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When the small group of Klu Klux Klan clowns showed up in Anaheim on February 27th , stirring decades old strong memories of racism and resistance to their hate message, the history of Anaheim as a KKK country came back into the spotlight. The LA Times wrote:
“The Klan has a long and troubling history with the city. Klansmen were once the dominant political force in Anaheim, holding four of five City Council seats before a recall effort led to their ouster in 1924… At the height of the group’s power in Orange County, nearly 300 Klansmen lived in Anaheim, patrolling city streets in robes and masks. A large KKK rally once attracted 20,000 people to the city.”
The seminal account of this period, according to its author who is one of our prominent local historians, was naturally displayed in the Weekly. The interest in this period also reached the OJB, according to the editor who had written a rebuttal : “Suddenly this piece (the rebuttal) is ranked #2 most popular in our daily site statistics” . I wonder if the rebuttal by another local historian (our own Cynthia Ward) has also experienced a spike.
In addition to providing a historical perspective, the OC Weekly has extensively covered this rally, questioning the performance of the police, which failed to prevent the violence that took place. The police in turn seems to be retaliating, by raising the suspicion that this publication may have contributed to the promotion of the hard reaction by the counter-demonstrators.
This reaction was summarized by a OC based writer and by the normally bland Executive Director of the County’s Human Relations commission, Rusty Kennedy. The writer says : “The best way to confront a hate group that has increasingly made its presence known in Anaheim is difficult to determine. Some people prefer not to give the KKK the satisfaction of receiving any attention at all. I understand that, but my bigger fear is that if we ignore the KKK, we allow racism the opportunity to fester in the dark.”
“Kennedy said he doubted there would be a Klan return to Anaheim in the near future. I think they got scared to death. They’re going to be wary of any repeat.”
Some of the anti-KKK people call themselves Antifas, short for anti-fascists. In today’s political environment, the term fascism is broadly associated with mostly violent white supremacists groups, inflaming and amplifying fear and hate against minorities.
A few days after the rally I posted a comment in this blog about an early antifa: “The last known American survivor who fought fascists in 1930s Spain, has died in northern California. He was 100 years old… Born in Anaheim on 20 December 1915…”
I thought that the local historical connection of anti-fascists, although briefly as his family did not stay long, was symbolic. Anaheim was not a city of only racists and bigots, of KKK and John Birchers. Unfortunately their legacy is still alive in places like the Anaheim Chamber’s online mouthpiece.
The relevance of this person did not get much attention here in Orange County, but in other places did:
” An interesting obituary appeared in The New York Times recently, though the death of its subject last month was largely unnoticed beyond his family and friends.
That’s not surprising. Delmer Berg wasn’t a celebrity. He wasn’t someone with great wealth or influence. He had never held public office. He was a Californian. He worked as a farmhand and stonemason. He did some union organizing. He was vice president of his local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. He protested against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons. He joined the United States Communist Party in 1943, and, according to The Times, he remained an “unreconstructed Communist” for the rest of his life. He was 100.
He was also the last known living veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
“…. Mr. Berg went to Spain when he was a very young man. He fought in some of the biggest and most consequential battles of the war. He sustained wounds. He watched friends die. He knew he had ransomed his life to a lost cause, for a people who were strangers to him, but to whom he felt an obligation, and he did not quit on them. Then he came home, started a cement and stonemasonry business and fought for the things he believed in for the rest of his long life.
“I don’t believe in most of the things that Mr. Berg did, except this. I believe, as Donne wrote, “no man is an island, entire of itself.” He is “part of the main.” And I believe “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
“So was Mr. Berg. He didn’t need to know for whom the bell tolls. He knew it tolled for him. And I salute him. Rest in peace.”
You can read the entire salute here, written by Senator John McCain.
Unfortunately, in the 1920’s the people who were tossed out of the Anaheim city council and Anaheim PD for being bully idiots – procreated. And their progeny re-infested every corner of your city and it’s neighbor next door Garden Grove.
The reason why your law enforcement community loves surveillance technology so much is because it allows them to act worse than their relatives in the 1920’s.
German Santos AMDG
Their remnants still decisively control the power structure of the city.
An observation, that many people had noted, is that in some pictures of the police attending the KKK, it was hard to distinguish them.
Nice. Interesting. So, no continuing connection to Anaheim?
As for the police commentary: it doesn’t mention THIS publication, does it? Unless we are secretly, as I’ve long suspected, run by KROQ.
I pointed out to the continuing connection. The Teddy Bear and the many misogynistic posts of the Chamber of Commerce’s mouthpiece are examples of this connection. Another one is described by Paul’s comment below.
As to the police not mentioning the OJB, one reason may be the Moxley’s one, when he described Vern as the terrier type, chasing his tails. It is not a negative, I don’t consider this blog as a news-breaker most of the time; maybe a newsmaker, especially when you provide fodder for the high journalistic standards of the LOC. The locos over there have a feast with your personal activities, including your meals preferences.
What? When and where did Moxley say that? When I was ripping him for being credulous of Righeimer, or when I was ripping him over Jesus Aguirre? We get along now. I don’t know what these comments mean anyway without seeing the context. And I don’t know what you’re trying to say about our blog, but it doesn’t sound right.
Come on Vern, don’t loose your sense of humor….I thought that was funny. The context was one of the epic blogging battles, where Greg’s naked form made the front page…(it must be Trump and Cruz level of discussion that it is bringing back unsavory images….) What Moxley meant was that OJB was sometimes behind in reporting the news.
On the serious side, there is nothing wrong with not being able to break the news all the time, this is a blog run by volunteers after all. Sometimes we are all too busy that even the political revolution passes by us.
Meanwhile, Curt Pringle who carries on the Klan Tradition in Anaheim is hosting a fundraiser for SOAR along with candidate Lou Correa. As you recall, Curt Pringle hired uniformed Armed Poll Guards to intimidate Latino Citizens to not vote in a genrfal election. Let me repeat that; Curt Pringle paid for and employed Armed, Uniformed Poll Guards to intimidate Latino Citizens to DISUADE them from Voting.
So let me repeat this; Lou Correa, who is a candidate for office in Anaheim, is Co-Hosting a Fundraiser For SOAR, with a guy who Hired Uniformed Armed Poll Guards, with the explicit orders to Violate the Constitutional Rights of Latinos, by Intimidating them with the Threat of Violence, from voting!
What are we to think of a guy who sells out his own people by fraternizing with a guy who used the threat of violence to prevent the disenfranchised from exercising their basic constitutional right to vote?
To add Injury to Injury AND insult, SOAR, (Save Our Anaheim Resort) is the cabal who advocates for the corporate cronyism and corporate welfare that we now see again in the current effort to give hoteliers even more cash at the expense of the most vulnerable on the city! Enough is enough! BASTA CORREA!!
Fooled once….some of us have not learned much about Pringle & Associates. Or the lesson is better to be co-opted, by joining them or by constantly criticizing the ones who try to change the power structure.
It has already been noted that Correa may be positioning himself to replace Brandman in the Kleptocracy apparatus.
*There is a interesting historical note to all of this. Born into a stalwart Republican family in the 1940’s….Thomas Dewey was the first to disappoint the many Conservative voters of California. Then came Ike. How could you not like Ike? And Mimie of course? Eight years and then Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick) challenged JFK. In a squeaker, Nixon loses because of his two day shadow on TV. LBJ, is elected after the assassination of JFK.
RFK, MLK and Malcolm X are all assassinated by 1968. Nixon wins against Humphrey!
Or who the hell was it? McCarthy? Nixon implodes in ’72….and Ford takes over because Spiro Agnew got short sheeted over milk money…. Ford pardons Nixon and loses to Carter. Carter loses to Reagan and then the evil George H.W.Bush wins…only to promise NO New Taxes! Then came the Clinton’s. Then came George and Laura….and the giant real estate crash of 2009. Then came Barack and Michelle Obama and the great Black Hope! The KKK, the south in general and racist bigots around our country all have called for Donald J. Trump (alias the Drumpfs of Karlstadt, Germany…….to come to the play against the evil Hillary of Chicagoland. American….what a tremendous rip on the One World Order.