Every time I visit my dad in Anaheim, I drive to Harbour Avenue Pearson Park. The jewels on the crown of the city’s public places have brought me many wonderful memories.
Its big swimming pool? That was where my father taught my sister how to swim with me. tennis court? My high school friends and I tried to guide our inner Andre Agassi there with ridiculous results. Statue near the depression Famous 19th-century actress Helena Modjeska It’s where my ex-girlfriend broke up with me. On the northwest corner is a dense cactus garden where I scratched and stabbed myself in hide and seek.
Pearson Park is a great place to have a picnic, attend summer concerts at the historic amphitheater, or play basketball in a purple and gold medal courtroom Kobe and Gianna Bryant (Bryant’s wife, Vanessa Bryant, went to the nearby Catholic school in St. Boniface).
It was also the July 1924 rally held at Ku Klux Klan, which attracted more than 20,000 people, one of the largest KLAN events ever conducted to the west of Mississippi.
That night, a 30-foot burning cross was lit by a smaller cross that was then called the City Park. Orange County Plains dealer reports that the biplane flies over the crowd with electric lights – one looks like “a big, fiery cross” and the other looks like “KKK.” New members wear white robes and hood decorations to start, but it is also a celebration with a parade band.
In the elections earlier that spring, KKK won most of the council seats in La Habra and Brea, winning four out of five in Anaheim Seat.
These victories solidified Crane’s presence in all departments of political life in Orange County, from school boards to local Republicans to the sheriff’s office led by Sam Jernigan – Anaheim is the base .
What happened in my beloved hometown is part of a national klan recovery that has not been seen since the reconstruction. But like all evil, Anaheim’s KKK rule ended.
A hundred years ago this year on February 3 – My birthday – Anaheim voters recall four Crane MPs. This is the most important election in the city’s history, but there is no anniversary. Not a peep from the current city council, nor a reflection on a local publication or post from a local historical society.
I was not surprised. Klan rule in Anaheim is a smudge that loves to celebrate positive places in a county that is religiously fueled. However, pushing KKK’s push provides lessons for our political moment. As Mark Twain wrote, history does not repeat, but often rhymes.
At the time, elected officials were blaming immigrants for all the diseases that torment the country. In Anaheim in the 1920s, the big problem in the local area was pirated and Catholics, who were regarded as foreigners, should be foreigners who were supposed to be Anglo-Saxon Protestant countries.
Today, Bray “Magazine” and people dare to pretend to have the power of patriotism. At that time, Klan preached “Americanism One Hundred Percent,” a slogan from American veterans, like Ronald Reagan, was the first president to commit, Sunshine instead of sulfuric acid“Make America great again.” KKK has masked their paranoid message in Christianity and convinced enough voters to restore honor and pride and the promise of good times to put them in power. They reduce their opponents when they don’t completely threaten their cross-burning and death threats.
Klan painted Kigy’s letters (“Klansmen, I say hello”) on the main streets of Anaheim to show who runs the stuff. They seem unparalleled–until good people rise from all walks of life.
Local business owners created an anti-Crane organization to organize resistance. A whistleblower obtained a membership volume for Orange County KKK and passed it to the town. Rolls-Royce revealed that nine of the 10 members of the Anaheim Police Department belong to Crane along with four members.
district. Atti. Alexander P. Nelson of Orange County, left. Atti. Fresno County, Bertrand Gearhart of the Center and Detective James Smith of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office checked Ku Klux Klux Klan Gown and Mask to the right, above Wearing a cap on the peak and occupying it in the raid. This photo appears in the Los Angeles Times on April 30, 1922.
(Los Angeles Times)
OC DIST. Atti. Alexander P. Nelson publicly mocked the group, bought newspaper ads, which were sold to Klan members, and said in his speech: “Barnum used to say the suckers born every minute, but when we look at them We were considered Barnum at Klan. It was estimated to be very conservative.”
Anaheim announcement posted the names of Klan members on its front page, while rival Anaheim Gazette (run by future father) US Senator Thomas Coochel – Urge residents to vote for racists. These justice efforts succeeded: four Anaheim Klan members were easily recalled, and one non-Clan members boycotted their own Crane funded recall. Hooded orders stay at Anaheim City Hall lasted nine months.
Such a simple story should be studied in all Anaheim schools. But I didn’t find this until the late 1990s, until Orange Coast Academy in Mesa, Costa Rica. I was working on a research project on hate crime, and when I stopped to read a book about Crane, I stopped in a black and white photo of Crane members wearing horrible robes of town marching. . The same photo appears in my high school history textbook without mentioning specific places.
Now, this photo comes with a different title: Anaheim, CA, 1920s.
In 2016, Pearson Park in Anaheim clashed during the “White Life Matters” protests outside Pearson Park in Anaheim, involving KKK members.
(Louis Sinko/Los Angeles Times)
My city has never lost its reputation as “Cranenaheim” as politicians and residents continue to racism, even as memories of Crane disappear. Where did I splash a long time ago? Until the 1950s, ethnic minorities could only swim the day before they were exhausted. Cactus garden? It was created by former park principal Rudy Boysen and is most famous Delicious berries by his namebut he also restricted the Mexicans to a fenced part of the park until the militants successfully sued him.
After Klan left the office, schools only appeared in Mexico, with the city council and school committees passing anti-immigration programs Until the 1990s. Neo-Nazi rock bands freely aired CDs of their bad music at Angel Stadium in the 2000s and have been performing secret concerts at local bars for the past decade. Just in 2016, the new generation of Klan held a “White Life Issues” rally in Pearson Park, which turned into a bloody freedom – all – A miserable defeat.
Evil will not disappear like that. What happened in Anaheim a century ago showed how to fight tyranny and white supremacy – and the work was never really done. If this is not a lesson, we think it is important to wish you all good luck.
