A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

by Timothy Egan

Early on, Butler had welcomed Black applicants. One of its former students, the musician and composer Noble Sissle, had produced a hit musical in 1921, Shuffle Along, before eventually teaming up with Eubie Blake and Lena Horne. He was a classmate of Madge’s in 1915. “You didn’t think about that colored boy being at Butler—he was just one of us,” said Glass. But by the time Steve was staging his blowout parties late into the Irvington night, the Klan had infected the neighboring college, and had burned a cross of terror at the nearby Catholic church, Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1924, for the first time, the few Black students were not grouped alphabetically with all others in the Butler yearbook. They were relegated to a separate section in the back. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted a quota system, restricting Black enrollment to a tiny minority. —