Ku Klux Klan Trials
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a nationwide organization that openly preached white supremacy and hatred for Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and Immigrants. In Texas, Klan membership peaked in 1923 with upwards of 150,000 members. Klansmen influenced and held positions in local and state government and in law enforcement. Their power allowed members to engage in acts of vigilante violence without fear of prosecution. Although their primary targets were people of color, the Klan also threatened Anglos who disagreed with the KKK’s core values. On Easter Sunday 1923, ten Klansmen flogged and tarred Robert Burleson, a white traveling salesman, after Burleson ignored their warning to leave Georgetown. District Attorney Dan Moody, a Taylor native, led prosecution against the Klansmen in a series of trials between September 1923 and February 1924. Moody tried his strongest case first against Klansman Murray Jackson. After seven days of arguments, the jurors deliberated for twenty minutes before returning a guilty verdict and offering the maximum punishment for the crime. Moody’s initial conviction led to four additional convictions and four prison sentences for the other Georgetown Klansmen on trial at the Williamson County Courthouse. These trials were considered the first prosecutorial success in the United States against members of the 1920s Klan and quickly weakened the Klan’s political influence in Texas. Further, the publicity garnered by Moody following the trial led to his successful runs for State Attorney General in 1924 and Texas Governor in 1926 and 1928. He was the youngest person ever elected to both statewide offices. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1923, at the height of the Ku Klux Klan's power in Texas, ten Klansmen flogged and tarred a traveling salesman named Robert Burleson near Georgetown. District Attorney Dan Moody — a young Taylor native — prosecuted the attackers in a series of trials at the Williamson County Courthouse, winning a rapid guilty verdict in his first case and four more convictions after it. Widely regarded as the nation's first successful prosecutions of the 1920s Klan, the trials broke the organization's political grip in Texas and launched Moody toward the governorship.
Why it matters
These convictions proved that Klan violence could be answered in a courtroom, marking a turning point in the fight against the hooded order's hold on American public life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Dan Moody
- · Robert Burleson
- · Murray Jackson
Related events
- · Ku Klux Klan trials
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jessie Daniel Ames
Georgetown, TX
Jessie Daniel Ames grew up in Georgetown and graduated from Southwestern University before widowhood turned her toward public life. She joined the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, led local women to register to vote for the first time in 1918, and became the first president of the Texas League of Women Voters. Moving into civil rights work, she founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930, rejecting the claim that lynching protected white women.
Negro Fine Arts School
Georgetown, TX
In 1946 — two decades before Georgetown's schools integrated — Southwestern University professor Iola Bowden Chambers and three of her students began teaching piano to children in the city's African American community. Backed by the school board, the First Methodist Church, and university students, the Negro Fine Arts School grew to welcome more than 200 children, adding voice and art lessons, annual recitals, and college scholarships. Its graduates went on to earn music degrees and teach the next generation.
Site of Marshall-Carver High School
Georgetown, TX
Georgetown's first school for African American children began early in the 20th century as “The Colored School,” teaching grades one through eight. Principal S. C. Marshall pushed the board to add high school classes in 1913, and the growing school — later renamed for him and then for George Washington Carver — became the community's educational heart. In 1962 the parents of seventeen Carver students sued to force integration, a fight that carried to the Fifth Circuit and ended with the school's closing as Georgetown desegregated by 1967.
Judge Harry N. Graves
Georgetown, TX
Harry N. Graves, born in 1877, made his home on this site while serving as Williamson County attorney—and it was here he helped prosecute a landmark 1923–24 case against the Ku Klux Klan, working alongside future governor Dan Moody. Elected to the Texas House, he authored the 1930 bill that created the Texas Highway Patrol, and in 1937 rose to the Court of Criminal Appeals. He is buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.