Smith said the legislature not caring about diversity and prioritizing school choice hurts diverse communities.

“They really don’t care about the education of urban children,” Smith said. “And I think they’re, what they’re doing is downsizing the thrust for quality education for children of color.”

Summers said Black children learn their history from their community. But she’s not optimistic that white children will be taught the same things to understand what their classmates deal with due to their race.

“In a utopia, a perfect world, that would be right,” Summers said.

Whitticker said that when history is whitewashed to remove significant contributions from Black people, it paints an incomplete picture.

“The world is not a white world. The world is made up of all people,” Whitticker said. “And the reality is if you are looking at what the world is, what the NAACP is, you’re looking at racial justice, you’re looking at immigration, you are looking at equal opportunities for all people.”

While the Klan is not a bright spot in the Hoosier state’s past, Madison said it is important for older students to learn history.

“My argument is that the Klan is among the most important stories in all of Indiana history,” Madison said.

The Klan in Indiana existed in two waves, taking place in the 1920s and the 1960s. The 1920s group was mostly anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish but saw Black people and other people of color as a lesser threat. This group was largely nonviolent, according to Madison.

Klan Ideas Evolve But Never Disappear Completely

In the 1960s, the Klan returned with increased racism and viciousness but decreased numbers and more resistance. The group found pushback for their changed views, which continued to target Black people but also touted homophobic and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Like the 1920s Klan, modern-day white supremacists can still be people in power, Madison said. But they may also be harder to spot since they no longer don white robes or burn crosses.

Unlike the 1920s, when Klan rhetoric was popular, Madison said current-day white supremacists have to use “dog whistles” that hint at racist ideas without saying them directly. He called this “more sophisticated.”

Madison used the example of U.S. Sen. Mike Braun saying he thought individual states should be able to reverse and make their own decisions on Supreme Court issues like interracial marriage. Braun later corrected himself, saying he meant to say gay marriage.

“They put it in words and images that at first glance may not seem offensive, but I think when you look behind the screen, when you think about the long tradition and these sorts of issues, they are offensive,” Madison said.

Madison said today there are Americans who think, as 1920s Klan people thought, that they are being good, Christian citizens.

“There’s us really good people, whether 100% Americans or whatever label you want to call us. And there’s them, those people who are not like us,” Madison said.

For the Klan, these “other” people were Catholics, Jews, and Black people. Now, he said, this racism and antisemitism have continued along with newer homophobic and anti-immigrant ideologies.

“All sorts of people are ‘not us,’” Madison said. “And the very smart leaders today in elected positions, some of them in church leadership positions and other forms of powerful places, they can say these things and package them in ways that seem unoffensive.”

Andy Downs, head of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Purdue Fort Wayne, said Indiana may have legislators that support KKK-like ideologies because those ideologies have been known to have voters in support of them.

“Indiana has definitely been home to individuals who were open to that way of thinking,” Downs said. “And since they are—or since we are— that means that people who are going to be running for office have to be thinking about who the voters are. And if the voters are looking for anything close to that ideologically, candidates may tailor their message to meet that to some degree.”

Downs said the Indiana KKK aligned itself with the Republican party more out of convenience than any actual ideological similarities.

The Klan promoted the idea of being 100% American. They flew American flags and held events on the Fourth of July. Madison said the use of patriotism or nationalism has continued with modern-day white supremacists.

On Jan. 6, 2021, self-proclaimed patriots broke into the United States Capitol, brandishing American flags while attacking Capitol police officers. This, Madison said, is the most extreme example of patriotism being used as an excuse for violence.

​Smith also pointed to the insurrection as an example of Trump’s impact on the far right.

“He opened a door that will permit those people who want to exhibit superiority and hate to feel comfortable in doing it. It even led to the seizure or the attempted seizure of the U.S. Capitol,” Smith said.

Some point to Trump’s reign as a reason for a resurgence in outright racism and the increase of white nationalist ideologies. Smith, 78, said he thought that racism in the U.S. was declining, at least in public.

“I thought a lot of the prejudice and racism was gone,” Smith said. “That it was suppressed, not that it was all gone. I thought that it was just a minority of people holding on to that ideology.”

Summers agreed.

“We didn’t see an uptick in this until he showed up on the scene. He’s given people permission to be who they want, you know, to show their colors,” she said.

Bartlett said the same kind of racism exists, it’s just veiled.

“They took off the sheets and put on the Brooks Brothers suits,” he said.