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(CIVIL RIGHTS—KU KLUX KLAN.)
A Watch at the Crossroad—Oh
America, Heed His Warning.
Elaborately conceived poster-broadside, with a little
Klansman in the center pointing the way to the right, toward “Freedom Founded in
America,” versus “Romanism and Paganism” and all sorts of “evils” on the left; 18 x 24
inches.
Np, 1927
[1,500/2,500]
An exceedingly strange poster-broadside with a multitude of symbolic images, representing all
that is wholesome, Protestant, and right with America, versus all that is evil and wrong, starting
with “Romanism and Paganism,” Klan code-words for Catholics. The Klan was not only anti-
black, but fiercely anti-Catholic. In what is almost a 20th century version of the sort of complex
symbolic paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, (1550-1615) the author of this amazing piece of
poster art, has inserted all sorts of animals and images with captions like “swamp-light,”
“divine fallacy,” “old bones, relics and crafts”—accompanied by a bat, a vulture etc. The
diminutive figure in the middle of the piece is clearly a Klansman, dressed in white with a
white hood over his head. To the left, he points to the Bible, to the right “The Highway of
National Destiny” and a sign “Road Closed, Bridge Unsafe.” OCLC locates two copies of
this piece: University of Wisconsin and Michigan State.
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