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No.
We found no authoritative estimate that the number of Ku Klux Klan members in Wisconsin in the 1920s was 40,000.
That’s the current population of Wausau in central Wisconsin.
“No one knows for sure how many Americans joined during the 1920s but the best estimates are around 2 million members, some 15,000 of whom were in Wisconsin,” according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
That’s the size of the Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay.
The KKK is a white supremacist hate group originally formed in the South after the Civil War.
Two Wisconsin KKK researchers said the 15,000 estimate is reasonable: Stephen Kantrowitz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of a report on KKK activity on the campus; and Michael Jacobs of UW-Platteville.
As of 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center counted 13 KKK groups in the U.S., mostly in the South and none in Wisconsin.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Britannica: Ku Klux Klan
- University of Wisconsin-Madison history professor Stephen Kantrowitz: Email
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Ad-Hoc Study Group: Report to the Chancellor on the Ku Klux Klan at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
- University of Wisconsin-Platteville history and social sciences professor Michael Jacobs: Email
- Southern Poverty Law Center: Ku Klux Klan
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