A history docent tells the story of the KKK in Monterey.

In the Roaring Twenties, in the midst of Prohibition, five years before the Great Depression and publication of John Steinbeck’s first novel (1929’s Cup of Gold), the Ku Klux Klan came to Monterey to set up a chapter. And they had every indication that they could have, too, says Colton Hall Museum docent Jeff Lanzman. At 2pm on Sunday, at Monterey Public Library, he’s giving a presentation on the whole episode.

“I don’t think [the story] has been widely told,” he says. “It was 1924, right at the height of the Klan’s influence. It was a big deal.”

The secret society of the KKK had re-emerged after Reconstruction in Atlanta, launched from anti-immigrant sentiment and D.W. Griffith’s race-baiting 1915 film Birth of a Nation. By 1924 the Klan was more rampant and violent – its membership in 1924, was estimated at about 4 million, according to historian Sandy Lydon’s Central Coast Secrets website. They organized a massive march down Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. and counted senators in its ranks, says Lanzman.

“In the South it was anti-black but in the West and Midwest it was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish,” he says. “Most immigrants were coming from Eastern and Southern Europe. If you’re fear-mongering, you look at the latest wave [of immigrants], which was in Monterey.”

The Klan already had chapters in Watsonville and Hollister; one of their strongholds at the time was Santa Cruz; they meant to expand. According to Monterey: Presidio, Pueblo and Port by J.D. Conway, the Klan came to Monterey just before Christmas. But there was a big enough population of Italians, Sicilians, primarily Catholic, fueling the fishing industries of Cannery Row, to fight their recruitment attempts. The police chief at the time, F.W.A. Cording, and his men “escorted” the Klansmen to the train station to run them out of town.

“The Klansmen threatened to return in force,” writes Conway. “Cording responded that… he had ‘lot’s [sic] of bullets and had not had much target practice as late.’ In January 1927, they returned but it was to stand trial.”

That trial is the main body of Lanzman’s presentation at Colton Hall.

“The trial was quite raucous,” Lanzman says. “With young Catholics there, it was a scene… a very uptight time.”

Because it was a secret society, it isn’t easy to trace the remnants of that Klan presence, but Lanzman says it was fleeting. Their legacy seems to exist now only in this rarely told story.

“WHEN THE KKK CAME TO MONTEREY” takes place 2pm Sunday at Monterey Public Library, 625 Pacific St., Monterey. Free (call for reservation). 646-5640.