Another amazing story, Terry. Thank you so much for posting it.
That comment your granddad made about the Klan being "as good or as bad as the men in each chapter" hit home. I don't want to start a firestorm, but if one looks into the actual history of the Klan and its founding members without prejudice or preconceptions, it's clear that the organization's original purpose was soon perverted and it morphed into an excuse and a cover for all kinds of evil. Most of the original members, including founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, were horrified by this and formally disassociated and distanced themselves from it early on.
I do not claim to be an expert of Klan history, and I'm certainly no apologist for it. I have never had any personal contact with the Klan or any Klan member (that I know of). I only know of my late father's impression of the Klan, based entirely on his own experience of growing up in the deep South in the 1930's. He told me several times that he had never even heard of Klan members in his area harassing black people. He said they didn't "come out" very often, but when they did it was to deal with "white trash." This mainly meant wife-beaters and "sorry" white men who wouldn't support their families and drank up whatever money they could occasionally scrape together. My dad said it usually only took one "visit." The offender would be confronted by several fierce-looking men wearing their Klan robes, sometimes with torches and ropes in hand. He would be warned, "Don't make us come back!" On the rare occasions when a second visit was necessary, it usually involved a beating or a thrashing with a rope or whip. He said he never heard of anyone being killed, much less being strung up.
My dad was the most honest and straightforward man I've ever known, so I simply accept his statements at face value. By that I mean that I believe he believed what he said, but I cannot know whether his impressions were accurate or not, even considering only what the Klan did in that small rural area in that narrow time frame. After all, he could not have known everything they did. He could only know of the stories he heard, and how the Klan was generally viewed when and where he was growing up.
Another family story has it that one of my mother's brothers once saw what he thought were Klan robes among their father's (my maternal grandfather's) belongings in an old steamer trunk. My grandmother told him never to ask or tell anyone else about it. No one knows whether it was actually my grandfather's or possibly his father's. There are absolutely no family stories about that robe or anything else that could be remotely connected with Klan activities. My grandfather died when I was an infant, but I sure wish I could have asked him about that. Whatever stories there were have been lost to history.
Sometimes, I think there are family cupboards that are better left unopened.
