JUNE 21st, 1925 – In Wichita, Kansas the black semi-professional baseball team the Wichita Monrovians (named for the capital of Liberia) played a team from the Democrat Party hate group the Ku Klux Klan. During the 1920s the Democrats were trying to improve the image of the Klan via public picnics and other civic events.
Membership in the KKK was in the millions nationwide and Kansas was a center of Klan activity. That is tragic considering that in the days of “Bleeding Kansas” in the 1850s anti-slavery Kansans called Jayhawks fought pro-slavery forces in the territory, although most of the pro-slavery forces rolled in from Missouri.
During America’s Civil War the fighting between the two states was especially bloody and memories of the raid on Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery terrorists still haunt the region. By 1925 the state was one of many in which official Ku Klux Klan baseball teams played, and the team playing in Wichita that day was Wichita Klan Number Six.
The KKK agreed to play the Monrovians for publicity with a subtext of demonstrating what the Klan thought was white superiority to blacks in all endeavors, including athletics.
The Monrovians defeated the Klan 10-8. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we here in 2026 assign more importance to this game and its outcome than people in 1925 did. No box scores were recorded and no anecdotes regarding the action on the diamond have come down to us. We have only the newspaper notation that the Monrovians triumphed by that 10-8 score.
Certainly, that makes this baseball game prime material for a dramatic recreation on the big or small screen but sadly everything except the score will have to be fictionalized.
Balladeer's Blog 
Tulsa Race Massacre occurred in 1921.
Yes, that Oklahoma tragedy did.
Pingback: ALL BLACK BASEBALL TEAM DEFEATS A KU KLUX KLAN BASEBALL TEAM: 1925 – El Noticiero de Alvarez Galloso
Logged, thank you sir!
I never heard of the all black baseball team the Wichita Monrovians before but found your post engaging.
I appreciate that! Thanks!
I had no idea how widespread the Klan was. It’s bizarre that they played baseball and had picnics in an attempt to normalize their presence. Disgusting!
I agree. Plus, on August 8th of that same year, 40,000 KKK members did a march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC as a show of strength. Even worse, Klansmen held positions of power in the Democrat Party far beyond the 1920s. For just a few examples, in 1925 Denver’s Democrat Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was an open Klansman. Hugo Black, a Democrat Supreme Court Justice was a Klansman back when he was a Senator. Democrat Senator Robert C. Byrd ORGANIZED AND LED a Ku Klux Klan chapter beginning in the 1940s. Yet Hillary Clinton openly called Byrd a friend and mentor and when Byrd died in 2010 then-Vice President Joe Biden delivered Byrd’s eulogy.
I’ve heard of the raid but not this baseball game. What an event! Thanks for sharing.
Glad to do it!