By James Madison
July 28, 2026
I know a great deal about D. C. Stephenson, the Indiana Klan leader of the early 1920s. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith is no D. C. Stephenson. Perhaps he’s a wannabe?
The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan is my prime candidate for the evilest man who ever walked the soil of the Hoosier State. Stephenson was a master of selling hatred. He pioneered the notion of 100 percent Americans: white, native-born, Protestants. All others were less. He pushed into the mainstream the question “who is an American?” Not Jews, African Americans, immigrants, or Catholics. Put them all on a raft in the middle of the ocean, one of his loyalists said, and sink it.
The Grand Dragon made alliances with the Republican Party and the Protestant churches. His most important ally was Governor Ed Jackson, my choice for Indiana’s worst governor ever, who avoided prison only because of a technicality. Stephenson recruited Hoosiers from all walks of life to his crusade. Journalists, merchants, preachers, lawyers, policemen, factory workers, and good Hoosiers joined his crusade to redeem America from evil and return to a golden age. Best estimates are that one-third of native-born white Hoosier men (and perhaps a near similar percentage of women) paid their membership dues and donned the white robe and hood.
With Micah Beckwith there are deep similarities. Connecting these two men across time is their hatred of others. Catholics were Stephenson’s primary enemy. For Beckwith it seems to be Muslims. Both despised immigrants. Both claimed the privilege of deciding for all of us who was a 100 percent American. Both had no use for the Constitution or the rule of law, certainly not the separation of church and state so important to our Founders. And, sadly, despite their desecration of fundamental democratic values, both found allies in the Republican Party and in the churches.
Stephenson was a fraud. He believed little of the Klan agenda. He had no interest in Christianity. Like Trump it was all about him, and power, and enriching his own pockets. And, of course, he was convicted of the murder of Madge Oberholtzer. Beckwith is no murderer and perhaps not even a fraudster, in the criminal sense. He just may believe what he says. If so, I’d ask him about the Beatitudes and about all the love and tolerance that runs through the Scriptures he claims to preach.
Both men have relied on fear. They’ve pushed to divide us from them. They’ve made people afraid by appealing to their most basic human shortcomings. Beckwith pulls traditional fears into the twenty-first century with a brutish agenda that promotes homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia and xenophobia, in the form of support for “mass deportation.” His is the same tired story but with more enemies forced onto the raft to sink.
Both men have drawn energy from silence. To stand against such bombast and hatred requires courage. I believe that many of our leaders in religion, business, and education know fully the threat to our community well-being and to our democracy. Why are so many afraid to speak out? Are Indiana’s statewide elected officials truly willing to dance with the devil in order to get reelected? Both U.S. Senators, the Governor, Attorney General, State Comptroller and Secretary of State–by their silence–presumably agree with Beckwith’s views. Only State Treasurer Daniel Elliott has stepped forward to denounce his hate speech.
Both men were superb salesmen. Stephenson arrived by airplane at the grand Kokomo rally in 1923, wearing a purple Klan robe and speaking of constitutional democracy. Beckwith talks anytime the camera is on. He’s a favorite guest on Christian nationalist podcasts that reach a nationwide audience, always wearing a shirt with the state seal. Like Stephenson, he spouts pronouncements that are none of his business. He successfully advocated for partisan school board elections, opening the door to control of local public schools by his likeminded followers. Twice, he reflexively threatened to cut off state funding for Indiana University. He won’t be silenced or even chastened by the man on whose coattails he was elected in 2024: “I don’t work for Governor Braun. I work for the people of Indiana,” he boastfully asserted. Like Stephenson, his arrogance knows few boundaries.
I’ve written before in The Indiana Citizen about the Klan and about Beckwith. I fear he’s more dangerous than I suspected. At the same time, the opposition to him and his agenda appears to be rising. As happened with the Klan in the 1920s, we can hope that many more good Hoosiers will stand up to hatred and embrace democracy and our best ideals.
We’re fewer than 100 days from finding out.
James H. Madison is the Thomas and Katherine Miller Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University Bloomington. An award-winning teacher, he is the author of several books, most recently The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland (Indiana University Press, 2020).
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
