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9781682261859

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Ken Barnes has skillfully produced a work that is accessible to a general audience and one that offers new insights for historians. An undeniable contribution to Arkansas and American history. --Ben F. Johnson III, author of Arkansas in Modern America

""This is a fine historical study of an amazingly broad-based but (thankfully) shallow, corrupt, and short-lived effort to make Arkansas great again in the 1920s. ... [T]his book presents a largely familiar picture of the Klan, one we know from other books. Its real strength lies not in its novelty of argument but in its depth of research and richness of detail, making the book a fascinating reading throughout. The author exploits local sources, especially newspapers, wonderfully well. Barnes really recreates the world of the Arkansas Klan of the 1920s in its full complexity, and some of the stories are just astounding."" --Paul Harvey, Church History, December 2021 ""On the surface, the spectacular rise of the Arkansas Klan may appear to have derived from the ambition and charisma of the Comers, who enjoyed the support of Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans and other national leaders of the Invisible Empire. Yet, as Kenneth C. Barnes demonstrates in this exhaustively researched and careful study, the Klan stirred deep responses in Arkansas society that tapped into powerful popular beliefs about community and order as well as fears of change among the state's overwhelmingly Protestant white population. ... Barnes' updated and insightful history of the Klan movement in one of its most interesting strongholds advances historical analysis of of the Klan wave of the 1920s. For those seeking to understand Arkansas in the first half of the twentieth century, Barnes has contributed an essential study."" --Thomas R. Pegram, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Winter 2021 ""As with his previous books, Barnes strikes the right balance with vignettes that will prove especially compelling to readers within Arkansas but will have wide appeal to readers outside the state. As the KKK's ideas reverberate today, this book is essential reading for teachers and public officials."" --Barclay Key, Journal of Southern History, April 2022 ""A welcome addition to what has become a revival of scholarly interest regarding the Second Ku Klux Klan at the centennial of the organization's spread across the United States. Localized and statewide studies, as Barnes's publication demonstrates, are crucial pieces in understanding not only the complexities of groups like the KKK, but also how deeply intertwined its key tenets were to mainstream American society."" --Sean Rost, Missouri Historical Review ""Ken Barnes has skillfully produced a work that is accessible to a general audience and one that offers new insights for historians. An undeniable contribution to Arkansas and American history."" --Ben F. Johnson III, author of Arkansas in Modern America

As with his previous books, Barnes strikes the right balance with vignettes that will prove especially compelling to readers within Arkansas but will have wide appeal to readers outside the state. As the KKK's ideas reverberate today, this book is essential reading for teachers and public officials. --Barclay Key, Journal of Southern History, April 2022 A welcome addition to what has become a revival of scholarly interest regarding the Second Ku Klux Klan at the centennial of the organization's spread across the United States. Localized and statewide studies, as Barnes's publication demonstrates, are crucial pieces in understanding not only the complexities of groups like the KKK, but also how deeply intertwined its key tenets were to mainstream American society. --Sean Rost, Missouri Historical Review Ken Barnes has skillfully produced a work that is accessible to a general audience and one that offers new insights for historians. An undeniable contribution to Arkansas and American history. --Ben F. Johnson III, author of Arkansas in Modern America

A welcome addition to what has become a revival of scholarly interest regarding the Second Ku Klux Klan at the centennial of the organization's spread across the United States. Localized and statewide studies, as Barnes's publication demonstrates, are crucial pieces in understanding not only the complexities of groups like the KKK, but also how deeply intertwined its key tenets were to mainstream American society. --Sean Rost, Missouri Historical Review Ken Barnes has skillfully produced a work that is accessible to a general audience and one that offers new insights for historians. An undeniable contribution to Arkansas and American history. --Ben F. Johnson III, author of Arkansas in Modern America

Author Information

Kenneth C. Barnes is professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of Who Killed John Clayton?: Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South and Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas: How Politicians, the Press, the Klan, and Religious Leaders Imagined an Enemy, 1910-1960, winner of the J. G. Ragsdale Book Award in Arkansas History.

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