Sheets Cost Too Much

In January 1930, a small group of white men drove to the home of a white woman who was allegedly living with a Black man in Oakville, Ontario, and kidnapped them both. This was the Canadian Ku Klux Klan in action: The captured man was not tortured and lynched; he was driven to his parents’ home and told to stay there. And the kidnappers did not disappear back into the murky depths; they were arrested on their way home, still dressed in their robes. Three were charged but only one was convicted — of wearing a disguise after dark — and fined fifty dollars. Their trial became a minor sensation, and the verdict was appealed, ultimately leading to a jail sentence for the Klan member, a Hamilton chiropractor. As for the couple, their house was torched — the Klan was suspected — but they reunited, married, and lived out their lives in the Toronto suburb. It also turned out that the kidnapped man was a war veteran and not Black after all; he was of...