Frats

Frats

UMD & Systemic Racism

A figure in Ku Klux Klan regalia holding a torch on the page introducing the section on Greek Life at Maryland State College in 1920? Yes. The Ku Klux Klan was at the height of its power in the 1920s, and Maryland and its State College were by no means immune from and, quite obviously, embraced the systemic hatred and fear embodied in the use of Klan robes. One has to imagine that many members of the Maryland State College/University of Maryland community, including students and faculty, will have been among the estimated 25,000 marchers in Klan regalia down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC just a few years later on August 8, 1925. It is in this environment, this air, of racism-without-fear-or-shame that members of the Dory family, other Lakelanders, and African Americans from other Black communities near the campus daily worked.

Reveille, 1920, p.339
Courtesy of University of Maryland archives