When Superman Defeated the KKK
Excerpts below from the Mental Floss article HERE
"In the 1940s, The Adventures of Superman was a radio sensation. Kids across the country huddled around their sets as the Man of Steel leapt off the page and over the airwaves. Although Superman had been fighting crime in print since 1938, the weekly audio episodes fleshed out his story line even further. It was on the radio that Superman first faced kryptonite, met Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, and became associated with "truth, justice, and the American way." So, it's no wonder that when a young writer and activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, he looked to a certain superhero for inspiration."
[I would have thought that fighting against Nazi Germany, and viewing their ideology of racial superiority, and watching that nation and ideology be destroyed - learning about the Holocaust - I would have expected that to lead to a decrease in American racism after 1945. But I guess other social changes from the war, like the temporary exodus of millions of white males into the military, led to their workplace replacement by millions of black males - and women... and apparently that led to resentment and to more social stress... and instead of falling apart the KKK grew...]
In the post-World War II era, the Klan experienced a huge resurgence. Its membership was skyrocketing, and its political influence was increasing, so Kennedy went undercover to infiltrate the group. By regularly attending meetings, he became privy to the organization's secrets. But when he took the information to local authorities, they had little interest in using it. The Klan had become so powerful and intimidating that police were hesitant to build a case against them.
Struggling to make use of his findings, Kennedy approached the writers of the Superman radio serial. It was perfect timing. With the war over and the Nazis no longer a threat, the producers were looking for a new villain for Superman to fight. The KKK was a great fit for the role.
In a 16-episode series titled "Clan of the Fiery Cross," the writers pitted the Man of Steel against the men in white hoods.
As the story line progressed, the shows exposed many of the KKK's most guarded secrets. By revealing everything from code words to rituals, the program completely stripped the Klan of its mystique. Within two weeks of the broadcast, KKK recruitment was down to zero. And by 1948, people were showing up to Klan rallies just to mock them."
Another article describes it this way:
"Superman’s first nemeses weren’t supervillains like Lex Luther or Darkseid. When the Man of Steel debuted in 1938, he dedicated himself to combating corrupt businessmen, crooked politicians, drug lords and other real world ills. Then, in 1941, the U.S. thrust itself into World War II, giving the iconic character—and his comic contemporaries—a foreign foe to fight in the form of Nazi baddies and other Axis enemies.
By this point, Superman had already expanded from simple comics to pre-movie cartoons and radio. But it was the latter media that proved most popular and accessible, and it was through radio that the Man of Steel kept American children most riveted. Once the Allies won the war, however, there was a void to fill. But Superman’s radio producers and his corporate sponsors found inspiration here in the States, where hate groups were growing increasingly vocal and brazen in their bigoted ways.
After dying out a bit in the late 1930s, the post-war atmosphere allowed the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations to start flourishing again in the American South. As they spread in the South as well as the North, and intolerant violence began to shake the nation, producers of the “Superman” radio show knew they had to address the frightening trend, setting the stage for an April 1946 serialized story line called “The Hate Mongers Association,” in which Superman took on the xenophobic and racist “Guardians of America.”
Wendy L. Wall offers a summary of the tale in her book, “Inventing the ‘American Way’: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement:” “The Guardians were trying to prevent an interfaith council in Metropolis from constructing a community clubhouse and gymnasium ‘for the use of all boys and girls in the neighborhood, regardless of race, creed or color.'”
As part of their discriminatory crusade, the Guardians set fire to a local Jewish pharmacy. Superman instantly knew trouble was around the bend. “Their game is to stir up hatred among all of us,” his alter ego, reporter Clark Kent, told friend Jimmy Olsen. “It’s a dirty vicious circle, and like Hitler and his Nazi killers, they plan to step in and pick up the marbles while we’re busy hating one another…”
“It’s an old trick but for some reason a lot of us still fall for it,” he warned. But of course good eventually triumphed over anti-American evil, setting Superman and his friends on the path to true activism.
Stetson Kennedy in the garb he wore while investigating the KKK.
As Superman and his friends shifted their attention to hate mongers here at home, activist and author Stetson Kennedy was hard at work infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. Teaming up with a disgruntled former Klan member named “John Brown,” Kennedy successfully chronicled the inner-workings of a Stone Mountain, Georgia, KKK branch. The information they gathered was subsequently funneled to Superman’s writers, who in turn used it as the basis for their next anti-racist story, June 1946’s “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.” (After coming forward as the mole, Kennedy became a civil rights hero, wrote books about his experience and made a failed attempt to run for governor in Florida. Woodie Guthrie wrote his campaign song.)
An obvious take-off of the real KKK, The Clan of the Fiery Cross concerned a hate group that hoped to break up Metropolis’ multiracial Unity House baseball team. Their first attack was against a Chinese player named Tommy Lee. The bigots, led by a man named Matt Riggs and adorned in white hooded robes, soon make their presence known all over town, including planting a bomb on Tommy’s bike and later kidnapping him. They also seize Daily Planet editor Perry White and reporter Jimmy Olsen. No one, it seemed, was safe from their terrifying hate. And that was the point: the producers wanted listeners to realize their own liberties were in danger, and that they too could fight KKK-type groups.
“It was critical that the script go beyond Superman heroics to make the point that ordinary people can stand up to hate,” Richard Bowers writes in his recently released book, “Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate.”
As Bowers explains, Perry White played a pivotal role in delivering this defiant message by writing an editorial castigating the Clan of the Fiery Cross. “I just hope this country realizes the threat posed by those lunatics in nightshirts,” employing the ridicule that proved integral to demystifying the real life Klan..."
Sadly, it will take more than a radio show to make most people realize there are serious threats in our population, and that those on both extremes, left and right, are often a more dangerous and long lasting enemy than the foreign bogeyman of the day...