D. C. Stephenson

David Curtiss Stephenson
Born	21 August 1891 (1891-08-21) Houston, Texas, United States
Died	28 June 1966 (1966-06-29) (age 74) Jonesborough, Tennessee, United States
Charge(s)	Second-degree murder
Penalty	Life in prison
Status	Paroled
Occupation	Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon
Spouse	(1) Nettie Hamilton, (2) Violet Carroll, (3) Martha Dickenson, (4) Martha Murray Sutton
Parents	Andrew Monroe Stephenson
Children	Florence

David Curtiss "Steve" Stephenson (21 August 1891 – 28 June 1966) was an American Grand Dragon (state leader) of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. state of Indiana and 22 other Northern states. He is considered to have been one of the most successful Klan leaders up until his downfall after his conviction for murder. His trial and imprisonment contributed to the end of the second wave of Klan activity in the 1920s.

Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan

Stephenson was born in Houston, Texas, and moved with his family to Maysville, Oklahoma, where he worked as a printer's apprentice and was active in the Socialist Party. In 1920, he moved to Irvington, Indiana, where he became a salesman and joined the Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan. In that same year, he ran unsuccessfully for a Democratic Congressional nomination.^[1] In November 1922, Stephenson backed Hiram Wesley Evans in his attempt to unseat William J. Simmons as Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan; upon Evans' ascendancy, Stephenson was made Grand Dragon of Indiana and 22 other northern states.

Membership in the states for which he was Grand Dragon grew dramatically. In Indiana alone membership grew to nearly 250,000 or about one third of all white males in the state. Stephenson acquired great wealth and political power. In a speech to the 1923 Fourth of July gathering of the Ku Klux Klan in Kokomo, Indiana, Stephenson began, "My worthy subjects, citizens of the Invisible Empire, Klansmen all, greetings. It grieves me to be late. The President of the United States kept me unduly long counseling on matters of state. Only my plea that this is the time and the place of my coronation obtained for me surcease from his prayers for guidance." Encouraged by his success, in September 1923, Stephenson severed his ties with the existing national organization of the Ku Klux Klan, and formed a rival Ku Klux Klan. Stephenson changed his affiliation from the Democratic to the Republican Party. He notably supported Republican Edward L. Jackson when he ran (successfully) for governor in 1924.

Convicted of murder

Publicly a Prohibitionist and a defender of "Protestant womanhood," his spectacular 1925 trial for murder led to the downfall of the "Second Wave" of Klan activity. Stephenson was responsible for the abduction, forced intoxication, and rape of Madge Oberholtzer (who ran a state program to combat illiteracy), all leading to her suicide attempt and eventual death. Among other atrocities, Stephenson had bitten her so many times that one man who saw her described her condition as having been “chewed by a cannibal.”^[2] The jury convicted Stephenson of second-degree murder on 14 November 1925, on its first ballot. Stephenson was sentenced to life in prison on 16 November 1925.^[3]

In vengeful response to his conviction and to the refusal of Governor Jackson to grant clemency or to commute his sentence, on 9 September 1927 Stephenson released lists of public officials who were or had been on the Klan payroll. This publicity and the state's crackdown on Klan activity sped up its decline by the end of the 1920s.

The aftermath was shocking, indictments were filed against Governor Ed Jackson, Marion County Republican chairman George V. "Cap" Coffin, and attorney Robert I. Marsh, charging them with conspiring to bribe former Governor Warren McCray. The mayor of Indianapolis, John Duvall, was convicted and sentenced to jail for 30 days (and barred from political service for four years). Some Republican commissioners of Marion County also resigned from their posts on charges of accepting bribes from the Klan and Stephenson [1].

On 7 January 1941, the Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger reported that Democratic Governor Townsend was considering granting an early parole application by Stephenson; if so, this application was rejected.

Stephenson was paroled on 23 March 1950, but violated parole by disappearing on or before 25 September 1950. On 15 December 1950, he was captured in Minneapolis, and directed in 1951 to serve a further 10 years in prison. In 1953, he pleaded for release from prison, denying that he had ever been a leader of the Klan. On 22 December 1956, he was paroled again, on condition that he leave Indiana and never return. In 1961, he was arrested on charges of attempting to sexually assault a sixteen-year-old girl, and released after paying a $300 fine.^[3] The charges were later dropped on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Stephenson was infamous for having claimed "I am the law in Indiana."^[3] He died in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and was buried in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Cultural reference

The Stephenson period has been somewhat overshadowed by more recent events in the history of the Klan, but references to Stephenson can nonetheless be found in recent popular culture. John Heard portrayed Stephenson in the television miniseries Cross of Fire (1989). In the Daniel Easterman novel K is for Killing he is portrayed as the sinister power behind the throne in an alternate history in which isolationist Senator Charles Lindbergh is elected President of the United States and not Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The predatory sexual behavior of Stephenson in real life was reflected in the novel, in which he was a politically savvy ally of Hitler, yet also clearly unstable.^[4]

References

1. ^ Gray, Ralph D.; Indiana History: A Book of Readings (1995), p 306. Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 025332629X.
2. ^ "Stephenson Sentenced". Indianapolis News (CHS 1920s Newspaper Project): pp. 1. 1925-11-16. http://web.cathedral-irish.org/sites/teachers/thomas/newspaper/7th_period/front_page.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-13. ^{[dead link]}
3. ^ ^{a b c} Lutholtz, M. William (1991). Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. ISBN 1-55753-046-7. 
4. ^ Easterman, Daniel. K is for Killing. London, England: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1997

Further reading

• Lutholtz, M. William (1991). Grand Dragon: D.C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. ISBN 1557530106. 

• Moore, Leonard Joseph (1991). Citizen Klansmen: the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807819816. 

• Tucker, Todd (2004). Notre Dame vs. the Klan: how the Fighting Irish defeated the Ku Klux Klan. Chicago, IL: Loyola Press. ISBN 0829417710. 

External links

• D.C. Stephenson and the Indiana Klan
• prospectus for The Stephenson Trial: Internal Klan Conflicts Linked to Downfall of Second Klan in Indiana by Lindsay Dunn
• Indiana Historical Society: D.C. Stephenson Collection
• D.C. Stephenson at Findagrave.com
• Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History, written and produced by Bill Brummel, aired 31 May 2003 on the History Channel.

Persondata
Name	Stephenson, D. C.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	21 August 1891
Place of birth	Houston, Texas, United States
Date of death	28 June 1966
Place of death	Jonesborough, Tennessee, United States