Hiram Wesley Evans was the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1922 to 1939. Evans was born in Ashland, Alabama, on September 26, 1881, and moved to Hubbard, Texas, with his family as a child. He married Ellen Hill in 1923; they had three children together, a son, Cecil R. Evans, and two daughters, Martha Evans Wood and Nellie Evans Dearing.
About Hiram Wesley Evans in brief
Hiram Wesley Evans was the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1922 to 1939. A native of Alabama, Evans attended Vanderbilt University and became a dentist. He operated a small, moderately successful practice in Texas until 1920, when he joined the Klan’s Dallas chapter. In 1923, Evans presided over the largest Klan gathering in history, attended by over 200,000, and endorsed several successful candidates in 1924 elections. In 1939, after disavowing anti-Catholicism, Evans was succeeded by his chief of staff, James A. Colescott. Evans was born in Ashland, Alabama, on September 26, 1881, and moved to Hubbard, Texas, with his family as a child. He married Ellen Hill in 1923; they had three children together, a son, Cecil R. Evans, and two daughters, Martha Evans Wood and Nellie Evans Dearing. Evans sought to promote a form of nativist, Protestant nationalism. He fiercely condemned Catholicism, unionism, and communism, which were associated with recent immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. He argued that Jews formed a non-American culture and resisted assimilation although he denied being an anti-Semite. Evans described himself as \”the most average man in America.\” of average height and somewhat overweight, a skilled speaker, and very ambitious. Some commentators argue that Evans was more focused on money and power than any particular ideology. Historians credit Evans with refocusing the Klan on political activities and recruiting outside the South; the Klan grew most in the Midwest and industrial cities.
The next year, Evans faced accusations of involvement in a government corruption scandal in Georgia; he was fined USD 15,000 after legal proceedings. The change of stance led the leader of the Houston Klan to accuse him of hypocrisy. Although Evans later took credit for a decrease in lynchings in the United States during 1920, he publicly condemned vigilante activity because he feared that it would attract potential government scrutiny and hinder potential Klan-backed political campaigning. Evans initially supported lynching squads to attack minorities, remembering a lynching he witnessed as aChild. With the help of the Texas Klan, he sought to create \”black squads\” to attack black minorities. He was later appointed to the position of ‘great titan’ of the ‘Realm of Texas’ and proceeded to lead a successful membership drive for the state’s Klan. In 1921, he was elected as ‘exalted cyclops’, a recruiting position sometimes referred to as kleagle, in the Dallas Klan No. 66. He later left his dental practice so that he could dedicate all his time to the group. In the 1930s, the Great Depression significantly decreased the Klan’s income, prompting Evans to work for a construction company to supplement his pay. He was married to Ellen Hill from 1923 to 1939, and the couple had three kids together, including a son and a daughter, Martha. Evans died in a car accident in 1941. He is survived by his wife and a son-in-law.
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