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MAY 1924
The event is carried in full in the Story of South Bend section and in Black History; its place here is its standing as a turning point: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was a power in Indiana, and in South Bend it had already shown its hand: a letter carried by the Chicago Daily Tribune on 12 September 1923, headed in the paper "Negroes Leave South Bend in Fear of Klan," stands behind the flight of more than a thousand of the city's Black residents. In May 1924 the Klan announced itself in the city in force, with its headquarters at 230 South Michigan Street, and students from the University of Notre Dame marched downtown and fought the Klansmen in the street. The clash is the moment the Klan's open career in this city met organized physical refusal — from the university's students, on the city's main street. The full record, including the 1923 letter and the exodus, is Black History's and the Story of South Bend section's; the embellishments the fight has gathered in a century of retelling belong to Stories Told, and are not printed here as fact.
Sources:
- Chicago Daily Tribune, 12 September 1923 — the Klan letter and the headline "Negroes Leave South Bend in Fear of Klan," as settled in this build's Black History section (article "the Klan letter"); this build's Spine — the May 1924 fight at 230 South Michigan Street between Klansmen and Notre Dame students.