation anyway, where
clearly a culture steeped in contradictions, and this brand, which
had familiar ties to a past of deeply racist thought,
attempted to disavow white supremacy in nineteen forty six with
the creation of Operation Intolerance, which broadly speaking is a
series of storylines were contends with real world hate groups,
or at the very least proxies for real world hate

(30:04):
groups on his radio show. Here's Michael Hayde, author of
Flights of Fantasy, The unauthorized but true story of radio
and TV's Adventures of Superman, to.

Speaker 21 (30:13):
Explain Operation Intolerance was a very clever name coined by
the ad agency Kenyan and Eckert, who, along with Kellogg's
and along with Bob Maxwell and others in the involved
in the in producing the radio series which would ultimately

(30:34):
stretch to Superman Incorporated, wanted to create storylines for their
shows that promoted more tolerance for people of other religious creeds,
not just the Anglo Saxon Protestant American, but also for

(30:57):
Jews and Catholics. And so that's how it began. It
began against as a clea against religious bigotry, and then
of course it extended to other races.

Speaker 6 (31:11):
If you remember the radio shows, producer Bob Maxwell was
the one writing antagonistic letters to the government arguing is
right and intent to indoctrinate his youth audience to quote
hate all German and Japanese people.

Speaker 7 (31:25):
So this is what we call an about face, or
I might have slung mud in my own face.

Speaker 11 (31:31):
Right.

Speaker 6 (31:32):
It seems like Maxwell's motivations were tied to the fact
that he could use this platform to further any ideology
he's so decided upon, and Operation Intolerance was a new choice.
Here's more from Michael Hayden.

Speaker 21 (31:44):
As the famous Book of Ecclesiastes says there is a
time to hate and a time to love. And when
the time to hate was over along with the war,
it wasn't very long after that Operation Intolerance was launched.
It became a time to love, and Maxwell channeled his
proclivity to teach ideology into a very different direction.

Speaker 7 (32:09):
Also touched upon in our last episode, Kellogg's had realized
the tolerance as a concept was good for business, so
since national unity was avidly propagated throughout the war, everyone
behind the scenes seemed to agree that moving the show
in a more open minded and inclusive direction was a
slam dunk.

Speaker 6 (32:25):
There's definitely risks in taking a popular show which was
still drawing in more than four million listeners in a
direction that could have been deemed as preachy or boring
to an audience used to more fantastical and thrilling adventures. Now,
to mention, other kids radio shows had produced educational programs
before and generally received disappointing results.

Speaker 7 (32:43):
So a risk, yes. Also. Maxwell comb through twenty five
drafts of scripts, which all failed to properly weave the
delicate blend of melodrama and social commentary.

Speaker 6 (32:53):
Maxwell soon came to the realization that he may need
to reach outside of the show's regular writers for this
monumental test, So we turned to a real life Clark
Kent by the name of Ben Peter Freeman, a former
New York Times reporter, to give legitimacy and accuracy to
the show's reflection of organized hate.

Speaker 7 (33:09):
In America, and that's not all. Another risk in giving
airtime to a hate group, any airtime, regardless of their
villain's portrayal, was that it could backfire and actually encourage
bigoted behavior. So Maxwell also brought on an educational consultant
in Josette Frank, a researcher for the Child Study Association
of America.

Speaker 6 (33:27):
For her part, Miss Frank would take sample scripts and
consult with a variety of organizations ranging from the Big
Brothers of America to the National Conference of Christians and
Jews all about their content and then return with feedback
to the writers.

Speaker 7 (33:40):
And after all that, on April sixteenth, nineteen forty six,
the first episode to feature the themes of Operation Intolerance
finally hit the airwaves for.

Speaker 6 (33:49):
Twenty five consecutive episodes. The radio show followed the plot
line of the Hatemongers organization, which involved a fictional hate
group called the Guardians of America, who would record the
fruit Boys in the neighborhood deemed juvenile delinquents to help
spread an ideology of hate targeting Catholics, Jews, and other
minority groups.

Speaker 7 (34:08):
And naturally was up to the reporters of the Daily Planet,
and of course, the Man of Steel to save them.
Here's a snippet from an episode.

Speaker 11 (34:15):
About a month ago.

Speaker 24 (34:15):
Mister Waller's principal of the public school asked me to
attend a meeting.

Speaker 25 (34:18):
In his aus.

Speaker 24 (34:19):
What was the purpose of the meeting? Where we met
to discuss two things, How we could get the youngsters
of this crowded neighborhood off the streets, and more important,
how we could show them how to get along with
one another, no matter what their race or religion.

Speaker 7 (34:31):
It's interesting that the strategy of the villains was to
recruit and influence young people. It's almost a direct parallel
to what Maxwell and the producers were also trying to do.
Remember the Supermen of America Club I.

Speaker 6 (34:41):
Do In both the hate Bonger's organization plot line and
the intent behind it, seemed to acknowledge that it's possible
to win over the hearts and minds of young people
if you deliver your message early enough.

Speaker 7 (34:52):
Whether that message could be used for good or evil
was really what the show set out to explore.

Speaker 6 (34:56):
And guess what, Operation Intolerance was a huge success. Guy
Rocketing the Adventures of Superman to the number one slot
for a children's radio show at the time.

Speaker 7 (35:05):
Bob Maxwell was so hyped that he took out a
full page ad in a Hollywood trade magazine to essentially
bask in his own triumph. Here's Michael Hate again.

Speaker 20 (35:12):
Well.

Speaker 21 (35:13):
The ad appeared in Variety, which was a show business publication,
and it was seen by the movers and shakers in
the industry, and he was just trying to make the
point to those naysayers who said, you can't do this,
You've got to keep it entirely escape is fair. Hey,
guess what, guys, We went from fourth to fourth place

(35:33):
to first, and so consequently you're going to want to
pat yourself on the back when you do that.

Speaker 6 (35:41):
On top of the great ratings, the show received gushing
praise from the Child Study Association of America, the National
Conference of Christians and Jews, as well as the Calvin
Newspaper Service, which served dozens of African American newspapers at
the time.

Speaker 7 (35:55):
Basically all the groups you'd want backing you up on
this kind of earth shaking trajectory the show was going in.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
But the hatemongers organization plot line was just the beginning.
Because the writers and producers were already preparing a follow
up to their success with a sixteen part series which
would finally pit our beloved soups against none other than
the KKK and thos Kanna.

Speaker 7 (36:15):
Standing at six foot three and weighing the end a
two hundred and thirty five pounds, wearing the skin tight blues,
sup and cape. It's a man, it's a plain No,
it's Superman. Then in the opposing corner, Bare is standing
under the weight of their own Insecurity's wearing the white
shoots and Dunse caps. It's the Princess of Prejudice, the
Ku Klux Klan.

Speaker 6 (36:31):
This undertaking was a culmination of the original intent of
Operation Intolerance, so the Superman creative team worked for months
and took incredible care to make sure that the right
messaging would come across while also skirting the delicate line
that comes with broadcasting a show about the most notorious
white supremacist cult in the nation.

Speaker 7 (36:48):
There were again also obvious risks involved. Here's Matthew Delmont
with his take on the decision to run the series.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
I think it was actually pretty bold they have a
Superman fight the KKK in nineteen forty six, Because I
think a lot of white Americans are prettympathetic to what
the KKK was arguing for, honestly, and so I think
it's perhaps bolder than most people might think. I think
a lot of people would think, oh, that's an easy
thing for Superman to fight against, was the KKK. But
to if we take that seriously and think that Superman

(37:14):
was really going to fight against racial segregation and white supremacy,
that was actually a pretty bold thing to take on
in nineteen forty six.

Speaker 7 (37:23):
As we've discussed earlier in this episode, it was a
really tumultuous time in America when it came to race relations,
So it was obvious that this storyline could alienate many Americans,
but to the producers of the Adventures of Superman, it
was worth a risk.

Speaker 6 (37:35):
Aside from the boldness of the storyline, there were other
factors to consider. As we mentioned earlier, during the inception
of Operation Intolerance, the show's producers were rightfully concerned that
even discussing hateful rhetoric, hate crimes, or hate groups could
lead to replication by the show's young listeners.

Speaker 7 (37:50):
Right there was always a chance that writers could accidentally
inspire or trigger listeners to somehow identify with the messaging
sprouted by the hate group.

Speaker 6 (37:58):
So the creative teams sought input from a man named
Stetson Kennedy. Oh, the best name I know, but maybe
a liar. He was a Southern Liberal who claimed to
have infiltrated the KKK under the assumed name of John S. Perkins.
He then shared secrets of the clan's inner workings with
such institutions as the FBI the Anti Defamation League. He

(38:19):
was chiefly consultant on the KKK's use of code words
so that the writers didn't accidentally use any of them
on air, along with their traditions and practices that weren't
necessarily public knowledge.

Speaker 7 (38:29):
At one point after the show had aired, it was
insinuated that they did in fact use some KKK code words,
but that later proved to be false.

Speaker 6 (38:36):
Yeah, So circling back to the liar bit stets And Kennedy,
you know, he's maybe a bit of a taller of
tall tales, and he claimed some secondhand accounts of KKK
infiltration as his own. It later came out. Nonetheless, it
is apparent that the producers were working to be as
conscious as they could with this extremely sensitive material.

Speaker 7 (38:56):
The producers were really covering all their bases, even changing
the KKKA into a fictional, made up organization known as
the Klan of the Fiery Cross, very on the nose
to avoid any potential legal snaffoos or entanglements with the
Clan itself. But let's be real, they weren't hiding it.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Today we began a brand new story, a story of
baseball and the discovery of a menace that will laid
Superman and his friend through many dangerous adventures.

Speaker 6 (39:25):
On June tenth, nineteen forty six, The Adventures of Superman
aired the first episode of the Klan of the Fiery
Cross series.

Speaker 7 (39:32):
Love that they went right for the throat with baseball.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (39:36):
So we got the Klan, we got Superman. We've laid
out everything that has led up to the showdown, and yes,
we've even got America's favorite pastime, baseball. So let's dive
into the actual story.

Speaker 7 (39:47):
The plotline follows a youth baseball team managed by Jimmy Olsen.
The real conflict begins with a young Chinese American boy
named Tommy Lee proves to be a better pitcher than
the current starter, Chuck Riggs, who happens to.

Speaker 5 (39:58):
Be white, and if we win tomorrow, we'll be in
the finals for the Boys Championship of Metropolis.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Hey, that's great.

Speaker 20 (40:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
I was like, you're a top.

Speaker 5 (40:05):
Notch manager, and any manager could win with Tommy Lee
on his team. Oh, Tommy Lee, our pitcher, Why he's
got everything, speed, sweet curve, change of pace.

Speaker 22 (40:15):
He's to wait a minute, wait a minute. Last time
you were telling me about the team, your pitcher was
a boy named Riggs, wasn't.

Speaker 7 (40:21):
Yeah, Chuck Riggs.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
That was before Tommy Lee moved into the neighborhood and
joined Unity House. Oh, when Tommy showed us how he
could throw that old baseball, Chuck had to move over.

Speaker 6 (40:30):
Chuck Riggs, the displaced pitcher, is not happy about this.

Speaker 5 (40:33):
Well, I don't like to say it, but Chuck Riggs
is a bit of a sorehead. He didn't like it
and moved down a number two pitcher, and well, he's
been trying to turn some of the guys against Tommy.

Speaker 7 (40:43):
Then Chuck tells his uncle Matt Riggs about an incident
involving Tommy Lee, who accidentally beamed him with a baseball,
and Uncle Matt has a somewhat baffling response.

Speaker 20 (40:52):
This Lee boy beating it with a baseball. Gives me
just the angle I've been looking for. Now, look Chuck,
and listened carefully. Huh, this kid deliberately you on the
head with a baseball. He was trying to kid you.

Speaker 22 (41:03):
Oh no, he wasn't.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
I told you how it happened.

Speaker 20 (41:05):
He was trying to kid you. I say, I know
this boy, and I know his father.

Speaker 6 (41:08):
Uncle Matt then tells Chuck that he may have a
solution to his problem.

Speaker 20 (41:12):
And you and I are going someplace. Yeah where there
were a place where no boy has ever been before,
A meeting of real Americans who and I ought to
take care of these Tommy Lees and others like them.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
Note the use of quote real Americans real indeed, and
this is something we touched on earlier when it comes
to recruiting youth.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
In this instance, Uncle Matt is playing off the replacement
fear young Chuck Riggs is feeling about losing his spot
as a starting pitcher.

Speaker 6 (41:35):
We interviewed Christian Piccolini, who was recruited into a white
supremacist group at the age of fourteen. After ten years,
he left the movement and founded the Free Radicals Project
to help deradicalize youth here's Christian on his recruitment.

Speaker 26 (41:48):
So I went looking for a clear sense of identity,
community and purpose. And one day, at fourteen years old,
I was standing in an alley smoking in joint and
a guy came up to me who was twice my age,
and he had a shaved head and boots, and he
pulled that joint from my mouth and he looked me
in the eyes and he said, that's what the Communists
and the Jews want you to do to keep you docile.

(42:10):
And I got to be honest. At fourteen, I didn't
really know what a Communist was, or if I met
a Jewish person. I didn't even know what the word
docile meant. But it was the first time in my
life that I felt like somebody saw me and he
drew me in with a sense of acceptance and a
promise of paradise that my life, you know, having been
bullied for almost fourteen years, would change. And it did

(42:35):
initially empower me. It did fill me with, you know,
a very clear sense of identity. It provided a community
atmosphere and a family that I was searching for.

Speaker 7 (42:45):
Replacement theory is the notion that any gains made by
someone from a marginalized group somehow comes with expense of
someone who's one hundred percent American, which, in white supremacist
circles is a code for white Protestant Americans.

Speaker 6 (42:57):
Consciously or not, the Superman Radio show was capturing something
very deeply embedded in the American psyche. In the character
Chuck Riggs. I mean, this is a kid who feels
quite literally replaced just because somebody's better than him at baseball.
I mean, these circumstances lead him to his uncle, who
then tries to recruit him to this hate group.

Speaker 7 (43:15):
Yeah, because equality is much like pie anyway. That's what
we're talking about, the subtle and not so subtle power
of the media to capture, reflect and influence our culture
and our daily lives.

Speaker 20 (43:24):
Right.

Speaker 6 (43:25):
So, stoking the flames of replacement theory to an impressional
kid unaware of the ways of the world is very
Nazi like, not something one does lightly. I mean, Uncle
Matt knew exactly what he was doing.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Suddenly they come into an opening, and as the car stops,
Chuck guests 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 guttro chat issues harshly from their hidden lips,

(43:58):
sending an uneasy chill.

Speaker 7 (43:59):
Fo Chucks, Well, if that doesn't mirror the exact description
written by Life magazine about the cross burning on Stone.

Speaker 6 (44:04):
Mountain, right, it's like we were saying this is verbatim.
The writers were really going for it. So after hearing
Chuck recount the skirmish with Tommy Lee, the clan of
the Fiery Cross bowls.

Speaker 14 (44:14):
Revenge, Well, did you hear that brothers and the Klan,
that young Wealth, who is not a true American, who
can never be a true American, tried to kill this father,
this American boy? And why because he has been schooled
by his kind and their porn sympathizers to strike against
our plans for a pure, clean America, an American free

(44:36):
from mixed races, mixed colors, and mixed religions.

Speaker 19 (44:41):
Why are we gonna stand o ley by and see
this scum weasel our way into our neighborhoods and our
job Why are we gonna stand by and what they're
striking in our children and yours and you're the mine. No, indeed,
we strike back, and the time is now.

Speaker 6 (45:00):
And then the clan burns across on the front lawn
of the Lee's house. It's hard not to see a
parallel to the real life story of the Short family
that we talked about earlier.

Speaker 7 (45:08):
Here's Jimmy Elson and Clark Kent discussing the Cross burning.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
What I can't understand, mister kend is why the Fiery
Cross clan should burn across in front of Tommy Lee's house.
But they're nice people, Doctor Lee.

Speaker 24 (45:20):
Tommy's father is a well known bacteriologist factoriology.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Uh huh, you mean doctor Wan Lee.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
That's right, Maam Marshall just appointed him to the health Department.
Why would they want to bother a man like that?

Speaker 22 (45:30):
Because the klan of the Fiery Cross is made up
of intolerant Biggest Jim. They don't judge a man in
the decent American way by his own qualities.

Speaker 20 (45:38):
They judge him by.

Speaker 22 (45:38):
What church he goes to and by the color of
his skin.

Speaker 6 (45:41):
It's important to note that the Superman producers base the
Lee story around real life attacks on Chinese immigrant families.

Speaker 7 (45:47):
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Right.

Speaker 7 (45:50):
They specifically chose to write the main character as Chinese
American as supposed to African American in order to counter
to the belief that the Ku Klux Klan only targeted
black people. Chinese immigrants faced decade of racism and exclusion
in America, which worsened when Chinese people began to be
commonly mistaken for Japanese people during World War Two, and
subsequently we're targeted and attacked by fellow Americans.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
We should also know that China was allied with the
United States and World War Two, so that may have
played into how they crafted Tommy's character as well, wanting
to align him with an ally from the war. In
terms of the history of the clan attacks against Chinese Americans,
here's Jean Lan Yang, a comic writer who modernized the
story of the Clan of the Fiery Cross in his
graphic novel Superman Smashes the Klan.

Speaker 18 (46:30):
That was one of the things that I really wanted
to research when I went into adaptation. I want to
find out why that decision was made, you know, and
what the historic relationship between the clan and Chinese Americans
specifically was so what I discovered was that, you know,

(46:51):
we all know that African Americans are enemy number one
for the Klans. What I didn't realize was that Chinese
Americans were probably enemy two.

Speaker 6 (47:00):
Jean lu Yang also touched on an element specific to
Asian Americans and the depiction of Tommy as Chinese in
the story.

Speaker 18 (47:07):
As a Chinese American. You know, one of the things
that most affects me is this idea of the model minority, right,
the model minority myth is that you know, all these
Asian Americans, we came to America, our parents worked really hard,
and we quote unquote made it. But what's not talked
about there is that the reason why we were able

(47:29):
to move into these predominantly white neighborhoods was because of
a change in our story during World War Two.

Speaker 7 (47:37):
The change Yang is speaking about directly correlates to the
gi build that we discussed earlier. While Black Americans were
prevented from moving into predominantly white neighborhoods, Chinese Americans had
a somewhat different experience, allowing them to move somewhat more
freely into these white spaces right.

Speaker 6 (47:53):
So, even though hate groups like the KKK were pushing
an ideology of white supremacy against all other races, the
general public perhaps was not as overtly aware that their
hate extended to Chinese people as well.

Speaker 7 (48:04):
Here's Michael Hayte again.

Speaker 21 (48:06):
It was enough that they were obviously taking on the clan.
They probably wanted to not really bludgeon the point home
by making the victim an African American or a Black American,
and that too may have also been a sop to
the South. Just you know, it's enough that we're making

(48:28):
it clear that this is the clan, and the clan
is certainly going after other people besides Black Americans.

Speaker 7 (48:35):
It's odd because he's almost indicating that the show's producers
might have been afraid in some respects to include an
African American family in the story. All this is to
say the decision to cast timy Lee in the story
is purposeful and meaningful.

Speaker 6 (48:48):
But we should also consider the reality that the Clan
had in fact been initially formed to terrorize newly freed
black Americans, and there have been decades of violence, murder,
and terror against Black Americans, specifically at the hands of
the clan. So while Tommy Lee and his family are
really great characters to include, is there something that show

(49:09):
us potentially missing by not including black characters in the
Clan of the Fiery Cross as well? Was there an
unconscious message that some people are worthy of Superman's protection
and platforming because of the role they play in society?
While there's not so much, I.

Speaker 7 (49:25):
Mean, it's really hard to say, because you know, it's
they were doing the best that they thought they could
do at the time, you know, and so of course
there's there would be a desire to go straight at
what the clan is all about, and with the clan,
to your point, the top of their to do list
is But I also understand that just trying to tell
a story in which Superman comes to the aid of

(49:47):
somebody who's marginalized is an easier one to get. Is
it's an easier pill to swallow at first? The reflection
here is really the mainstream media and to some degree,
mass American culture has often shot away from analyzing racism
towards blo black Americans. Specifically, the Sinatra film we talked
about in the last episode address the idea that different
religious groups could share blood as we all bleed the same,

(50:08):
Yet African American blood was an essence segregated from other
blood during the.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
War, right, and I mean right, Like they were just
doing the best they could to tell a story that
they thought would have impact at the time, and taking
a ton of different considerations in I guess one question
is do we lose cultural opportunities by not addressing things directly?
Which is not to say that racism and other forms

(50:32):
didn't exist and need addressing. That was very much a
part of the KKK's bigotry and history.

Speaker 7 (50:39):
I mean it seems as if sometimes a selective truth
is not telling the entire story, and America is very
good about selective truths. The narrative that it spins about
itself is very often not the narrative that actually existed.
But the simple fact is the Superman radio shows producers
are depicting an organization, the Clan, that was created in
a response to some white Southern's rage over the end

(50:59):
of slavery. It is also true that this is the
first iteration of the Klan, the second, as we covered
an episode two, really did franchise hate.

Speaker 6 (51:06):
It's true. By the end of their work in the
nineteen twenties, the clan hated more Americans percentage wise than
it liked. Here's Julian Chandlers, a professor of English at
Michigan State University.

Speaker 9 (51:16):
The Klu Klux Klan of the nineteen twenties, which is
the second Klan, not the first Klan. The second Klan
hated everybody. Sorry, they hated lots of different people.

Speaker 25 (51:30):
They definitely hated African Americans, but they hated Catholics, they
hated Mexicans, they hated in Chinese.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
What do the subtle and overt creative choices in pop
culture and mass media say about us? And how do
they influence us? Also is their possibly financial motivation. Here's
Julian Chambliss again.

Speaker 25 (51:47):
So there's a complexity where like the historical record kind
of supports the fact that the Klan is this sort
of group that has a series of narratives that are
anti white, anti anti against anything that's not white, and
Protestant in Christians.

Speaker 9 (52:06):
So Chinese people fall within that.

Speaker 25 (52:08):
You know, black people, Yes, they're they're horrible too, But
I don't think there's also any doubt that the idea
that Southern radio stations or people part of the radio
networks wouldn't have the same sort of acceptance of an
African Americans at the core of an anti clan story.

Speaker 9 (52:29):
Because you know, the clan is popular in the South.

Speaker 25 (52:34):
It is a social group with women in it, with
women's auxiliary organizations and kids being indoctorated into it.

Speaker 7 (52:43):
Early creative decisions and a show like this are complex
to say the least. And on that note, back to the.

Speaker 6 (52:48):
Story, things escalate further when members of the clan actually
kidnapped Tommy Lee and stashed him in a cave by
the river. He's able to escape, but he breaks his
arm and falls into the raging river in the process.
Then Superman flies in and whisks is away to safety
just in the nick of time.

Speaker 7 (53:05):
And later Jimmy Elsen and Perry White are also kidnapped
by the Klan uh Oh and are awaiting execution when
Superman flies in and rescues everybody in the last minute
as well.

Speaker 6 (53:16):
So it's really we're on our tenter hooks. But hang on,
given the nature of this series, let's consider who the
story is focusing on. Mark I mean, okay, like, in
all seriousness, it's great, it's amazing that they included this character.
Tommy Lee is a lead role, but it also spends
a lot of time focusing on white characters like Jimmy
Olsen and Perry White. So here's Julian Chamlis on the

(53:39):
prevalence of white saviorism and fictional characters and how Superman
in some respects fits into that mold.

Speaker 20 (53:45):
Well.

Speaker 25 (53:46):
As a character, Superman sort of talks to and reflects
a kind of narrative narrativation, a narrative about whiteness that's
very important to Americans.

Speaker 9 (54:00):
And what I mean by that is, you know, when
you think.

Speaker 25 (54:03):
About Superman as a character, you know, this is an alien,
which is a term that's used to describe immigrants, right,
But he's an alien who comes to the United States
and grows up in the Heartland where he takes the
sort of values of the Heartland and masters them with

(54:23):
his sort of innate ethnic traits and becomes like really
a super citizen. This is very important because, of course,
the United States is a country of immigrants, many of
which come from many different places, and like, you know,
how do you sort of unite into one single identity. Well,
it's through this process of like conscering.

Speaker 9 (54:44):
You know.

Speaker 25 (54:45):
The argument is that through this process of conquering the continent,
you forge a kind of unique American identity that has
the best that revers sort of distilliation of the best
of humanity. You know, in fictional characters, that metaphor gets worked.

Speaker 9 (55:06):
Over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 25 (55:08):
And so Tarzan is an example of a character who's
the very best example of humanity. Then he's king into Jungle,
but he's the right hand man in the novel is
a black guy, and he's the second best. So if
Tarzan hadn't been there, this character Mugabe, who is his

(55:28):
sort of like right hand man from the novels, he
would be the.

Speaker 9 (55:32):
King of Jungle.

Speaker 25 (55:33):
But Tarzan is better because he's white. Basically, this is
a justification for imperialism. This is a justification for intervention.
You can make them better, you can impose or that
you can create structures where they can be productive parts
of a global economic system with white people at the top,
but they can't be white, and.

Speaker 9 (55:51):
So you'll always be better than them. That idea.

Speaker 25 (55:58):
Is crystallized at some level into superhero characters like Superman.
They are a kind of hyper hyper fantastic version of
that ideology. They are in fact perfect physically and mentally,
and you can never that is you, not a white

(56:18):
people can never overcome them because they are so perfect.

Speaker 7 (56:21):
That's an extremely detailed way of saying that the whiteness
of America is manufactured to create an American identity. Obviously,
not all Americans are white, even many in the Heartland
are immigrants from elsewhere.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Right, So in pushing the myths of colonization and imperialism
as American goodness, the association of whiteness and heroism become
intrinsically intertwined in American culture.

Speaker 7 (56:43):
And pressed out alien Kalel in some respects embodies elements
of the white Savior, though again this is complicated given
the Jerry and Joe as well as the character himself,
also represent the immigrant experience. I mean, at the beginning,
Superman was the champion of the oppressed.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
Right, and what he did represented to the community in
the Jerry and Joe area transformed when he became the
symbol of truth justice in the American way. His role
became to uphold the status quo, and because the status
quo changes over time, Superman's meaning changes over time as well.

Speaker 7 (57:14):
We also have to own that this is nineteen forty
six and put it in the context of the time.
And we need to underscore that much of the United
States was segregated in this period, so the idea of
a white savior trope isn't quite how we'd view it.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
Today, right, And though imperfect as all things are, the
storyline was still a huge step forward in that time period.
Superman had a huge platform and really was then as
he is now hero to many. This is the mass
media being used to support what we would ultimately consider
to be positive values. If you're going to use the
mass media, you hope that that's what it's for. Here's

(57:47):
Julian Chamlet's again.

Speaker 25 (57:48):
Yeah, maybe a better question is why is this story
an important story? From the Bridges's standpoint, Well, I think
this story fits into, as I say, a pattern of
trying to narrativize to Americans that there are certain extremee
behaviors that we can associate with our enemies or with

(58:11):
communities of practice that you know, we're in opposition to,
that we should not accept. Right, So, using race to
divide Americans is something that is unacceptable for a lot
of Americans, even if they are employing sort of like

(58:33):
regressive racial thoughts themselves.

Speaker 9 (58:35):
They don't want to be divided. They don't want an
outsider to divide Americas by race.

Speaker 7 (58:41):
The producers really were thinking through their choices and the
portrayal of some of the characters. For example, the script
didn't use dialect to distinguish characters by race, religion, or
geographic region, so it's not overly stereotypes Southern news or
minority groups. They strive to teach tolerance to millions of
young listeners while showing the extent of the damage the
prejudice can inflict on anyone.

Speaker 6 (59:00):
And in fact, the writers actually scaled back on some
of the horoics performed by Superman in the episode, opting
instead to give more room for the human characters stand
up and play hero. For example, Perry White writes an
op ed denouncing the clan of the fire across Jimmy
Wilson and Clark can't caution him about the dangers of this,
but Perry remains adamant to a listen.

Speaker 5 (59:20):
But look what I can't figure out, mister Kenned, is
why they're picking on mister White. He's no fun and
his skin's and the reasons obvious.

Speaker 17 (59:26):
Jim, you mean it's because of my editorial telling him
the rotten history of the clan and pointing out the
un American digrety they stand for exactly Well, they won't
make me shut up. I'll keep after them until they're
brought out into the open.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
And who are sure?

Speaker 22 (59:37):
I know you will Chee, but you must take precautions.
I can't watch over you every minute you, I mean we,
that is. I'm sure Inspector Henderson will assign a couple
of plain clothes men, but even to.

Speaker 13 (59:47):
Me, he won't.

Speaker 17 (59:48):
I'm not going to let those skunuls think I'm scared
of him.

Speaker 5 (59:51):
But look she I think mister Kennon is right.

Speaker 17 (59:52):
I don't care what you think or Candy that the
Klan is going to find out that I mean business,
that they can't scare me with that mumbo jumbo and burning.

Speaker 7 (59:59):
Crosses sounds to me like Superman and the creators were
inherent believers in the power of the media to make
social change, and they believe that ordinary people, not just superheroes,
could stand up to bigotry and make a difference.

Speaker 6 (01:00:10):
I mean, he chose to be a reporter. He inherently
believes in the fourth Estate, and every man as a
hero is also on display in the redentive arc of
Chuck Riggs, whose conflict with Tommy Lee is what got
the Klan involved in the first place.

Speaker 22 (01:00:23):
You see, lois, some unidentified boy phoned me the night
the Klan grabbed Tommy Lee. Yes, he told me the
Klan was taking Tommy to the River Bend to tar
and feather him.

Speaker 24 (01:00:32):
I see, And he wouldn't tell you his name.

Speaker 22 (01:00:35):
Nobody knew all about it, so he must know who
the clans were.

Speaker 18 (01:00:37):
Not.

Speaker 7 (01:00:38):
Chuck felt guilty after seeing members of the Klan of
the Fiery Cross attack Tommy and his father, but his
uncle threatened to tar and feather him unknown ku Klux
Klan active terror if he didn't stay quiet, So Chuck
calls Clark Kent anonymously to tip him off to Tommy's whereabouts.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
This is relevant because real world hate creubs like the
KKK have an if you're not with us, you're against
us policy, and when Chuck became the target of his
own uncle's wrath, he was finally able to see the
Klan for who they really are, and therefore was able
to empathize with the other side. Here's Christian Piccolini again.

Speaker 26 (01:01:10):
You know most leaders that are doing it, are doing
it for the profit, you know, whether they have membership
lists or if they're the Grand Dragon of the Ku
Klux Klan, they have an interest in keeping their groups
non violent because it means that they can grow their
membership list, right, people won't be afraid to join. But
then there are the ones who are more the accelerationist types,

(01:01:33):
who are not interested and necessarily you know, making a
profit from it. They're interested in leaving a mark. And
again it's not so much about the group structure as
it is about the ideologues and the propagandists promoting this
ideology to a wider mass of people and hoping that
they'll act on it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:51):
So it seems like the Clan of the Fiery Cross
in this instance are what Christian refers to as quote
the accelerationist types, those who want to leave their mark
with violence.

Speaker 7 (01:02:01):
The end of the Radio Drummer wraps up in a
more melodramatic fashion. Chuck's uncle Matt Riggs goes on a
rampage killing the Grand Imperial Mogul of the Klan aka
the Grand Dragon.

Speaker 6 (01:02:12):
And he's going to kill his own nephew and Jamielsen
at the Little in game. His dastardly plan falls through, though,
and he is foiled by Superman once again.

Speaker 7 (01:02:21):
Then Tommy, with his armbroken, coaches Chuck through the pitching
of the championship game. Tommy, in this case is a
hero who embodies the ideals of forgiveness and tolerance. Surprise,
they win, you boys if the.

Speaker 17 (01:02:34):
House of Gonna find gold, and I am proud of him.
Not only proves that you're the best baseball game, but
you approve that youngsters of different races and creeds can
work and play together successfully in the American Way.

Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
In the end, Chuck Riggs offers to give the gold
baseball he received for winning the game to his new
friend Tommy Lee, a symbolic gesture of unity and of course.

Speaker 16 (01:02:54):
The American Way.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Oh, another Superman adventure has come to a close.

Speaker 7 (01:03:00):
Okay, Roth, many punches have been thrown and I may
have seen some blood drawn. So in the battle for
defining the American Way, who wins Superman of the KKK.

Speaker 6 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I don't know if we're quite there yet, but
the Klan of the Fiery Cross series did elicit a
very positive response from audiences.

Speaker 7 (01:03:15):
Not only were parents who thought that some of the
pre war and wartime storylines were too violent, satisfied by
the tolerant and inclusive messaging. But there were also a
lot of accolades given by civic and religious groups, like
the Boys Clubs of America, the Child Study Association, and
the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Here's Wendy Wallin.

Speaker 23 (01:03:31):
That the Child Study Association of America had actually been
for a long time really concerned that the all comics
and superhero comics and those kinds of things were simply
too violent, you know, too much blood and gore. They
were teaching kids the wrong thing, and so they were
thrilled when suddenly, instead of you know, focusing on violence,

(01:03:56):
you're focusing on combating prejudice and combating the violence.

Speaker 20 (01:04:02):
Of a sort.

Speaker 23 (01:04:03):
For a lot of these other groups, I think the
National Conference of Christians and Jews, I note that there
were a lot of you know, the Federation of Churches,
the Methodist Church, the Free Synagogue. There are a whole
lot of religious groups who are in here.

Speaker 6 (01:04:19):
The support from these groups, including the Anti Defamation League,
was all the more poignant because many of them were
involved with Operation Intolerance from the beginning, acting as pseudo consultants.
So the fact that they were mighty proud to stand
behind the products says it all. Here's Michael Hate again.

Speaker 21 (01:04:33):
My understanding was that those groups became involved, or not
so much involved, but they they congratulated this series. They
and they made public their feelings that Superman is doing
a good thing here in steering children away from from

(01:04:54):
harmful thought and thoughts that are really not quote unquote American.
You don't want to It's not a real American who
discriminates against anyone because we are, like it or not.
We are a nation of immigrants and we always have been.

Speaker 7 (01:05:10):
And when it came to the fans, they too seemed
delighted by the new direction the series was taking, despite
the drastic shift away from the superfluous thrills and chills
that were used.

Speaker 6 (01:05:18):
To fan magazine The Radio Mirror published a full page
tribute to the Man of Steel quote because he has
done so much to show folks how important it is
to respect each other's rights and to get along together
end quote, and Newsweek wrote quote Superman is the first
children's program to develop a social consciousness.

Speaker 7 (01:05:37):
Officials for both sponsor and network were relieved when the
shows pleased for tolerance began attracting the highest ratings in
the history of the series. Close quote.

Speaker 6 (01:05:45):
It's amazing to see this all come full circle, to
see the media embracing the storyline, and of course Superman himself.

Speaker 7 (01:05:51):
Tolerance equated to higher ratings, which proved it was a
winning message. Publicity chief Hall Davis of Kenny and Eckhart
even challenged other children's programs to follow suit. Quote. We
think more shows should be doing this type of work.
Close quote.

Speaker 6 (01:06:04):
And I'm sure klock Ciril was flying off the shells
and into those little tolerant children's mouths. But let's be real,
not everyone was stoked.

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
Absolutely not. Anti Semitic commentator Gerald L. K. Smith reportedly
denounced Superman as a disgrace to America, while others reported
that Maxwell had received death threats from the New Jersey Clan.

Speaker 6 (01:06:24):
Despite that, Maxwell declared that quote, Superman is continuing the fight.
Rick Bauers made the point that this was something that
the country seemed ready to confront, at least in part so.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
In the wake of that program, The accolades that poured
in to the Superman's staff was unprecedented. Major newspaper articles
about the bravery of the people who put on the
Superman program, major business organizations commending Superman for having such

(01:06:58):
a positive impact on America's youth, African American newspapers amending
Superman for showing a different way and taking a stand
against bigotry. So I think that the culture was ready

(01:07:22):
to confront.

Speaker 6 (01:07:23):
So we've had our epic battle Superman versus the KKK,
But even on the radio show, the Klan of the
Fiery Cross wasn't entirely defeated, because although you can encourage tolerance,
you can't eliminate racial hatred that easily.

Speaker 7 (01:07:36):
So next week we'll dig into the long term question
in the modern era, whose overall vision of America is
winning Superman's truth justice in the American way where the
KKK is divided and exclusionary America.

Speaker 6 (01:07:51):
This podcast was hosted by Mark Bernardan and Roth Cornett,
Created and executive produced by Roth Cornett, with executive producers
Max Dion and Michael Chang, with producers and writers Nancy Rosenbaum,
Loretta Williams, Teru Bratch, Michelle Dunn, Eileen gall Billy Patterson,
Gordie Loehen, Roth Cornette, and Mark Bernardin our audio engineer

(01:08:14):
is Brett Bohen. Our researchers are Lauren Schwen and Elana Strauss.
Our fact checker is Stephen Crichton. Recording was done by
Forever Dog Productions and Voice Tracks. A very special thanks
to Caleb Schneider, Sasha Pearl River, Brett Weiner, Eric Eisenberg,
Sonny Benson, Anne Brasher, Shanna Whitlow, Joe Starr, alvitaal Ash,

(01:08:39):
Dina Crowder, Danielle Radber, Spencer, Gilbert ln Harris, and Paige
Chew On the next episode of Superman Versus the KKK.

Speaker 16 (01:08:53):
American cultural memory is very short, especially when it comes
to things that people would raw the for catch.

Speaker 23 (01:09:01):
The American way is a term that I grew up with,
but it's not a term that I hear people using
that much anymore.

Speaker 20 (01:09:08):
Today.

Speaker 23 (01:09:08):
When I hear it, I more often hear it from
people on the right, Trump supporters, people like that.

Speaker 15 (01:09:13):
Now people can go to these little niche outlets that
basically reinforce however it is that they already feel and
that prevents us from coming together.

Speaker 25 (01:09:22):
The Superhero takes that tradition of a kind of cultural
exemplarar and it magnifies it to deal with.

Speaker 9 (01:09:28):
What are really complicated, big problems.

Speaker 25 (01:09:32):
He has the power to deliver on the values that
Americans believes are true.

Speaker 7 (01:09:38):
The great conflict today is the dominant society, which is
white folk, dealing with new struggles that they often put
the blame on

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
People who don't look like them.