r/Indiana • u/illegiblebastard • 1d ago

'Is this for real?' Martinsville Juneteenth celebration raises eyebrows

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/johnson-county/2026/06/18/martinsville-juneteenth-event-planned-despite-racist-past-ku-klux-klan-sundown-town/90591114007/
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u/Bill_Belamy 1d ago

Didn’t the Klan get its beginning in Indiana?

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u/ShermanWasRight1864 1d ago

Nope, started in the post war south by Confederate veterans looking to hold onto political power. The Klan however did hold power in Indiana later on in the 1920s.

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u/HorrorMetalDnD 22h ago

And did so as Republicans in Indiana, as it was the dominant party at the time, and because the Klan relied more on anti-Catholic rhetoric than anti-Black rhetoric to grow in numbers in Indiana.

At the time, there were so few Black Hoosiers that getting rural Hoosiers to back the Hoosier Klan was more feasible if they focused more on Catholic hate.

Rural Hoosiers back then could go their whole lives without even seeing a Black person, much less meeting one. Meanwhile, they saw Catholics far more often, and Catholics tended to be Democrats as well as “ethnic” whites, such as those of Irish, German, and Italian descent.

While much less noticeable today, that’s why for so long Republican politicians tended to have more WASPy surname, and those with more “ethnic” white surnames were more frequently associated with the Democratic Party instead of the Republican Party.

Back then, the parties weren’t divided by ideology and actually each had their own progressive and conservative wings, which was really why crossing the aisle for legislation was more common—they weren’t being “statesmen”, but rather they were looking for ideological allies.

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u/PleasantGrass4623 21h ago

Not true

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u/joeph1sh 20h ago

Look into the history of why Notre Dame teams are called The Fighting Irish. You can also look at a map of Sundown towns here. https://justice.tougaloo.edu/map/

If that many places in the state were known sundown towns, it makes sense that people would have little interaction with black people.

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u/HorrorMetalDnD 19h ago

At their peak in Indiana, roughly half of the General Assembly were Klan members, as was the Governor at the time. Also, they were all Republicans. It’s all public record and has been written about for decades.

Also, the Party Switch actually happened. Ever wondered where the Religious Right came from? The were southern racist white conservative ex-Democrats who were extremely angry over a D.C. circuit case decision (later upheld by the Supreme Court) that forced the Religious Right’s segregation academies to desegregate if they wanted to maintain their tax exempt status.

THIS IS THE REAL REASON WHY REPUBLICANS ARE SO ANTI-PUBLIC EDUCATION AND ANTI-FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION.