A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Omaha

Omaha is built on white supremacy. From the self-aggrandizing land speculators in 1854 through the present-day corporatocracy running the city, racism shines in nearly every event of the city’s history. In the 1920s, the same forces were at work in the city, perhaps driven by the city’s crime boss instead of corporate overlords. This is a history of one of the most insidious features of Omaha’s racist history, the Ku Klux Klan.

Basics of the KKK

This 1921 article says Omaha's Temple Israel Rabbi Frederick Cohn took on the Omaha KKK. — This 1921 article says Omaha’s Temple Israel Rabbi Frederick Cohn took on the Omaha KKK.

The KKK was started for the first time in the 1860s after the Civil War. Defeated Confederate rebel soldiers and officers used terrorism to enforce white supremacy throughout the South, including attacking and lynching Black people and intimidating Black voters. Along wearing ghost costumes, burning crosses and threatening African Americans, the KKK would kill anyone who they targeted. In 1871, the US government made KKK membership illegal and courts sentenced members to prison. However, in the six years the organization existed Jim Crow laws became common and the organization was concerned successful.

The KKK was restarted in 1915 after the release of the movie The Birth of the Nation. The movie, which showed Black men as stupid sexual predators and the KKK as heroes, was recruitment propaganda for the organization. Adding Jews and Catholics to their hit list, the KKK attracted recruits from across the country. Reaching their peak membership in the 1920s, the organization lynched and murdered at least 3,400 people in its first 80 years. The Atlanta Constitution described the KKK as a “new secretive organization founded with a view to taking active part in the betterment of mankind.”

Omaha KKK History

Before the Omaha KKK emerged, white supremacist terrorism haunted the city. The 1891 lynching of George Smith, the 1906 near-lynching of three murder suspects, the 1909 Greek Town riot, the 1910 Jack Johnson riots, the 1917 near-lynching of Charles Smith, and the 1919 lynching of Will Brown punctuate a racist culture, police brutality of Black people, discriminatory laws and an abhorrent history.

In the 1890s, the city had an influential chapter of the American Protective Association, a powerful anti-Catholic organization. From the 1890s through into the early 1930s, Tom Dennison’s crime and political bossism drove used hate to drive and sustain his money-making activities.

Starting in 1921, the Omaha KKK asserted itself as a driving force for evil in the city. In 1922, The Monitor newspaper estimated there were 750 members in Omaha. In 1923, the national KKK bragged there were 45,000 members in Nebraska, with reports of the Klan being “especially active” in Omaha. According to researchers, “demonstrations, parades, and cross burnings were common” statewide by 1924. The most widely known story is of the KKK in Omaha attacking the family home of Malcolm X near Adams Park in 1926, eventually forcing them to move to Detroit.

The KKK didn’t grow unabated in Omaha. The Jewish Press and the Catholic True Voice newspapers both regularly reported on the Klan, and the Omaha World-Herald wrote op-eds denouncing the group. The Monitor loudly denounced the KKK, reported on its activities and outcomes, and regularly demanded action against the Klan. Another Black newspaper, The New Era, also railed against them, and a paper called The Omaha Whip was created singularly focused on defeating the Klan in Omaha. Nebraska State Senator Robert Strehlow was also noted for his advocacy against the KKK.

Historians have noted that the organization reached the apex of its power in Omaha in 1926, when they ran candidates for Douglas County Commissioner and sheriff. Organizing against its influence, Black leaders held a forum to points out the danger at hand. Reporting in one paper quoted a leader as saying, “The Negro race has too much at stake to take a chance. We do not want hundreds of klansmen patrolling Omaha streets as special deputy sheriffs.”

In 2000, a Los Angeles Times article mentioned the story of Mary L. Suzuki, then 68-years-old, whose Filipino family was attacked by the KKK in Omaha in the 1940s before leaving for Chicago. Some historians assert Dennison was manipulated the Omaha KKK for his purposes, too.

A series of scandals and federal prosecution for income tax evasion led to the national organization disbanding again formally in 1944.

Informal chapters continued existing and stayed active into the 1960s, and the national organization reemerged as the “Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” in 1975. The Klan and its paramilitary training camps was obliterated by nearly constant court cases that bankrupted the organization. In 2011, one estimate said there were 5,000 members nationwide. In 2016, one media source reported, “the KKK is still alive and dreams of restoring itself to what it once was: an invisible white supremacist empire spreading its tentacles throughout society. As it marks 150 years of existence, the Klan is trying to reshape itself for a new era.”

However, in 2022 the Southern Poverty Law Center said, “There were very few Klan events of note in 2022, and there were 22 flyering incidents, which was the same amount in 2021. However, the subsequent news coverage they received helped maintain the false perception that the Klan is a dominant white supremacist group in America… While there were Klan rallies throughout 2022, they were small, remote and operated by individual Klan organizations with little cross coordination or overlap between other groups.”

The SPLC says that in modern times the KKK focuses on white supremacy, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTTQQI, election denialism, and more.

The KKK in Omaha

This September 26, 1921 heading says, "KKK must find new haunt here," with the Omaha Daily Bee attesting to the organization being kicked out of their meeting hall. — This September 26, 1921 heading says, “KKK must find new haunt here,” with the *Omaha Daily Bee* attesting to the organization being kicked out of their meeting hall.

Stories of the KKK are all over Omaha, as if everyone’s great grandmother would tell them, both Black and white people. Men in hoods, secret handshakes, showy medallions and horrific torture by mobs. Evangelical Christian congregations consumed by hatred, vehement local politicians and secretive national representatives, along with businessowners, teachers, workers and ministers all working in concert to terrorize African Americans throughout the city.

Evidence of the presence of the KKK in Omaha a century ago is becoming more easily accessible than ever before. Newspaper articles in online archives document the meetings, demonstrations, picnics, parades and cross burnings that become common in the 1920s. Shining a light on these events is essential, and rather than editorializing about them with vague insinuations or letting conjecture and implication run this analysis, I want to share the details of the white supremacist terrorism that drove that organization in Omaha for years. This history cannot be understood without examining Omaha’s history of racism, the history of the Omaha Civil Rights movement, and the history of mob violence in Omaha, too. See the “You Might Like…” section below for other related articles.

Following is a history of the Ku Klux Klan in Omaha.

A Timeline of the KKK in Omaha

This picture of a Nebraska KKK rally is from an August 7 1921 article in the Omaha Daily Bee.

There have been four time periods of the KKK in Omaha. They are the era between 1865 and 1921, between 1921 and 1939, from 1940 to 1976, and from 1977 and 2023. I have not found any evidence of the organization’s existence or activities in Omaha during the first time period, and just a few mentions during fourth time period. Following is a timeline detailing what I have found. Please share any other details or examples in the comments.

1921—1939

This November 1921 Omaha Bee article roasted the Omaha KKK for having a meeting where only a dozen people showed up to an event that expected 300. — This November 1921 *Omaha Bee* article roasted the Omaha KKK for having a meeting where only a dozen people showed up to an event that expected 300.

Without much form or identity, the KKK emerged in name in Omaha in early 1921. Early on challenged by the Omaha NAACP, the organization barely dented the city beyond its press coverage. The Omaha Bee, a leading newspaper, was owned by a Jewish businessman who mocked the organization in their coverage. The Omaha World-Herald seemed more sympathetic, but later became almost militant.

While an era KKK organizer and others claimed to have a lot of members, analysis by modern historians including Ryan Roenfeld and Johnny Paine suggest otherwise. The two agree that ultimately Tom Dennison, the city’s Irish Catholic crime boss, defeated the organization. Roenfeld suggests Dennison actually planted moles in the organization to control the way they voted, while Paine explains how Dennison and Mayor Cowboy Jim formed a competing organization called the “Fascisti of America” led by a former KKK leader from northern California. The organization was referred to as “anti-KKK” but pro-fascist and disappeared after less than a year.

In Omaha, image of the Klan as hooded vigilantes amounts to nil. They burned some crosses and had some meetings, but their hate-fueled terrorism was limited to demonstrations which might have been nothing more than puffed-up media sensations anyway. Whatever the reason, the Omaha KKK left little or no lasting impression on the city aside from media coverage, which itself is largerly forgotten.

1915: One of the organizers of Omaha’s Woodman of the World was the founder of the second Ku Klux Klan, modeling the structure of the KKK on the Woodman model.

1921: The first KKK group in Nebraska started in Omaha in 1921 after the visit of its national leader. Soon after that meeting, the organization claimed to have 22 organizers working statewide with local groups in in Omaha, Lincoln, Hastings, Sutton, Neligh, McCook, North Platte, Fremont, Grand Island, Minden, Holdrege, South Sioux City and Nebraska City.

1921: Mayor “Cowboy Jim” Dahlman and the city commissioners said they are “keeping in close touch with the Ku Klux Klan both locally and nationally,” and banned all public KKK meetings in the city. They permitted secret closed meetings but said they would keep a close eye on them.

1921: An early challenger to the KKK in Omaha was the Omaha NAACP. In February, the Omaha NAACP held a meeting to call out the organization’s pro-segregation, pro-white supremacy stance and planned to “take up the cudgel against the organization.” George Wells Parker appeared as an early voice against the KKK in Omaha.

1921: In March, an editorial letter in the Omaha Bee from George Washing Lee said, “What has become of the Ku Klux Klan in Omaha? Rabbi Cohn was roasting the Klan at negro meetings every night here for a while and to hear him, one would think the clan was in full force here, but as yet I have seen no signs of it… …I challenge Rabbi Cohn or any other Jewish or African luminary for cite any specific instance since the days immediately following the civil war, when the Ku Klux Klan has violated any statute on American law books… Any man who might attack the Klan these modern days merely displays his ignorance.”

1921: In August, the Omaha Bee reported the Omaha “kavern” of the KKK had 750 members. The newspaper excitedly proclaimed “Officials differ in their views on the Ku Klux Klan.” The Bee found the Omaha police chief didn’t have a problem of the KKK, while the US district attorney in Omaha thought everyone should stay alert to the terror of the organization. The secret police chief in Omaha, Dave Dickinson, had no problem with the KKK, while Douglas County sheriff Mike Clark declared he’d fight against the KKK at every turn.

1921: In September, National KKK leader W. H. McElroy visited the state and reported more than 500 new members were being initiated into the KKK each week.

1921: On September 21, the Omaha Bee announced that the KKK voted not to hold public meetings or events in Omaha, including parades.

1921: In November, F. E. Maxey was named as the “king kleagle” and organizer of the Nebraska KKK.

1921: Rabbi Frederick Cohn of Temple Israel was quoted about the opening of a KKK chapter in Omaha saying, “It is an infamous organization striking at the fundamental principles for which the American government stands.”

1921: The governor of Nebraska Samuel Roy McKelvie (1881–1956) came out against the organization to The New York Times.

1921: Rev. Russell Taylor emerged as a leading Civil Rights leader and Black voice against the KKK through his church, St. Paul Presbyterian at North 26th and Seward Streets.

1921: Public ads and displays of Klan activity were commonplace throughout downtown Omaha.

1921: The Omaha Bee noted that instead of a feared force of white supremacy and uber-Americanism, of the supposed 300 dues paying members of the Omaha KKK only a dozen managed to show up to the “bum party” in November. The newspaper noted the supposedly secret meeting was held in the basement of the Danish Odd Fellows Hall at 2556 Leavenworth Street.

1922: The Omaha KKK met at the Lyric Hall at 19th and Farnam. The owner of the hall, Dr. Harold Gifford, kicked them out when he discovered the true purpose of their meetings. They moved to other rental spaces in the city.

1922: Parker leaves The New Era and created a new paper called The Omaha Whip. Parker accused Pinkett of associating with the Omaha’s Ku Klux Klan and calling on Omahans to support Mayor James C. Dahlman and the rest of Dennison’s machine.

1922: The Omaha Monitor printed a front page article attesting to having a list of Omaha KKK members, including “from what we have known of them, we cannot believe are in sympathy with the vicious and un-American principles of the Klan.” In the article they wholly attributed Robert Strehlow’s election to the Nebraska Legislature to his opponent’s name—Dr. Harry A. Oster—being on a list of KKK members. However, they did not name more than that one member by name.

1923: Supposedly startlingly effective recruitment was rampant in the state while it lasted. Rabid racists exploded the Nebraska KKK membership from 1,100 members in 1922 to 45,000 members the next year. The majority of them were in Omaha.

1923: Mayor Dahlman refuses a permit to the Omaha KKK to hold a rally in the Civic Auditorium. An anonymous letter writing attributed his refusal to the mayor and Tom Dennison and all the highest leadership in the city being either Catholic or pro-Catholic, and because of that being targets of the KKK. The letter writer explained, “Tom Dennison is the political boss and the real power behind the throne and he is Catholic to the core, and has one daughter in a convent.”

1923: Protests in Omaha focused on the City of Lincoln permiting a white supremacy lecture in that city’s auditorium.

1924: More than one-thousand members paraded openly in the streets at the statewide convention in Lincoln.

1924: Omaha’s Mayor “Cowboy Jim” Dahlman ended the advertised long run of ‘Birth of a Nation’ at the Moon Theater, 1410 Douglas Street.

1925: In July, the Dan Desdunes Band cancelled plans to play at an KKK meeting. Desdunes was quoted saying, “I looked upon it as a purely business proposition, but some of my friends thought otherwise. I could see nothing wrong in playing for an hour for the organization, to ‘drum’ up a crowd.”

1925: The church of Rev. Russell Taylor burned down in a mysterious fire. The congregation bought a new church and reformed as the Hillside Presbyterian Church.

1926: In the 1920s, young Malcolm Little’s family lived in Omaha. After becoming Malcolm X, he wrote in his autobiography, “When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night. Surrounding the house, brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out. My mother went to the front door and opened it. Standing where they could see her pregnant condition, she told them that she was alone with her three small children, and that my father was away, preaching in Milwaukee. The Klansmen shouted threats and warnings at her that we had better get out of town because ‘the good Christian white people’ were not going to stand for my father’s ‘spreading trouble’ among the ‘good’ Negroes of Omaha with the ‘back to Africa’ preachings of Marcus Garvey.” The Little’s were terrorized in Omaha by a statewide KKK chapter with 45,000 members, with a women’s branch, a kids club, and an annual state convention in the state capitol.

1926: The KKK held “the last public meeting” in a field at South 67th and Pacific Streets. Two unidentified speakers defended the KKK and said people who aren’t “native, white protestant citizens” of the US were dangerous to American ideals. Men in hoods handed out application cards in the dark under “two blazing crosses, one of red electric lights, the other of gasoline-soaked burlap. There were loud speakers and a band played before the speaking began.

1926: Dr. John A. Singleton, an African American dentist in North Omaha, participated in fake Ku Klux Klan cross burnings to smear opponents of Tom Dennison’s political machine, and was formally endorsed by Omaha’s KKK chapter.

1926: In 1926, several church pastors from throughout Omaha were outed by the newspapers as being associated with the KKK. For instance, Rev. J.L. Beebe, the minister of Grace Evangelical Church started railing against the KKK after after he was kicked out and offered to debate the KKK leader. The minister of Dietz Memorial Methodist Church, Rev. Edgar Merrill Brown, was kicked out for “not being enthusiastic enough” about the KKK’s mission.

1926: F. L. Cook was a field representative of the KKK in Omaha.

1928: F. L. Cook was forcibly removed from the KKK and his office in the Woomen of the World Tower was closed. He was replaced as its Omaha representative by C. J. Roberts.

1930: On the evening of April 16th, two men placed an iron cross covered with oil-soaked burlap on the lawn of former state senator Dr. John A. Singleton and set it afire. John was away, but his wife and niece were there. John’s father Millard Singleton, a longtime Civil Rights advocate and community leader himself, arrived shortly afterwards and tore down the cross in front of a large crowd.

1932: The City of Omaha made KKK property exempt from taxes.

1936: “Two or three thousand people” were estimated by the Omaha World-Herald to attend the last formal meeting of the Omaha KKK.

1939: The KKK was not mentioned in the media by the end of the 1930s.

1940—1976

This 1920 ad for The Omaha Whip promoted "The Expose of the Ku Klux Klan" by George Wells Parker. The paper only had two issues and folded, and its editor was apparently eventually overcome by a mental health crisis and murdered someone. — This 1920 ad for The Omaha Whip promoted “The Expose of the Ku Klux Klan” by George Wells Parker. The paper only had two issues and folded, and its editor was apparently eventually overcome by a mental health crisis and murdered someone.

The general consensus among progressive Omaha historians today is that rumors of the Omaha KKK’s membership numbers and abilities were greatly exaggerated over the years. This was especially true after World War II, when conjecture was greatly employed to spread the ethos and effects of the group.

1947: The Omaha World-Herald ran multiple articles promoting a film called “The Burning Cross,” a drama promoting tolerance and an end to the KKK.

1949: Two burning crosses were found in front of the Memorial Park war monument.

1950: A. T. Ricard tried to reorganize the KKK in Omaha. The Omaha World-Herald labelled him a “one-time nudist.” Between February 28 and March 5, the newspaper ran seven articles about him. When he quite the organization on March 4, 1950, he was quoted by the paper saying, “…there are thousands of good patriotic Kluckers in and around Omaha and will be for years to come.” On the last day, they reported that he received hate mail and harassing phone calls, and advised those involved that they were “resorting to the Klan-type tactics which all good people abhor.” The title of one of that article was “Leave Mr. Ricard Alone.”

1950: Three white teens were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of an Omaha city commissioner. After one of them explained it away as “just a prank,” the newspaper said “It has come to stand as the symbol for bigotry, malice, sadism and lawlessness. Not the sort of thing to play pranks with.”

1950: Later the same year, a burning cross was found on top of the hill at South 11th and Pierce Streets. It was 8′ tall and covered in burlap. The newspaper reported, “police believe it was the work of juvenile pranksters…” and took the remains to the police station.

1952: The Douglas County Sheriff investigated a burning cross found in the town of East Omaha near the new dump. The cross was found around the same time that two explosions happened at the dump, and later determined it was unrelated to the KKK.

1956: Two burning crosses in two days were reported to police in February. The owner of one targeted home at 2503 North 65th Street said “she knew no reason for the incidents.” Police labeled the two burnings the work of vandals.

1959: A burning cross was found in the yard at 4955 Miami Street.

1961: “Two youths” were stopped by police after being seen running away from the Joslyn Castle, where a burning cross was found one night. The castle was home to the Omaha Board of Education at that point, and the 3′ x 5′ cross was positioned on the corner of 40th and Dodge Streets. No word could be found about what happened to the youth.

1975: In response to Ak-Sar-Ben allowing a KKK member to be a jockey at a horse race, State Senator Ernie Chambers wrote a letter to the Nebraska Legislature and Ak-Sar-Ben protesting the move.” The Omaha World-Herald quoted the jockey saying about Sen. Chambers, “There is no Klan in Omaha. As far as he goes, he’s just a troublemaker… He thought that if he didn’t do what he did maybe people wouldn’t vote for him.” The jockey went on to compare herself with Angela Davis. The article went on to quote the Nebraska Racing Commission saying they can’t discriminate against the rider by denying her access to the racetrack, and gave the jockey plenty of room to defend her KKK membership in the article.

1976: According to the Omaha World-Herald, a man called Wilkinson tried to re-organize the KKK in Omaha.

1977—2023

This is the heading of "'14 Points' of Klan exposed," an article from The Monitor on June 9, 1922. Read the entire thing here. — This is the heading of “’14 Points’ of Klan exposed,” an article from The Monitor on June 9, 1922. Read the entire thing here.

Today, the Omaha KKK does not exist in the city. While their are current hate groups operating in Omaha, the KKK is not one of them.

1991: A Jewish cantor in Omaha, Rabbi Michael Weisser, converted the leader of the Omaha KKK to Judaism. After the rabbi befriended and counseled the man, he formally resigned from the KKK and converted in the building he planned to blow up previously.

2023: Currently, the SPLC finds 12 hate groups active in Nebraska, with two specifically located in Douglas County. The groups are antigovernment, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, pro-Christian identity and anti-Muslim, and plain hatred-oriented. They also suggest there is no way to truly no how many KKK members there are in the state, given their commitment to staying “invisible.”

Things to Remember

This February 21, 1921 article from the Omaha World-Herald says the Omaha NAACP was taking on the Omaha KKK.

Despite being concentrated in Omaha and Lincoln, there were KKK members across Nebraska, with Alliance as an apparent hot spot of activities. According to a recent study, “They were also known to be in other communities and counties in western Nebraska where Blacks were living” (Coleman and Hopkins, 2022).

In his autobiography, Malcolm X said that the attack on his family’s Omaha home began his conscious awareness of racism in America. The KKK’s role in that attack is nearly indisputable, and so their evil can be recognized for helping herald one of the greatest leaders in American history. Many of the greatest fighters in the Omaha Civil Rights Movement were attacked by the Klan.

The struggle against white supremacy in Omaha continues today. Examining the city’s history of systematic racism, cultural biases and personal hatred are key to that struggle. Keep hope alive and keep fighting for freedom.

If you have additional information, including corrections or additions, please share in the comments section.

Special thanks to Ryan Roenfeld for his contributions to this article.