The second wave of the KKK proved immensely popular. Linda Gordon estimates that membership numbered between three and five million in the North alone.24 Edward Young Clarke, one of the leaders of the public relations company that helped boost the Klan’s membership said, “In all my years of experience in organization work, I have never seen anything equal to the clamor throughout the nation for the Klan.”25 Gordon also points to white Protestant complicity in the racism of the KKK: “It’s estimated that 40,000 ministers were members of the Klan, and these people were sermonizing regularly,
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