FKCC’s VIP Series Reflects on Key West’s KKK History

Florida Keys Community College continues its VIP Series with “Invisible Island: Key West and the K.K.K.”  The presentation, led by Arlo Haskell, award-winning author and historian, is on Wednesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. in the Tennessee Williams Theatre on the Key West Campus.

During the 1920s, the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan became one of America’s fastest growing social movements and a potent political force. In Key West, KKK members commanded the police department, the sheriff’s office, the fire department, and the criminal courts. On the island where Cuban patriot José Martí had famously said “there are no races,” Key West’s representative to the state legislature now reigned as Grand Dragon of the Florida Klan, overseeing more than 100 outposts of the so-called Invisible Empire from his Eaton Street headquarters. Then, almost as quickly as it had emerged, the Klan fell into disarray, leaving a toxic legacy.

Haskell’s talk will explore his efforts to unmask the century-old activities of the Klan of the Keys and uncover the complicated truth behind our “one human family.”

Haskell is an award-winning author, historian, literary organizer, and publisher. He is executive director of the Key West Literary Seminar, publisher of Sand Paper Press, and author of The Jews of Key West: Smugglers, Cigar Makers, and Revolutionaries, which received the Florida Book Award’s Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction.

The acronym in FKCC’s VIP Series stands for “visions, ideas, and perspectives;” the series invites the community to learn from speakers of local, regional, and national prominence.  Tickets are $5 at the door.  Admission is free for students at FKCC and Monroe County schools. For more information, call FKCC at 305-296-9081 or visit www.fkcc.edu.

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