Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf
Page Number: 36

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

29 

Opinion of the Court 

ments.  And the monument has acquired additional layers 
of historical meaning in subsequent years.  The Cross now 
stands among memorials to veterans of later wars.  It has 
become part of the community. 
  The  monument  would  not  serve  that  role  if  its  design 
had  deliberately  disrespected  area  soldiers  who  perished 
in  World  War  I.    More  than  3,500 Jewish soldiers gave 
their  lives  for  the  United  States  in that  conflict,32  and 
some  have  wondered  whether  the  names  of  any  Jewish 
soldiers from the area were deliberately left off the list on 
the memorial or whether the names of any Jewish soldiers 
were  included  on  the  Cross  against  the  wishes  of  their 
families.  There is no evidence that either thing was done, 
and  we  do  know  that  one  of  the  local  American  Legion 
leaders  responsible  for  the  Cross’s  construction  was  a 
Jewish veteran.  See App. 65, 205, 990. 
  The  AHA’s  brief  strains  to  connect  the  Bladensburg 
Cross  and  even  the  American  Legion  with  anti-Semitism 
and the Ku Klux Klan, see Brief for Respondents 5–7, but 
the  AHA’s  disparaging  intimations  have  no  evidentiary 
support.  And when the events surrounding the erection of 
the Cross are viewed in historical context, a very different 
picture  may  perhaps  be  discerned.    The  monument  was 
dedicated  on  July  12,  1925,  during  a  period  when  the 
country  was  experiencing  heightened  racial  and  religious 
animosity.    Membership  in  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  which 
preached hatred of Blacks, Catholics, and Jews, was at its 
height.33    On  August  8,  1925,  just  two  weeks  after  the 
dedication  of  the  Bladensburg  Cross  and  less  than  10 
miles  away,  some  30,000  robed  Klansmen  marched  down 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  the  Nation’s  Capital.    But  the 
Bladensburg  Cross  memorial  included  the  names  of  both 

—————— 

32 J.  Fredman  &  L.  Falk,  Jews  in  American  Wars  100–101  (5th  ed. 

1954). 

33 Fryer & Levitt, Hatred and Profits: Under the Hood of the Ku Klux 

Klan, 127 Q. J. Econ. 1883 (2012).