![]() ![]() Loud gunshots rip through the early morning air and fill the streets with sounds reminiscent of a battlefield. ![]() Explosions of gunfire drown out the shouts of curses and slurs, creating a deafening cacophony of noise. Cars lay on their sides along the road the contents of their trucks spilling from them like white wounds. Chaos reigns on the streets of Niles, Ohio. These are the images and sounds experienced by Niles’ citizens during the climatic event known as the Niles Riot. On the morning of November 1, 1925, Klansmen and Catholic immigrants fought on the streets of Niles, Ohio. Descriptions of gun fire, car flipping, and threats of lynching filled newspaper articles after the riot, illustrating the scene of intense anger and violence. The Niles Riot, the climax of nearly two years of hostility between the Mahoning Valley Klan and the local Catholic’s anti-Klan opposition, is a defining moment in the anti-Klan movement. Anti-Klan activists opposed the growing influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley, an area of Northeast Ohio that contains parts of both Mahoning and Trumbull Counties. For citizens of these two counties, tensions caused by the newly arriving Catholic immigrants against the Protestant natural-born citizens of the area became the root of Klan influence and the subsequent immigrant-led, anti-Klan movement. The heavy role that Protestantism, and its relationship with idealistic Americanism, played in the Northern Klan’s growth explains the strong anti-Klan motivation among immigrants and Catholic groups throughout the North. ![]()
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