Madison says it’s up to Hoosiers to take a stand and make a change.
“Individual Hoosiers in communities in Indiana have done just enough dumb, stupid, hateful things to spark the question again and again ‘Well is Indiana klan state?’ My answer to that is no, it’s not. But Indiana has flirted down to the 21st century with some of the culture, some of the ideas, some of the beliefs and values that so informed the Klan in the 1920s.”
From this story, a classic piece of music emerged. The family, fleeing religious persecution in Russia in 1893, was soon reunited and allowed to enter the country. And that little boy, born Israel Beilin, would grow up to become Irving Berlin. Twenty-five years after emigrating, the same year he became an American citizen, he composed “God Bless America.”
