Hiram Wesley Evans

Hiram Wesley Evans was an American dentist and Ku Klux Klan leader who served as the organization’s Imperial Wizard from 1922 to 1939.

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William Joseph Simmons: An American fraternal organizer who revived the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 and served as its first Imperial Wizard. Evans helped remove Simmons from power in 1922 and succeeded him as Imperial Wizard.
Second Ku Klux Klan: A fraternal and political organization founded in 1915 that promoted white supremacy and grew rapidly during the 1920s. Evans led this revived Klan, distinct from the Reconstruction-era organization.
Ku Klux Klan: A white supremacist organization founded in the United States after the Civil War and revived in later periods. The broader organization’s history includes the national body Evans headed.
Nativism: Political attitudes and movements that favor native-born inhabitants over immigrants. Evans’s Klan promoted nativist politics alongside its white supremacist aims.
D. C. Stephenson: An Indiana Ku Klux Klan leader whose 1925 conviction for rape and murder damaged the organization’s public standing. Stephenson’s scandal intensified the crisis Evans faced while leading the Klan.
Stone Mountain: A granite outcrop near Atlanta, Georgia, where William Joseph Simmons publicly launched the revived Ku Klux Klan in 1915. The 1915 ceremony at Stone Mountain began the organization Evans later led.
Imperial Wizard: The highest-ranking title in the Ku Klux Klan’s national hierarchy during its twentieth-century revival. This was Evans’s office and the source of his formal authority over the Klan.
White supremacy: A racist ideology that asserts the superiority of white people and supports their social or political dominance. White supremacy was central to the organization Evans led.
Elizabeth Tyler: An American organizer who helped build the revived Ku Klux Klan’s membership and publicity after 1915. Tyler’s organizing work helped create the mass organization Evans later controlled.
Birth of a Nation: A 1915 silent film by D. W. Griffith that glorified the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan and portrayed Black people through racist stereotypes. The film helped popularize Klan imagery shortly before the organization’s revival.