Confronting the Past in the Quest for an Antiracist Future

Chapter 1: The KKK in Issaquah

By Kayla Boland, Community Engagement Manager at IHM

Introduction

In this first official segment of our “Confronting the Past” series, we examine the Ku Klux Klan’s
activity in Issaquah. Beginning with a brief history of the terrorist group, we then discuss their arrival
in town. We comb through publicized meetings in The Issaquah Press, including where they were held.
Then, we examine the July 1924 Super Rally, which marked the peak of local enthusiasm for the
KKK’s extremist mission and ideology, highlighted both in Press articles and other primary documents
in our collection. Read the series overview here.

This segment closes with a discussion of anti-Black sentiment in Issaquah’s earlier days,
acknowledging that countless stories remain unknown due to systemic erasure. We also touch on the
fact that those scars have not disappeared in the 21st century, although this is an ongoing conversation.
Immediately following is a list of resources and recommended reading in the interest of educating
ourselves and to aid in our collective quest for an antiracist future.

A Brief History of the KKK

The express motivation behind forming the Ku Klux Klan in 1865 was the hatred of Black people and
the fervent desire to maintain white supremacy. It was a mass lashing out against the abolition of
slavery; the first leader of the extremist group was a Confederate General named Nathan Bedford
Forrest. The group was dedicated to extreme violence and legal-political subterfuge. They faced very
few consequences, as white people from all classes—significantly judges, lawyers, and police
officers—often either belonged to the KKK or chose to turn a blind eye.

In 1871, the Ku Klux Klan Act was passed, which ruled their acts—such as preventing an
individual from holding office or depriving them from equal protection under the law—a federal
offense. However, the Act did not stop the reassertion of white supremacy over the South. By about
1915, a new wave of KKK members swept the country—this time not only anti-Black, but also
anti-foreigner, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-organized labor. They arrived in Issaquah in the
1920s, the decade of peak support for the hate group.
 The KKK in Issaquah

One of the first known indications that the KKK was moving toward Issaquah was in an article
published in The Issaquah Press on January 24, 1924, when it was announced that Walker K.
Fowler—a KKK organizer from Atlanta—began working out of the McClellan Hotel in North Bend.
There were expectations that the Snoqualmie Valley KKK sect would be the “most progressive in the
State.”1

After quickly sweeping through North Bend, Snoqualmie, and Fall City, the racist group
arrived in Issaquah on Tuesday, February 26, 1924. Fowler and a Seattle Judge named John A. Jeffries
spoke to an audience of 80 Issaquah-area residents about the KKK’s primary mission to enforce the
“Supremacy of the White Man in the White Man’s country.” This was met with enthusiastic applause
and led to the first official meeting of the Issaquah Klan on Wednesday, April 16, 1924.2 The meeting
was held at the Grange Hall, also known as the Grange Mercantile Building, which still stands today at
485 Front St N. According to The Issaquah Press, over 300 members were present, including
numerous officers from nearby cities. The evening was described as a celebration, complete with a
grand luncheon.

There was no smoke-and-mirrors act behind what the hate group stood for; their mission of
enforcing white supremacy was made clear anywhere they went. Those involved in the Klan knew very
well what they were choosing to be part of and what principles they were choosing to stand behind—it
cannot be excused as a fad that many small towns in America “flirted with,” as suggested in an Issaquah
Press article 50 years after the Super Rally.3

Records about the Klan’s presence in Issaquah can also be found in our oral history collection.
In a 2006 interview, Dorothy Hailstone Beale recalled seeing and identifying KKK members in town:

“[...] they [the KKK] used to assemble in front of the Grange [...]. And they had their white
things all on. And us kids would go up there, and by the shoes, we could tell who some of them
were [...]. And Fred Cussac always pointed to the shoes, you know, and that’s how we told
different ones. And you could tell the way they walked.” 4
-Dorothy Hailstone Beale, 2006

1
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM01251924P05.php
2
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM04181924P05.php
3
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM07241974P02.php
4
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/archives/27686, p. 51. See “attachments” at bottom of page.
 IHM 2010.011.371
The highlighted passage reads: “The making of America is fundamentally an Anglo-Saxon achievement. Anglo-Saxon brains
have guided the course of the republic. Our ideals are Anglo-Saxon, our social traditions, our standards of honor, our
quality of imagination and our indomitability.” Non Anglo-Saxons are referred to with derogatory language such as “scum”
and “a parasite mass.” This is the ideology that KKK members readily embraced.

The Tibbetts family,5 for example, regularly attended KKK meetings.6 In 1924, the year the KKK was
most active in Issaquah, Ferol Tibbetts mentioned attending meetings in and out of town, the Super
Rally (to be discussed in the following section), and even traveled all the way to Bremerton (about 70
miles away) to help at a Women of the KKK organizational banquet. She applied to be an official
member of this group on August 22, 1924.7

5
The same family after which Tibbetts Beach and Tibbetts Park are named in 2022.
6
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/objects/8495; pp. 97, 119, 120, 129.
7
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/objects/8639; p. 3.
 The Height of Klan Activity in Issaquah

By the summer of 1924, the Klan had a strong presence in Issaquah. On June 25 that year, a
16-member initiation event took place with visitors from Georgia and Oklahoma. That night,

“The attention of the town was attracted to a fiery cross burning on the summit of the hill [at
the] back of the Cubbon home by the discharge of a couple of bombs.” 8

Nine days later, on the 4th of July, “a fiery cross and three large K’s were burned on [a] summit
northeast of town, and a number of sky rockets, bombs and star showers set off.”9 This disturbing
display sent a clear message to anyone who could see it: Issaquah was a place where white supremacists
thrived.

The Super Rally

A few weeks afterward, on July 26, 1924, the KKK’s activity culminated in the form of a massive
festival—what would turn out to be the largest super rally in Washington state history. There is some
debate on where exactly the event took place; Ferol Tibbetts wrote in her daily journal that it was held
at “Pickerings Field,”10 while it was shared in The Issaquah Press that it was in a field a mile west of
town. A Press issue published in 1986 marked it on a map near Goode’s Corner.11

Local police counted 11,442 cars with a manual tally counter; the Press relayed that officers
assumed about four to five people per car, in which case the turnout would have been more like 55,000
individuals. Still, there are differing accounts of exactly how many people attended this rally. Whether
11,442 or 55,000,12 that is a staggering amount of people flocking to then-rural Issaquah—which in
1924 had a total population of less than 1,000—all in the name of hate.

8
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM06271924P02.php
9
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM07111924P04.php
10
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/objects/8495, p. 120
11
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM06181986P50.php
12
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM07241974P02.php
Ferol Tibbetts’s journal from the day of the Super Rally reads “Sat. 26 cleaned the house. Did not feel very well. Went down
to the K.K.K. doings in Pickerings field. Sure was fine. Speeches, fireworks & initiation. Saw Jim a minute. Home at 11:15.”

This map, published in the Press in 1986, offers a tour of historic sites in Issaquah. Significantly, three of the first five stops
commemorate conflicts of hate and violence. Note where they mark number 3—the site of the KKK Super Rally.
The Super Rally was an entertainment spectacle complete with mini plays casting schoolchildren to
advertise the KKK’s educational values; a Bunker Hill monument scene which discussed
“Americanism;” a naturalization ceremony of 250 new members; and a finale of fireworks which cost
over $1,000 (roughly $15,000 today). Burning for the duration of the event was an enormous fiery,
electrical cross measuring 40 feet long and 27 feet wide; the Press referred to it as “An object of
admiration.”

Six days after the rally, the Press boasted:

“In last week’s Press the local Ku Klux Klan promised to put Issaquah on the map last Saturday
night. To all appearances they made good [on] that promise as they drew to their public
naturalization [...] the largest crowd ever assembled in this part of the county, and the largest
Klan gathering yet held in the state.”13

This event remains the largest KKK Super Rally in Washington state history. And as unsettling as it is,
the Press was right in that it did bring Issaquah to the attention of tens of thousands of individuals
who had not been there or heard of it before.

The Decline of the KKK in King County

In the end, it was not racism that reduced fervor for the KKK sects in King County; it was an
anti-Catholic school bill that the hate group was lobbying to pass.14 This bill, called “the Washington
Compulsory Schooling Initiative” or “Initiative 49,” was described on the November 1924 General
Election Ballot as “An Act compelling children between seven (7) and sixteen (16) years of age to
attend the public schools, and prescribing penalties.”15 Essentially, private, religious schools would be
off the table, despite an existing law which still required children to attend school, but gave parents a
choice between public or private. Initiative 49 failed with 58.22% of voters disapproving. In King
County specifically, there were 64,827 votes against and 37,756 for the initiative.16 Racism was
acceptable, but reducing religious freedom was not.

13
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM08011924P05.php
14
https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/kkk_i49.htm
15
https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Compulsory_Schooling,_Initiative_49_(1924)
16
https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/results_report.aspx?e=112&c=&c2=&t=&t2=5&p=&p2=&y=
 This argument against Initiative 49 was published in The Issaquah Press on October 31, 1924.17

Still, the KKK did not completely disappear from Issaquah. Long after peak Klan activity, Ferol
Tibbetts continued mentioning herself and/or family members going to KKK meetings in and around
town.18 It is unknown when exactly the Klan stopped meeting in Issaquah—or indeed if they ever truly

17
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM10311924P05.php
18
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/objects/8756; p. 70.
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/objects/8758; p.41
left—as will be discussed at the end of this article. On October 10, 1929, the “K.K.K.K.” (Knights of
the Ku Klux Klan) had a large ad printed in The Issaquah Press (shown below).19

This self-contradictory, propagandic ad attempts to sway people into somehow believing that they simultaneously do not believe
in mob violence while believing in “eternal maintenance of white supremacy in America.” But in order to truly understand
what they stand for, they say, you must attend one of their lectures.

Beyond the KKK

The Ku Klux Klan represents only one hate group in the area, and just one that was loud about their
mission to propagate white supremacy. Issaquah as a whole was profoundly exclusive. Many stories
about people of color in town during this time period will never be known because there was such a
concentrated effort on driving—and keeping—them out. As mentioned in Dorothy Hailstone Beale’s
2006 oral history interview: “[...] it was terrible at first in Issaquah. They would never let a Negro in.”20

19
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM10101929P04.php
20
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/archives/27686, p.52. See “attachments” at bottom of page.
 To give an example of how that mindset played out, we look to a 1979 oral history interview
with Dave Lewis. The interview was conducted for a school project by local high school student, Troy
Taylor (“TT” in the transcript), in 1979. “DL” is Dave Lewis, and Mrs. Lewis is Dave’s wife. The
following excerpt is disturbing to read, but is important as it illustrates the extent to which white
residents worked to keep people of color out.

TT: Was there much racism in this town? Did they have many black people here?

DL: None.

MRS. LEWIS: They didn’t have any, at that time.

DL: No-o-o.

TT: Not even laborers, or the mine?

DL: No.

MRS. LEWIS: Well, how about that one? There was a Negro man worked for that resort
next to you.

DL: Oh, yeah. He was there for a little while till that guy –

TT: How did they think about him, the townspeople? Since he was a different color?

DL: Well, there wasn’t much talk about him, because he wasn’t here.

MRS. LEWIS: You know, there was just …

DL: See, I was born and raised on the lake there, and the resort next to us was Avalon Grove.
And they had a colored fellow there. A nice boy, too. But he disappeared very suddenly. Well,
we know where he went but you can’t prove it.

TT: Oh, yeah?

DL: Sure.

TT: Took care of him, huh?

“Well, we know where he went but you can’t prove it.” These words, and all of the implications they hold,
are chilling. Dave Lewis went on to discuss how he often went fishing with the unnamed Black man,
laughing at the way he got scared at every sound. Although there is no definitive proof that harm
occurred on some level, the passage is unsettling to read; the unnamed Black man’s disappearance, and
Lewis’s readily-admitted involvement in it, is referenced as casually as one might mention going for a
walk.

We are conducting research in an attempt to find out who the unnamed Black man was. If you
have information, please contact us.

Racism Today

Racism against Black people in Issaquah did not start with the KKK’s arrival, nor did it end with their
gradual scattering. For example, in 1996, a white woman found a message on her answering machine
from someone who claimed he was a KKK leader. The message “included a racial epithet against
African-Americans.”22 Three years later, a white woman—married to a Black man—found an
informational flyer full of hateful language in their mailbox (the couple lived on the Plateau).
Specifically addressed to her, the sender claimed to represent the KKK.23

As recently as 2019, a white student at Issaquah High School made a sign asking another white
student to the Tolo dance that read “If I was black I’d be picking cotton, but instead I pick you.
Tolo?”24 The response to this was enormous, getting attention from multiple large news outlets, along
with a tremendous level of social media backlash. The student wrote a public apology, and both the
parents and the Issaquah School District released statements. Journalist Ben Arthur responded to this
with an article describing some of his experiences with microaggressions at Issaquah High School (class
of 2013). Arthur also referenced a 2014 incident of Issaquah students using racial slurs to refer to
Garfield High School’s majority-Black basketball team, pointing out that this has been an issue in the
school district for longer than the Tolo incident. He wrote:

21
https://issaquah.catalogaccess.com/archives/28361, p. 13. See “attachments” at bottom of page.
22
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM04241996P10.php
23
http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM01201999P32.php
24
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/issaquah-school-district-responds-to-racially-insensitive-photo/936127384/
 “Today, society is notorious in saying ‘this is not who we are’ when a racist incident emerges.
We respond with outrage and fury, take a couple steps in the immediate aftermath but return
to regular programming after the emotion and fervor have diminished. We repeat this cycle
without truly tackling the underlying racism issues.”25

This cycle remains in motion today. In a place like Issaquah, where the majority of residents are and
have been white, it is all the more imperative to address these issues for what they are: a top priority all
the time, not just when something blatant and terrible happens.

In 2020 and 2021, we conducted several oral history interviews with Black people who have
histories in Issaquah. Nearly every person discussed feeling—at one point or another—targeted,
discriminated against, not represented, or left out in some way because of their race.

Conclusion

These are only a few examples of the problems with racism that still exist in Issaquah. With collective
dedication, we can continue moving this city forward to make it a more equitable and welcoming place
for marginalized communities. This article, and those to come, seek to help that process along by
addressing the rampant racism, so readily embraced in Issaquah from the moment it was colonized. By
confronting our past, by shining a light in dark places, we accept that not everything we learn from our
history will be beautiful or noble. Pain and scars are an inevitable part of human existence, thus a
constant throughout history. From them, we can learn what not to repeat, and this knowledge—with
enough collective attention—can help us heal and grow together, as a whole, if we allow it. We must
also diligently seek out the invisible: countless human stories remain hidden forever, but they are
ultimately no less important than the ones that make headlines. We need to work harder to not let so
many stories slip through the cracks. By doing all of this, we accept history for what it is: a detailed
spectrum of joy, pain, struggle, perseverance, and everything in between.

.....

If you have any further information about the KKK in Issaquah, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We
will update this article as more relevant information is uncovered.

Please see below for further reading recommendations concerning this article. See additional resources
at the series overview article.
25
https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/seahawks/article/Issaquah-high-school-racism-incident-column-13748600.php
 Further Reading

History of the KKK

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan

https://www.history.com/topics/reconstruction/ku-klux-klan

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970725&slug=2551338

Books*

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson

How To Be An Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi

The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition,
by Linda Gordon

Bookshop.org’s list of books in the interest of the ongoing fight for racial justice.

City of Issaquah Resources

Equity Board & Information

*Also look at your local library’s catalog for availability of these books. If they are not available and you
cannot afford to purchase one, you can put in an interlibrary loan request to have it delivered from
another library.

Next in the series will be an article about the Kobukatas, a Japanese-American family who lived in
Issaquah and were forcibly evacuated from their land upon issue of Executive Order 9066, where they
would be incarcerated at Tule Lake, a concentration camp in northern California. The article will be
written by a local student from Gibson Ek High School, supervised by Kayla Boland (author of this
article).