TILLAMOOK – Tillamook County Citizens for Human Dignity offer an Oregon Chautauqua Program by historian and retired professor Eckard Toy, “The Ku Klux Klan in Oregon: History and Public Memory,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 23 at Tillamook Bay Community College.

A revived Ku Klux Klan played a significant role in Oregon’s social and political life during the 1920s. Like its predecessor in the South, this second Klan spread rapidly throughout the United States. Organizers enrolled members in Medford in early 1921, and soon found recruits in Portland, Eugene, Salem, Astoria, Tillamook, Hood River, Pendleton, and many other communities in Oregon. Thousands of Oregonians joined the Klan and its affiliated organizations, contributing to a divisive period of social conflict as they burned crosses, marched in parades and dominated local politics in many areas.

Although born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, it wasn’t until graduate school that Toy became aware that the KKK had been active in Oregon politics and community life. A passage in “Only Yesterday,” by Frederick Lewis Allen, set Toy off on a course of research for his master’s thesis that eventually led to establishing a collection of Klan materials from Tillamook at the University of Oregon library.

After earning a Ph.D., Toy taught at several universities in the Midwest and elsewhere on the Pacific Coast before returning to Oregon. Now retired, Toy was a history professor for nearly 30 years, allowing him to pursue research into the Klan’s activities in Oregon and on larger topics of the Civil Rights era and struggles for justice. He has published widely and is a frequent public speaker at professional history conferences and community forums.

Toy’s program is sponsored by Tillamook County Citizens for Human Dignity, whose mission is to ensure the basic civil rights and human dignity for all Oregonians, and is made possible by funding from the Oregon Council for the Humanities, an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The event is free and open to the public.