The Invisible War: How the KKK Targeted Catholics and Segregated Their Dead

From Reconstruction to the Roaring Twenties, the Ku Klux Klan cast a wide net of hatred beyond Black communities, ensnaring Catholics under its banner of “100% Americanism.” Framing the Vatican as an alien threat, Klan propagandists painted Catholic immigrants, predominantly the Irish, Italians, and Poles, as pawns of a foreign power bent on tearing down Protestant America. This nativist crusade permeated local politics, parades, and public spaces, even reaching the most sacred of grounds: municipal cemeteries.
 
Klan Intimidation and Anti-Catholic Campaigns

By the early 1920s, the “Second Klan” had swelled to millions of members nationwide; its influence was felt from small-town councils to state legislatures. Klan-backed politicians introduced resolutions to defund parochial schools. At the same time, hooded Klansmen disrupted Catholic Masses and massed picket lines at church entrances. They charged that Catholic education undermined civic loyalty, trading star-spangled banners for papal banners. Their message was clear: true Americans were white, Protestant, and hostile to “foreign” creeds.
 
Cemeteries as Frontlines of Religious Bigotry

Municipal cemeteries, meant to serve all citizens, became battlegrounds for this religious intolerance. In many cities, Protestant majorities forced Catholic and Jewish burials into segregated sections, often enclosed by low stone walls or simple wire fences. Officials hiked plot fees for non-Protestants, claiming that Catholic graveside prayers “disturbed” the Protestant dead. As a result, grieving families found themselves confined to remote, flood-prone corners of town burial grounds.
 
South Bend’s Ordinance 425: A Case Study

One of the clearest examples occurred in South Bend, Indiana. On May 18, 1924, amid a surge of Klan influence in northern Indiana, the City Council passed Ordinance 425, carving out a “Catholic section” in the municipal cemetery and relocating existing Catholic graves to a low-lying quadrant notorious for spring flooding. The measure, championed by a councilwoman later exposed as a Klavern sympathizer, forced bereaved parishioners to watch as their loved ones’ remains were exhumed and reburied in the soggy ground, a cruel reminder that religious prejudice could extend even into death.
 
Local newspapers reported that each spring, standing water pooled among the new Catholic plots, rotting wooden crosses and displacing tombstones. When families protested, officials retorted that Catholics were welcome to build a private cemetery if they disliked the city’s “rules.” In effect, South Bend’s Catholics lost not only their chosen resting place but also the dignity owed to every mourner.
 
Resistance and Legal Backlash

Catholic charities and sympathetic Protestants rallied against these exclusionary practices. In New Orleans and Philadelphia—where Catholic voters held sway—parishes launched their own burial grounds rather than submit to segregated plots. Meanwhile, national lobbying by Catholic leaders sought to insert religious protections into anti-discrimination laws. However, early efforts stalled in Congress amid widespread apathy.
 
It wasn’t until the mid-century that federal and judicial reforms began to supplant explicit religious segregation. Landmark Supreme Court decisions, Everson v. Board of Education (1947) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), reinforced a stricter wall between church and state, undercutting municipal justifications for fenced-off cemetery sections. Over time, most overt policies have disappeared. However, vestiges remain in the layout of older burial grounds and in local lore.
 
Legacy and Lessons Learned

Today, few public cemeteries enforce explicit religious divisions, yet the scars of those “hidden walls” endure. Preservationists are mapping segmented plots, and some restoration projects have removed remaining fences and installed plaques recounting the struggles of marginalized faith communities. These efforts prompt us to consider how intolerance can infiltrate the built environment, transforming shared spaces into instruments of exclusion.
 
The story of the Klan’s war on Catholics and the forced relocation of their dead in South Bend is a stark reminder that bigotry can wind its way into every facet of civic life. As we honor those who resisted, we also reaffirm a simple truth: public institutions should protect the rights and dignity of all citizens in life and in death.