The Invisible Empire: the Ku Klux Klan in Florida.

The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida. By Michael Newton. Foreword by Raymond Arsenault and Gary R. Mormino. The Florida History and Culture Series. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, c. 2001. Pp. xvi, 260. $24.95, ISBN 0-8130-2120-0.)

This excellent monograph is a history of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Florida from Reconstruction to 1999. Following in the pioneering footsteps of Stetson Kennedy, Jerrell Shofner, and other scholars, Michael Newton carefully examines the Florida Klan and its numerous incarnations as the anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant guardian of 100 percent Americanism. The Invisible Empire also shows what generations of African Americans, civil rights activists, and labor organizers have had to endure in the Sunshine State.

What is most impressive about The Invisible Empire is Newton's careful attention to location, nuance, and change over time. He discusses local Klan organizations and splinter white-supremacist formations without losing sight of the statewide phenomenon. Newton shows that the KKK in central and south Florida was as strong--often much stronger--than its counterparts in the northern part of the state. This pervasive presence meant that Florida klaverns influenced municipal politics well into the 1960s. While Klansmen touted their support for patriotism and moral uplift, victims of KKK violence testified that the organization was the whip hand of landlords and employers who sought complete control over society.

There are surprises along the way. Due to a relatively flexible recruitment strategy, the Florida Klan retained its viability longer than many of its counterparts throughout the U.S. In St. Augustine, many a Klan member was a professing Catholic. While Klansmen "had overwhelmingly supported Herbert Hoover in the 1928 election," many supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 (p. 75). As the major outlines of what Klansmen called the "Jew Deal" unfolded, however, the KKK jettisoned its support for Roosevelt and turned to the Christian Identity movement, Adolf Hitler, and antiunionism (p. 76). Klansmen identified the Great Depression's labor revival as a force for racial equality and fought unionism to the bitter end.

During the Ku Klux Klan's most active periods--including Reconstruction and the Great Depression--the organization's terrorist activities coincided with the interests of Florida's large employers and many of its elected officials. Newton does not make enough of this point. Why, for example, did the Klan enjoy a resurgence in phosphate country or in the agricultural areas of central Florida just as workers in those fields began to organize for higher wages? The argument made by many historians that KKK extremism was bad for the region's "image" suffers when one examines case after case of open support for Klan activities. This may explain why repeated efforts to investigate the murders, rapes, and bombings attributed to the organization's rank and file almost always came to naught before the 1970s.

Newton carefully traces the broader origins of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as its early years in Florida. The Klan's goal during Reconstruction was to establish one-party rule and black subordination. From the outset, the Florida Klan was an antidemocratic and white supremacist political project. The KKK's primary method of achieving its goals was through terror and public threats of violence. As one Klan leader told his followers in 1958, "I don't advocate violence, but some people just plain need hangin'.... Now I don't want you good people to go around blowin' up buildings or temples, but the next time somebody does blow up a temple, I sure hope it is filled with Jews" (p. 154). The Invisible Empire places the Ku Klux Klan where it belongs: at the center of Florida and U.S. history.

University of California, Santa Cruz 

PAUL ORTIZ