'RESIST!' exhibit recalls clash between Notre Dame students and KKK in 1924

Cheryl Morey, South Bend Tribune
·2 min read
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This front page from the South Bend Tribune, dated Dec. 17, 1922, will be one of the items included in the exhibit "RESIST!" that the Indiana Historical Society and The History Museum will present from May 17 to Oct. 13, 2024, at the St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend. It examines the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in St. Joseph County and Indiana in the 1920s.

SOUTH BEND — Presented by the Indiana Historical Society (IHS) and The History Museum, the exhibit “RESIST!” opens May 17 and continues through Oct. 13 in Beutter-Kernan Hall in the Community Learning Center at the St. Joseph County Public Library, 305 S. Michigan St.

Produced by the Indiana Historical Society and a sister exhibit to one currently on view at the IHS in Indianapolis, “RESIST!” opens on the 100th anniversary of a historic clash between University of Notre Dame students and local residents in opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, which had planned a rally in South Bend.

On May 17, 1924, Notre Dame students led hundreds of citizens into downtown South Bend to confront the Ku KluxKlan, leading to a three-day show of resistance against the KKK at the height of its power.

This moment set up a major flashpoint between the KKK and Notre Dame’s and South Bend’s Catholics, a religious group they had routinely villainized and persecuted. The event erupted over several days, eventually coming to a halt at the insistence of the Rev. Matthew J. Walsh, Notre Dame’s president at the time.

The events of May 17, 1924, began as students walked down Michigan Street after crossing the Jefferson BoulevardBridge. KKK members retreated into their headquarters in a building near the intersection of Jefferson and Wayne Street while the students gathered in what was then Hullie & Mike’s, a cigar store near today’s downtown gridiron.

Hullie and Mike's Lunch Room and Cigar Store is shown in 1916, with University of Notre Dame students posed outside of it. Located at 112 S. Michigan St. in South Bend, Hullie & Mike's was an old-time business in South Bend where Knute Rockne, George Gipp and other Notre Dame students and employees were known to hang out. On May 17, 1924, it became the place where Notre Dame students gathered when they marched into downtown South Bend to confront the Ku Klux Klan and oppose its activities in St. Joseph County, touching off a three-day clash between the two groups.

The exhibit includes a view of the intersection of Michigan and Wayne Streets where the clash originally happened and as it looked then.

Items from The History Museum’s archives provide local evidence of KKK activity, both at the time of the 1924 clash and in more modern times, including sheet music of “The Bright Fiery Cross” a souvenir booklet from the film “The Birth of a Nation,” the 1924 anti-Klan book “The Klan Inside Out” by Marion Monteval, a 1920s photograph of a local parade float supporting the KKK, articles and posters detailing Klan activity in St. Joseph County in the 1990s and early 2000s, flyers and materials made by the anti-Klan resistance, and more.

The St. Joseph County Public Library is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.Fridays and Saturdays.

Admission to the exhibit is free.

For more information, call 574-235-9664 or visit historymuseumsb.org.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: 'RESIST!' exhibit recalls clash between Notre Dame students and KKK