That the KKK did not come up in existing institutional attempts at historical reckoning reveals flaws in Harvard’s current efforts to reexamine its old self.īack in 2019, University President Lawrence S. Levien’s research into the Crimson Klan represents exactly the kind of tale that needs to be told if we are to genuinely and accurately reckon with our institution’s past. Yet we can’t help but regret that the story didn’t come earlier and from Harvard itself, full account and apology hand in hand. The history Levien has dutifully brought forth is painful the image itself, jarring and the work altogether urgent. His work, like that of other college journalists before him, highlights the potential of student journalism as a source of accountability separate from our institutions, through which students may unveil important yet deeply inconvenient truths. We commend our fellow Crimson staffer for helping unearth one of our University’s darkest and most startlingly unexcavated chapters. So why did it take decades and significant personal effort on behalf of a student to illuminate our bleak past? Harvard’s administration, to the present, largely remained silent.ĭespite the Klan’s tendency to operate in “considerable secrecy,” a robust archival record of its presence and dynamics exists (to the curious: try searching The Crimson’s website). Through the ’90s, incidents speaking to the Klan’s continued influence, such as the appearance of KKK leaflets, graffiti, and propaganda on campus, persisted. In the ’20s, Harvard Klansmen ran a “klanidate” to oppose Cambridge’s mayor, who disparaged and threatened to disband Harvard’s chapter. In the 1950s, freshmen carried out a cross burning in the corner of Harvard Yard where the handful of Black students in Harvard’s freshman class primarily lived. Levien ’23-24, only one testament to the white supremacist group’s pervasive presence on our campus throughout the 20th century. The pictured students were, per a recent deep dive into the KKK’s Harvard’s ties by Crimson staff writer Simon J. The group looks defiantly calm - almost as if they’d already guessed our University’s then lax stance towards their ideology. One Harvard Klansman cheekily straddles John Harvard and turns his head to the camera. Slacks and dress shoes poke out from their robes. Members of the Harvard branch of the Ku Klux Klan pose, in full regalia, for a 1924 graduation photo huddled around our campus’s most renowned landmark: the John Harvard Statue. You’ve seen the image by now (if not, scroll up).
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