HEADLINE: DSST Stapleton changing name …
[Headline from DRJ]
DSST Stapleton changing name … because of former Denver mayor’s KKK ties:
Students at DSST Stapleton, located at 2000 Valentia St., participated in a process to consider renaming their school, which is in a neighborhood named for Benjamin Stapleton, a Denver mayor in the 1920s who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
According to Wikipedia, Stapleton, Denver is a planned neighborhood at the site of the former Stapleton International Airport.
–DRJ
The article does not mention that Stapleton was a Democrat. It is funny how that works.
Harmon Ward (2515b2) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:46 am1. Media studiously avoids mentioning that virtually all Ku Klux Klan members and segregationist politicians over the years have been Democrats. The main reason for the Klan’s founding was to terrorize black voters away from the polls and from voting for Republicans.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:48 amI’m pretty sure I’ve told this tale before here, but it’s one I’m very proud of and so I’ll re-tell it without hesitation:
In the 1920s, in a number of states or at least cities within states, the KKK mounted a successful hostile takeover of the Democratic Party that is in many ways analogous to Trump’s temporary takeover of the GOP. In Texas the Klan had a sizable presence in both chambers of the Texas Legislature and had taken over the city councils of many, many towns and cities, including our host’s hometown of Fort Worth.
In my own hometown of Lamesa, Texas, the mayor and police chief led a Klan parade in full regalia (i.e., sheets), with many onlookers who had no trouble recognizing them despite their costumes (the police chief’s uniform pants and mayor’s suit pants being rather conspicuous in a west Texas prairie town of a few thousand people).
My paternal grandfather, James D. Dyer, Sr., as the most prominent and damned near only admitted Republican in town, had been appointed by President Harding (and retained by President Coolidge) as the town postmaster.
When the parade approached the street that fronted the post office, my grandfather stationed himself mid-street, greeted the police chief and mayor by name, and told them that because that street provided access to a federal government facility and he was the federal government’s local representative charged with maintaining public access thereto, the Klan parade would proceed down that particular street only over his dead body.
Which wasn’t a joke at all, to anyone present.
But the Lamesa chapter of the Klan didn’t quite have the stones to lynch or even beat up the only federal official in the county, which undoubtedly would have provoked a response from Washington.
They did not pass. Indeed, the mayor and police chief were sufficiently embarrassed that that effectively ended the parade.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/17/2019 @ 9:18 amEven old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes
Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’
AIUI, while the support apparently wasn’t broad, there was quite strong support for and by KKK with Republicans in Indiana. A corrupt GOP governor was rather tight with them.
Just sayin’. In the interest of bipartisanship and all that jazz.
the KKK mounted a successful hostile takeover of the Democratic Party that is in many ways analogous to Trump’s temporary takeover of the GOP
Because of course. Not trying to start anything at all. It’s probably the bestest analogy one could possibly make. Interjected in this discussion for obvious reasons. OK?
PTw (cbfa7c) — 5/17/2019 @ 9:41 am@ PTw, who wrote (#4) about something I’d written (#3):
I don’t quibble with any of this, except to note that what’s obvious to me is almost certainly different than what’s obvious to you. Enjoy the emperor’s wardrobe, sir or ma’am.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/17/2019 @ 10:42 amI think it would be fair to say that historically, Republican members of the Klan have been rarer than hens’ teeth — specifically, the ones with porcelain fillings.
My above-referenced paternal grandfather, unfortunately, died before I was born, and I know him only from photos, silent home movies, and stories such as this one. I am nevertheless entirely confident that I know exactly what he would think of Donald J. Trump and his effect on both the national discourse and the Republican Party.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/17/2019 @ 10:50 amBeldar,
The 20s Klan in Indiana was full of Republicans and quite powerful. But that was a pretty short-lived outfit, because the group was quickly revealed to be full of scoundrels.
Appalled (c9622b) — 5/17/2019 @ 11:04 amThey should rename the city and school for Jean Stapleton, the actress.
Ingot9455 (afdf95) — 5/17/2019 @ 1:05 pmMy mother-in-law grew up in Oklahoma. She and her family were forced out of the state by the Klan because:
1.) She and her family were Catholic, and thus part of the list of enemies of the Klan.
2.) Her father publicly named a half dozen Klan members when they were riding through town in their sheets.
Later in the evening her father, rifle in hand, turned away the Klan members with their torches from his front porch. They yelled a pack of Anti-Catholic slurs at him. He yelled back that their torches made them easy targets in the darkness. So they returned to town and burned down his bakery. A few months later my wife’s family opened a new bakery in California.
This country has no concept of what hate really is anymore. For that we should be grateful.
Harmon Ward (2515b2) — 5/17/2019 @ 1:18 pmMartin Luther King Drive used to be the road one would use entering Stapleton Airport.
mg (8cbc69) — 5/17/2019 @ 1:34 pm@ Ingot9455 (#8): Dingbat High?
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/17/2019 @ 3:58 pmAfter more reading, I concede Indiana to be an arguable outlier, but stick by my broader statement in #6.
Beldar (fa637a) — 5/17/2019 @ 4:04 pmMy gr grandfather was part of an anti-klan boycott in Denver in the 20s. They’d burned a cross in front of the house of a Catholic school teacher and so the entire Catholic community in the area boycotted all the Klan businesses and drove several Klan members out of business.
Nic (896fdf) — 5/17/2019 @ 5:31 pm