DC Stephenson

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DC Stephenson (around 1922)

David Curtiss "Steve" Stephenson (born August 21, 1891 in Houston , Texas , † June 28, 1966 in Jonesborough , Tennessee ) was an American politician from Indiana who had been a leading member of the right-wing terrorist organization Ku Klux Klan . He became famous for a bestial sex crime and his revelation about the involvement of the clan in Indiana. "He was viewed as responsible for reviving the Klan and widening its base, and considered the most powerful man in Indiana" ("He was seen as responsible for reviving the Klan and having expanded its base and he was considered the most powerful man in Indiana." Indiana viewed ”.) He had close ties to influential Indian politicians, especially Governor Edward L. Jackson .

Early life and education

Stephenson was born in Houston, Texas in 1891 and moved with his family to Maysville, Oklahoma as a child. After attending state school, he joined the American Socialist Party . During the First World War he completed an officer training, but did not serve overseas.

Member of the clan

In 1920, at the age of 29, he moved to Evansville, Indiana , where he worked for a company that sold coal. He joined the Democratic Party in 1922 and unsuccessfully sought a nomination for Congress . At this point he is said to have married and left two women.

Joseph M. Huffington, sent to Evansville by the Ku Klux Klan from Texas, recruited Stephenson and accepted him into the organization's inner circle. Historian Leonard Moore described both as young aspiring men. The Evansville Klavern (local chapter ) became the most powerful and influential in the state of Indiana. Stephenson successfully recruited new members. 5,400 men (23% of whites in Vanderburgh County , Indiana) joined the clan.

Stephenson seized the momentum and founded the Fiery Cross newspaper in Indianapolis . He successfully recruited new members and continued to expand the organization. He offered free membership to Protestant priests. Between July 1922 and July 1923, about 2,000 new members joined the clan per week in Indiana. Hiram Wesley Evans , who was in charge of the nationwide organization, had close ties between 1921 and 1922 with the Indiana organization, specifically Stephenson, as Indiana had the largest organization by state. Stephenson backed Evans in November 1922 when he deposed William J. Simmons as Imperial Wizard . Imperial Wizard was the title of the chairman of the national organization of the KKK. Evans wanted to develop the Klan into a political force.

After Evan's victory, Stephenson was named Indiana Grand Dragon (commander in chief of a state). He was also responsible for recruiting seven states north of the Mississippi. The number of visitors to the clan increased steadily. In Indiana, membership reached nearly 250,000 - a third of all white men in the state. Stephenson became a wealthy and powerful man because of the size of the organization and membership fees. Evans had a monopoly on the sale of Klan uniforms and other devotional items. At a meeting in Kokomo, Indiana , in 1923, 100,000 members attended. Stephenson said at that meeting that he had met with the President of the United States.

In September 1923, intoxicated by his success, Stephenson separated from the national organization of the clan and opened a rival clan with the states he led. Stephenson also switched parties and went to the Republicans who dominated the Midwest. He supported Edward L. Jackson , who was said to be also a member of the clan when he (successfully) tried for the office of governor in 1924. Stephenson was awarded "I am the law in Indiana." ( I'm the Indiana law ) quoted.

Conviction of murder

Stephenson appeared publicly as an honest representative of Prohibition and extolled Protestant femininity. In 1925 he was arrested and charged with raping and murdering state employee Madge Oberholtzer . The trial also revealed that he and his friends were drunkards and women heroes.

Stephenson had bitten the victim several times during the rape. One chest showed deep bite marks. The bites resulted in an infection, and since he refused to give her medical attention, the court assumed that it would have resulted in certain death, so it justified a murder charge. After the rape, Oberholtzer had committed suicide by drinking poison, which resulted in an excruciating death over several weeks. Stephenson was convicted of second-degree murder on November 14, 1925. The sentence was set on November 16, 1925: life imprisonment. Stephenson was then taken to Indiana State Prison . When Governor Edward L. Jackson neither reduced his sentence nor pardoned Stephenson on September 9, 1927, Stephenson unpacked about the Klan's activities. He gave the Indianapolis Times a list of government officials belonging to the racist organization. (The Times won the Pulitzer Prize for this report.) The derogatory sex crime scandal and publication resulted in the clan's dramatic loss of membership in the late 1920s. Stephenson's publications sparked numerous corruption proceedings and toppled powerful politicians.

Later years

Stephenson was pardoned on March 23, 1950. He was sentenced again for violating conditions. On December 22, 1956, he was pardoned again, with the obligation to leave Indiana for good. Stephenson then returned to Seymour , Indiana, where he married Martha Dickinson - after a year they separated without a divorce. He spent a total of 31 years in prison as a criminal.

Stephenson moved to Jonesborough, Tennessee, where he worked for the Herald & Tribune , where he married Martha Murray Sutton, although he was still married to Dickinson.

In 1961, at the age of seventy, Stephenson was arrested in Tennessee for attempting to rape a sixteen year old. He was released after paying $ 300. Stephenson died in Jonesborough, Tennessee and was buried in Mountain Home National Cemetery in Johnson City , Tennessee.

additional

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Criminal Law Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 2012, John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder
  2. ^ A b c Leonard J. Moore, Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 , Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997, p. 14
  3. Gray, Ralph D .; Indiana History: A Book of Readings (1995), p. 306. Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32629-X .
  4. ^ Moore (1997), Citizen Klansmen , pp. 16-17
  5. Rory McVeighn, "Structural incentives for conservative mobilization: Power devaluation and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, 1915-1925" Social Forces (1999) 77 # 4 pages: 1461-1496.
  6. ^ Moore (1997), Citizen Klansmen , pp. 17-19
  7. ^ A b c d e f M. William Lutholtz: Grand Dragon: DC Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana . Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana 1991, ISBN 1-55753-046-7 .
  8. a b STEPHENSON v. STATE: Testimony of Prosecution Witnesses (Excerpts) Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 1925
  9. Stephenson Sentenced . In: Indianapolis News , CHS 1920s Newspaper Project, November 16, 1925, p. 1. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008. Retrieved January 13, 2008. 
  10. The Dying Declaration Of Madge Oberholtzer: The Key Evidence In The 1925 Trial Of DC Stephenson, From My Indiana by Irving Liebowitz (1964) (pp. 195-203)
  11. a b c "Indiana and the Ku Klux Klan" ( Memento from May 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Center for History
  12. ^ Ku Klux Klan in Indiana Accessed December 16, 2013
  13. ^ "Notre Dame Vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan". By Todd Tucker