From the Jan. 25, 2015, Chicago Tribune Flashback "Chicago and the KKK" by Ron Grossman.
In the 1920s, the Klan found fertile recruiting ground in the North.
They gathered August 16, 1921, at Central Park Avenue, just south of Foster Avenue in Chicago and then formed a car caravan to a destination in the suburbs near today's US-12 and Old Rand Road.
There they held a mass initiation ceremony called "naturalization."
The Tribune reported the next day: "A huge bonfire had been lighted. Thousands of members of the order, each bearing aloft a torch, took position in the form of a blazing cross. The blindfolded initiates were herded inside. Upon the weird assemblage the searchlights of the automobiles drawn about in a great assembly shone with white intensity.
"Pickets patrolled beyond the pale, terrifying the curious citizens of the countryside by their grotesque appearances."
--Cooter
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