The Handwriting on the Wall: The Klan, Language Issues, and Prohibition in the German Settlements of Eastern Texas

192os did not restrict its hostilities to blacks. Among its targets were also white Catholics and Jews, foreigners, and anyone who failed to conform to the Klan's definition of "morality." But it has largely escaped notice that even native-born white Protestants could be targets of Klan violence and intimidation merely because they spoke a language other than English. For the German Americans of Washington County, Texas, in the early g92os, the handwriting was literally on the wall. The following proclamation was photographed from the door of the Lutheran church at Berlin, just a few miles west of Brenham.'