SEATTLE -- Scholars at the University of Washington have exposed a brief era when the Klu Klux Klan was a temporary force in the state.

Historians at the school created a special section about KKK activities in the state during the 1920s as part of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, headed by James Gregory, UW professor of history and director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.

The KKK section came about when history doctoral student Trevor Griffey was going to teach a 2006 class on local history of white supremacy, feeling that many people didn't grasp why the civil rights movement was needed in Washington, a state with a reputation of being liberal.

Griffey said the Klan came to Washington as part of the second wave of KKK activity in the United States. By the early 1920s, the Klan dominated the legislatures in several states and by 1923, the group brought its anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages to Washington.

Griffey said the group appealed to peoples' Christianity, their fear of foreigners and their patriotism by marketing the Klan as an essential part of protecting the nation and tried to make the group seem normal by having picnics, patriotic fireworks and other events.

Research showed that the Klan drew as many as 50,000 members from all over Washington to watch Klan ceremonies in Renton, Issaquah, Yakima and Lynden. The Klan also published its own newspaper, The Watcher in the Tower, in Seattle.

As the Klan's influence waned, Bellingham and Whatcom County became the KKKs last strongholds in the state.

Griffey said that although the KKK ultimately failed, its fusion of white supremacy and Christian patriotism was not discredited. The Klan in the Northwest promoted itself as being 100 percent American, but not by lynching or race riots, he said.

The section on the KKK may be found at http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/kkk_intro.htm.