via Notre Dame:

It was May 1924, and the Ku Klux Klan wanted to showcase its power and cement its sudden grip on Indiana politics by holding a picnic and parade in South Bend, the most Catholic area in the state.

About 500 University of Notre Dame students showed their objections by storming downtown and ripping the hoods and robes off surprised Klan members. As the Klan arrived in trains, buses and cars, the students roughed members up in alleys and stole their regalia for battle trophies. They chased the rest to the Klan headquarters downtown at the corner of Wayne and Michigan streets….

While it’s true that Indiana became the heart of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s — at one point claiming about one in every three native-born white males as members — the facts don’t tell the whole story….

what made Indiana unique was that one man, D.C. Stephenson, engineered the Klan’s revival in the state. He was not a true believer or a racist ideologue, but he was a talented salesman and opportunistic huckster who saw a chance to exploit people’s fear and nationalism for profit in 1921….

With little debate, about 500 enraged students ran the two miles to the city. In his University history, Hope describes each Klan member arriving carrying “under his arm a suspicious bundle.” He says the students greeted them kindly and offered to show them to the parade. “Up an alley, down a side street, through a dark entrance, and a Klansman would emerge without his sheet, and sometimes with a black eye.”