“Peddlers of Hate: How the Ku Klux Klan Seized Power in 1920s Oregon” with author Steve Law

Monday August 24th 7:00 to 8:00 pm

The revived Knights of the Ku Klux Klan flourished in Oregon in the early 1920s. With more than sixty chapters established in both large and small communities like Portland, Medford, Astoria, and La Grande, the Klan’s power escalated in the region. Klan salesmen, working on commission, successfully enlisted Oregonians with a message of religious prejudice and racism. At the Klan’s peak, Portland was home to the sixth largest chapter in the country and there were more members per capita in Oregon than in any other state except one.

In Peddlers of Hate, journalist Steve Law draws on published and unpublished sources, new research, and interviews with leading scholars to provide a comprehensive account of how Oregon became one of the Klan’s strongest outposts. Representing the Klan as merely a fraternal lodge, Klan recruiters were trained to vilify Catholics, immigrants, Blacks, and Jews. They gained wide support, toppling an incumbent governor and congressman, persuading voters to ban Catholic schools, and winning control of the legislature and several local governments. From stories of “escaped nuns” to fiery crosses at mass Klan rallies at Salem’s state fairgrounds and Portland’s Mount Tabor Park, Law examines this divisive and forgotten time in Oregon’s history. He shows how it was finally greed, hypocrisy, and corruption that spurred the hate group’s demise–providing historical lessons that will resonate today.

Peddlers of Hate is the first comprehensive statewide history of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon by retired Oregon journalist Steve Law.

“Peddlers of Hate provides a penetrating look into the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in the Beaver State. Meticulously researched and written in a lively style, the book places Oregon’s once-powerful KKK into its proper national context. Steve Law thoroughly explores in detail major personalities and events that marked the Oregon Klan’s rapid rise and its subsequent decline.” —Jeffrey Max LaLande, author of The Jackson County Rebellion: A Populist Uprising in Depression-Era Oregon

Steve Law is a retired Oregon newspaper reporter and editor.