Jessica R Luther Rummel

This case study of Denton, Texas, a burgeoning, two-university metropolis birthed from a small-town history of theological white supremacy serves as analytic proof of J. Kameron Carter’s claims in 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘦: 𝘈 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵, that the origins and sustaining theo-mythical structures of race and racism are best exposed when localized through the multifaceted lens of interdisciplinary scholarship that employs historical, genealogical, philosophical, and theological analysis over an “arc of time.”
By employing these localized interdisciplinary methodological approaches aimed at unveiling the theo-myth which underscores the modern American racial ontology, this study examines how theological white supremacy was homogenized into popular culture in Denton County Texas following the Civil War via a neo-Confederate Ku Klux Klan movement, (a distinct American phenomena beholden to the theo-mythology coined by Luther Rummel as “Ku Klux Konfederatism”), that continues its influence today through localized theo-political institutions, sociocultural systems and cultural ‘norms.’ Further, this study reveals how the same ancient theo-myth unveiled in Carter’s account of race underscores a popular Klanish culture which thrived in Denton County from the late-nineteenth century Reconstruction Era and well into the twentieth century with the rise of the Second-Generation Klan, just as it did throughout North Texas and the United States of America at large.