WHAHAPPEN?:

[T]he Klan had an image problem in Kansas. In 1922, Governor Henry Justin Allen had launched a crusade to oust the organization from the state. By early 1925, the State Supreme Court had banned the KKK on the grounds that it had been operating without a state charter. While the decision was on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Klan was free to continue to operate--and to roll out a full-court press to prove it wasn't the hate-mongering machine so many feared, but, rather, made up of solid citizens.

The Klan had already used its PR smoke-machine to embed itself into local communities, sponsoring parades, picnics, and beauty contests. It donated money to churches and hospitals. Its members showed up at Christmas parties for orphans, wearing Santa suits and handing out gifts to children. And it backed state and local politicians.

 

Now, with its case pending in the country's highest court, it was looking for still more favorable ink--and got wind that the Monrovians were looking for paydays. (In all likelihood, the Klan had been reading the Wichita Eagle, the city's other white paper. A few weeks before the game, the Eagle wrote that the Monrovians were "open for a game with any team in Kansas.")

For the white-robed, playing a black team was a gift-wrapped photo op, a chance to show that the Klan was part of the local community--and friendly toward Wichita's black citizens.

For baseball fans in Kansas, it was a chance to see the Monrovians play. The team had won the Colored Western League pennant in 1922, the one and only year the league existed. The following year, with no league left to champion, the Monrovians continued as an independent team, scratching together a living by playing any game that came with a paying audience.

The Klan's Chapter No. 6 took the challenge--and to show the game would be an above-board contest, it hired Catholic umpires. Bob Rives has his suspicions about the choice. "I think the Klan was fearful that it would lose, and if it lost, it would be considered inferior to the black team. And so they announced in advance that the two umpires would be Irish Catholics. The Klan in Kansas then was at least as anti-Catholic as it was anti-black. My opinion is that they were paving the way to be able to say, well, we really didn't lose. Look at who the umpires were."

It turned out it didn't matter. The Eagle described the affair as the "best attended and most interesting game in Wichita" that day, a seesaw battle that began as a pitcher's duel and ended in a flurry of runs. Bigotry lost the game, 10-8, and it also lost the bigger prize: the Klan was evicted from Kansas two years later, when the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

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