The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) stands as one of the most infamous secret societies in American history. The white robes and pointed masks symbolize prejudice, terror, and fear to Americans nationwide. Waco itself, and the greater McLennan County area, served as a hotbed of Klan activity at various times over the last century.

The KKK was founded in Tennessee in 1866, but by 1868, Texas had multiple Klan chapters all loosely organized under the statewide leadership of Roger Q. Mills. As Reconstruction played out across the state, their goal was the preservation of white supremacy and white-Democrat control of the government. This first wave of Klan presence stayed mostly relegated to North and East Texas, with Klansmen wreaking havoc on communities by burning homes and fields, beating and killing African Americans, and terrorizing politicians and community leaders until its dissolution in 1871. No evidence exists of a Waco KKK chapter in the late nineteenth century, but the KKK’s official arrival in Waco came with the reconstituted Klan of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of the century, resentment toward “foreign” peoples in America such as Catholics, Jews, and African Americans grew as World War I fostered white-nativist and isolationist sentiments across the country. Popular movies such as The Birth of a Nation then further normalized the existence of the Klan and its racial ideology. This led to the reorganization of the KKK in 1915 by the son of a Reconstruction-era Klansman, William J. Simmons, in Georgia. The reconstituted Klan spread like wildfire across the country, including new klaverns in every corner of Texas by the early 1920s. Though the exact date of the chapter's founding is unknown, Erwin J. Clark soon emerged as the leader of Waco's Saxet Klan Number 33 around 1921. He served as the Great Titan of the Waco Province and attorney for the Realm of Texas. Under his leadership, the Waco Klan set out policing the town and surveilling “immoral individuals,” sometimes even chasing them out of town with threats of tar and feathering. At least one man, Kennedy Cummings, actually fell victim to tar and feathering in 1921 after he did not heed a warning from the Klan to leave Waco. Outside of these extralegal measures, the Waco Klan allied itself with local law enforcement, even helping pay bounties for fugitives.

The Waco Klavern also set about recruiting Protestant pastors, thereby legitimizing Klan presence through religious associations and strong fundamentalist rhetoric. Klansmen often paraded into local churches, offered the preacher free membership and a “Kludd”—or chaplain—position, and made a donation in front of the entire congregation. The Waco Klan was known to even give pastors up to one hundred dollars, a sizable sum in the early 1920s. The pastor usually accepted and then preached a pro-Klan sermon about preserving the moral integrity of the nation, though some like First Baptist pastor Joseph Dawson refused to join or associate with the Klan. The Klan would also make appearances at community church events, such as the 1921 Clay Street Methodist Church’s Christmas celebration, where they passed out free gifts and treats.

These actions functioned as an effective recruitment technique, as the 1921 initiation ceremony inducted 937 men, with another 210 turned away because the building was full. With its numbers continuing to swell, the Klan soon had a tight hold on the Waco community. It controlled commerce by declaring that Klansmen were required to shop at Klan-owned stores and also to harass businesses owned by Catholics and Jews. To make these distinctions clear, a white card with black bars was displayed in the windows of Klan-friendly businesses around town.

An incident known as the Lorena Riot further bolstered the Klan’s influence and hampered that of official law enforcement. After a successful parade in Mart, the Klavern looked to march in Lorena on October 1, 1921. Four thousand residents of Waco and Lorena turned out to watch the spectacle. McLennan County Sheriff Bob Buchanan approached the parade and asked the leaders to identify themselves. The leaders, as with any Klansmen, refused to reveal their identities. Lorena locals tried to reason with the sheriff, but he refused to let the parade continue. At 9:30 p.m. the parade began regardless, with Klansmen marching two by two, led by a burning cross and an American flag. Sheriff Buchanan tried to pull the mask off of one Klansman and suddenly a shot rang out. Then multiple shots were heard and Sheriff Buchanan armed himself with a knife. In the scuffle of guns and knives, Buchanan suffered a gunshot wound to his right arm, five men were stabbed, and one other was shot in the neck. One of the stabbing victims, Louis Crow, later died of his wound. The community quickly backed the Klan and demanded legal action against the sheriff, known to be the man who stabbed Crow. Judge Richard Munroe called upon the McLennan County grand jury to investigate, and it indicted Buchanan for Crow’s murder. The next McLennan County election in 1922 then witnessed the victory of the “Ku Klux Klan ticket,” for positions such as county sheriff and county attorney. By the next year the Klan was bold enough to parade two thousand members through town. The riot strengthened the Klan’s hold on Waco public opinion, and as a result Waco politics as well.

The KKK then set its sights on higher political office: the state senate. In what was known as the “Waco Agreement,” four Grand Titans met in Waco at the Raleigh Hotel to decide which senate candidate the Klan would support. Three different Klansmen were in the running at the time, so it was not a straightforward decision. They decided to let the Klan choose by declaring an open race with the understanding that the trailing Klansmen would drop out when the time came. One of the candidates, Wacoan Robert Henry, ran openly as a Klansman, showing the legitimacy of the KKK at the state and national level. Klan officials ended up reneging the Waco Agreement and supporting Earle Mayfield, who did not run openly as a Klansman, over Henry and the third candidate Sterling Strong because of his ties to big business. Mayfield went on to win the Democratic primary. But the agreement and Henry’s candidacy show the extent to which Waco was a center for Klan authority.

Yet the KKK’s day in the sun left as quickly as it arrived. Klansman Felix D. Robertson decided to run for governor against Miriam “Ma” Ferguson in 1924. Though not running openly as a Klansman, Robertson had long alluded to his membership by his public defense of the organization. His first campaign stop was Waco in February 1924. Robertson won the first Democratic primary, and the Waco Klan held a massive parade down Austin Avenue in celebration. But the Klan itself experienced problems as upper-class and lower-class members fought over the purpose of the organization, the former wanting more political control and the latter still focused on vigilantism and extralegal violence. Communities like Waco were also growing apprehensive about the rise in mob violence that accompanied the influx of lower-class individuals to the Klan. Robertson was unwilling to condemn Klan violence and assuage these fears, so he lost the primary runoff to Ferguson as a result. This proved to be the death knell for KKK dominance in Waco and the state at large. By 1927 the Waco Klan had sold all its property.

The 1920s proved to be the first wave of KKK activity in Waco, but not the last. By the 1950s, Klan ideology was alive and well in Waco once more. Horace Sherman Miller joined the KKK after Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 and was a Texas Kleagle until 1957. That same year, he decided to start a mail-order chapter, the Aryan Knights of the KKK. His home served as the headquarters, as tuberculosis had made him an invalid, and he wrote the newsletter with a typewriter set up over his bed. Though based in Waco, his newsletter had readership across the country as civil rights challenged the racial ideas of the nation. Miller’s newsletter enjoyed success until it ended with his death in 1964.

The KKK would not come around again officially until the 1990s, though it is possible that the organization existed in some form underground. Dallas Klansmen came out into the public eye again in 1993 to criticize the FBI’s handling of the Branch Davidian siege. They traveled to Waco and claimed the Klan had a much more effective plan for extricating the Davidians, but they refused to elaborate on any extralegal measures. Further, the Texas Knights of the KKK, led by Michael Lowe, gained prominence in the mid-1990s and had a base in Waco.

The KKK has a long and controversial history in Waco. But there have also always been Wacoans willing to fight back against the Klan and the prejudice it preaches. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Traditional American Knights of the KKK have a headquarters in Waco today, but membership is extremely small and incidents very infrequent.

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During the early twentieth century, Waco experienced economic growth, large amounts of community engagement and recreation, as well as racial tension and military training. Photographer Fred A. Gildersleeve, nicknamed “Gildy,” immortalized the lives and times of this community dynamic by snapping thousands of photographs of the city spanning over forty years.

The man who would become Waco’s most famous photographer, Fred Gildersleeve, was born near Boulder, Colorado, on June 30, 1880, to Captain Allen Jesse and Sarah Ellen Pew Gildersleeve. His father Allen was a Civil War veteran, having served as a Union Army Captain in the Missouri Cavalry, 14, Regiment, Company D, and died in 1881 at the age of 46. After his father’s death, the family moved to Kirksville, Missouri, near the mother’s family. There, young Fred became a race horse jockey and attended the Model School (part of the Normal School) graduating at the age of 16.

His photography career then began at the age of eighteen when he was given an 1898 Kodak box camera by his mother. Because Gildersleeve used a printing method that relied on sunlight to develop the image on solio paper, he could only photograph when it was sunny outside. He prospered anyway, photographing students and selling the photographs for twenty-five cents apiece, earning about six dollars a week, which paid for his education. Gildersleeve then moved on to study photography in Effingham, Illinois, where he honed his skill through capturing images of flowers, lizards, and still-lifes. After graduating from the Illinois College of Photography in 1903, he worked in Chicago for a year and half before moving to Waco in 1905 to open his own studio. His sister, Jessie Ellen, arrived in Waco around the same time to work as a doctor of Osteopathy. Their mother, Sarah Gildersleeve later joined them and lived with her daughter. Fred married Florence Jennette Boyd on December 24, 1908, in Texarkana, Arkansas, who then joined him in Waco.

The shutterbug was easily recognizable as he cruised around Waco on a motorcycle with his assistant riding along in the sidecar, and then later upgraded to a Model T Ford. His box-style camera, wooden tripod, and spunky personality captured Waco’s talent and development, while the city supported Gildy in his career in return. Gildersleeve became a pioneer in the field of industrial photography in Texas and was invited to photograph more places and affairs than any other photographer in Waco. Examples include his commercial photography from the air in the mid-1910s. He made himself famous by photographing a pioneer flyer circling the Amicable building in 1911, along with capturing oil fields in Mexia and taking the first aerial photos known to exist of Baylor University. His ability to use magnesium powder to create “flashlight” to illuminate night-time photographs broke national records.

His 1911 photo of Waco’s Prosperity Banquet set a record for being the largest flash photo ever at that time. The event seated 1,200 people and ran the length of two city blocks. His skills at photo enlargement also set records. In 1913, he enlarged a panoramic photograph of Waco’s Texas Cotton Palace to 120 inches wide (ten feet) becoming the largest photo print in existence. He had a representative from Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, bring him the photo paper to do so. He also photographed the construction of the Amicable Life Insurance Company Building “Alico” in Waco. The structure, being 22 stories tall, held the title of being the tallest building in the Southwestern United States upon construction in 1911.

Further, Gildersleeve was an active and prominent member in the Waco community. The Standard Blue Book of Texas, 1920, lists him as being a member of the Masons, York Rite, Shriners, Rotary Club, Ad Club, Young Men’s Business League (Y.M.B.L.), Chamber of Commerce, and as serving on the committees of Liberty Loan, the Salvation Army, and the Red Cross. His involvement with these groups and organizations allowed him to prosper in his photography business as well as give back to his community. When the Y.M.B.L. went on their “Trade Excursions” to promote the city of Waco, Gildersleeve joined them as both a photographer and member. As well as being a professional photographer, Gildersleeve also owned and operated the “Kodak Place,” his own studio in Waco (pinned on the map below), for several decades. There he developed film brought in by customers and sold Gildersleeve photo prints directly to the public, including his images printed on postcards. These picture postcards featured businesses and events. Most infamously, Gildersleeve took photos of the Jesse Washington Lynching in May 1916. Outside of Waco, Gildersleeve is well-known as the photographer who profited from distributing and selling postcards of this gruesome event. Although not intended by Gildersleeve, these images of the lynching and mob action became important evidence used in the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign.

Gildersleeve’s background in racing horses also instilled a lifelong love for athletics. He was contracted by Baylor University from 1909 until the mid-1950s. He photographed Baylor’s sporting events including football, etc. His camera lens also captured the history of theater productions, soldiers at Camp MacArthur, parties, picnics, places of worship, circuses, weddings, funerals, politicians, automobiles, planes, and anything else related to life in Waco. Gildersleeve’s affections also included hunting and fishing. His state-of-the-art photography equipment captured rainbows in New Mexico, boatloads of bass in Guerrero, Mexico, as well as images of the Texas coast. Even though his antiquated large format equipment seemed cumbersome, his skills were still in demand by those in Waco who had known his work for decades.

In his later career, hundreds of acetate negatives were tragically lost in a back-alley dumpster after Gildersleeve’s marriage of thirty years ended in divorce in 1943. Luckily a collection of glass negatives survived the messy split. The couple never reconciled and remained apart the remainder of their lives. Florence continued to live in Waco after their separation and died March 31, 1965, at the age of 79. Gildersleeve’s health declined earlier in the 1950s. He died in Waco on February 26, 1958 at age 77 and was buried next to his sister, Dr. Jessie Ellen Gildersleeve in Waco Memorial Park. The cause of death was listed on his death certificate as pneumonia with complications from arterial scoliosis.

Gildersleeve’s last will and testament left around 1,400 surviving glass negatives to his good friend and local historian, Roger Norman Conger, who realized the importance of his work and later gave them to The Texas Collection at Baylor University where they are preserved today. The Texas Collection has just published a new book through the BU Press called: “Gildersleeve-Waco’s Photographer.” It contains a select few of Fred Gildersleeve’s original 8×10 inch glass plate negatives and photo prints that were digitized from originals held in the Gildersleeve-Conger Collection #430 and throughout the archives. Fred Gildersleeve was a pioneer in his photography career, as well as a citizen who was supportive of the community and was able to preserve over forty years of Waco’s history through clear and sharp images. Through his photography, Gildersleeve and the history of Waco are well remembered.

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