Ku Klux Klan

Happiness is a Warm Book About Guns: Intellectual Self-Defense

I began writing this on Friday, hours after NRA loon-in-chief Wayne LaPierre offered his predictably over-the-top defense of gun nuts, pimps and apologists for the weapons industry. Hard to imagine the cognitive dissonance required of somebody who can stick to his, yes, guns in the face of ... More >>

Radical Labor History Walking Tour in San Pedro this Saturday!

The South Bay town of San Pedro is more than just Ports O'Call, messy shrimp, and tasty garlic bread. The place where 'the ghetto meets the sea' is also, more importantly, home to some of Southern California's most radical labor history dating back to the early 20th century. Famed rebel crooner J ... More >>

Top 10 Black Artists Who Should Go Country

[Editor's note: Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city's favorite musical genre: mainstream country.]  By: Mike SeelySee Also:*Kanye West and 50 Cent's 9/11/07 Album Showdown Revisited*Five Artists (Besides Lil Wayne) Who Think New York ... More >>

Shonen Knife's 'Pop Tune' Stabs at Audiences Old and New

The legendary Japanese punk band return, armed with a new record

Best of the LA Times Book Fest: New California and Old, and Bruce, too!

Mr. Bib caught up with friends, and met new ones, at last weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC. I'd like nothing better than to do that every weekend. Imagine: a world where the value of literacy, poetry, science, the arts, civic participation is assume, despite or in opposition to t ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harry Winchell, Brea's First City Marshal

​Man, who WASN'T a Klan member in the early days of Brea, ESPECIALLY in its power structre? (Actually, there were a couple of souls--maybe eight?). You can see below the many Kluckers who helped lead Brea in its early days, who made sure it was such a gabacho town that it makes the Balboa Bay Club ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Albert O. Nelson, Placentia Constable

​Placentia usually gets the short shrift in the county's history, even though there was no city that had more of a plantation mentality at the height of King Citrus than this town. Most of the city was orange groves back in the day, with most of the Mexicans working as pickers and most of the gaba ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Arnold F. Peek, Santa Ana Butcher

​When the Brave New Urbanists talk about the good old days of SanTana, the days before Mexicans destroyed the Golden City, they inevitably point to people like Arnold F. Peek. Like the Brave New Urbanists, he wasn't originally from the area, hailing instead from Kansas. Like the Brave New Urbanist ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harry E. Inskeep, Fullerton Justice of the Peace

​Good news, all five readers of you: I've finally been able to move out all my Orange County history books from the catacombs into my new office, meaning I now have full access to all sorts of directories and local history books that I can match up with the OC Klan's membership roster from the 192 ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Charles C. Kinsler, Brea Fire Chief/Clerk/School Board Member/Pioneer

​Charles C. Kinsler was a lot of things as one of Brea's pioneers. He was a recording judge in the rough-and-tumble oil town, served on the first school board, and also did a stint as the town's clerk-recorder. He was a Mason and the city's first fire chief; he also organized one of the first unio ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Alvin L. Hitchcock, Orange County Chief Deputy Clerk

​In the early 1920s, the Orange County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution forbidding any county employees from being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The supes had a serious problem on their hands, given that the sheriff at the time, Sam Jernigan, was a Klucker.The directive, of course, did lit ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Harry E. Becker, Mayor of Brea

​Here's a dirty little secret about the Ku Klux Klan in Orange County during the 1920s: for one part of the Invisible Empire's reach, it was all about class warfare.We're talking specifically about the city of Brea, which wasn't the genteel suburb we know today but rather a rough oil town whose re ... More >>

OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Francis Allen Kidder, Santa Ana Father and Son

​The mascot for this legendary column, at right, isn't taken from the archives of the Orange County Ku Klux Klan but rather dates to the 1930s, to San Diego's vibrant Klucker scene. His most famous cameo is in the intro to the HBO series, True Blood, used as visible proof of the Klan's depravity ( ... More >>

Zorro Rescues Santa Ana From Itself (by Kicking Off Adventurous OC Film Fiesta) Tonight

​Who would have guessed it would have taken a gringo playing a Spaniard nicknamed fox who was introduced in a 1919 story set in San Juan Capistrano to save the effed-up Santa Ana City Hall from itself?And yet, Douglas Fairbanks will be on the big screen again tonight, in his classic 1920 silent fi ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Rollin Marsden and Roy Davis, Fullerton Councilmembers

​My apologies to my loyal white-supremacist audience for not doing one of these last week--I'm busy putting the final touches on...something, so had to skip a week. But fear not, skins: this week's a two-fer, and we return to Fullerton in honor of the civic malfeasance that plagues the city, espec ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: William French, Fullerton's First Deputy Police Officer

​Hey, since the Fullerton Police Department is in the news because half-a-dozen of them beat to death a homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia, why not remind folks this week about the department's friendly past? Yes, Mitchie: Klan members were part of Fullerton's finest, and it started from ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Rudolph Kroener, Co-Owner of Former Gas Station that's Now Orange's Filling Station

​The Filling Station in Orange is an okay-enough place once you get over their retro design, one facilitated by the fact that it used to be a auto service station (hence, it's name). Doesn't matter what I think--it's always slammed, especially since they now offer dinner.  But just in case yo ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Jesse L. Hunter, San Juan Capistrano Innkeeper, Owner of Mexican Restaurant

​Even in 1920s Orange County, Know Nothings knew that if they wanted to be successful, they had to do business with Mexicans. You could segregate against them, kick their asses, exploit them--but you needed their money, too, to make sure you could make a living.That's exactly what happened with Je ... More >>

Catholics Protest 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' at Anaheim Hills' Chance Theater, Calling it 'Blasphemous'

​In  "Jerry Springer: The Opera," a musical production premiering on July 9 at Anaheim Hills' Chance Theater, a fat, gay Jesus gets fondled by Eve, and Mary is introduced to the audience with a chorus of, "Raped by an angel, raped by God!" Some Catholic groups aren't too p ... More >>

'Jerry Springer' Vs. Arthur Miller Vs. 'The Underpants'

[SUMMER GUIDE] And more from OC and Long Beach stages this summer

Top Five Worst Black Rappers Ever

​I bet seeing Chuck D's photo below the headline "Top Five Worst Black Rappers Ever" almost made you shit your shorts, huh? Believe me, I love Chuck D. I just put him up there to grab your attention.Remember when I wrote this post about the top five worst white rappers ever? And then remember how ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Newton E. Wray, Santa Ana Rancher, Failed Council Candidate

​Most of what passes for the early, non-Mission or -Anaheim history of Orange County has come out of Samuel Armour's 1921 History of Orange County, California: with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Garland C. Ross, Santa Ana Dentist, Batted Against Walter Johnson

​There is a name on the membership roster of the Orange County chapter of the Ku Klux Klan compiled by the District Attorney's office in the 1920s that matches that of a major league ballplayer. It ain't Arky Vaughn, or even on the same level of major league importance as the Hall of Famer from Fu ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Ferris F. Kelly, San Juan Capistrano Postmaster

​The Orange County men who joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s were almost all residents of North and Central County, specifically the cities of SanTana, Anaheim, Fullerton, La Habra, and Brea. The numerical breakdown isn't really surprising: Orange County didn't have that many cities then, and o ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Albert Hetebrink, Fullerton Rancher

​If you were a proud, upstanding White man during the 1920s, joining a fraternal organization was a must. Catholics joined the Knights of Columbus or the Knights of Pythias; worldwide-domination types preferred the Masons. The Elks, the Kiwanis, and many, many others: they all did good and upheld ... More >>

Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Henry W. Head, OC Founding Father

​If it weren't for Google, this series wouldn't exist. And if it weren't for bad historians, there'd be no reason for my write-ups. But there is, and there are--thus, ars gratia artis, or some high-falutin' Latin phrase to justify its existence. Actually, blame the biographers of Henry W. Head for ... More >>

Killer Quince

Happy Quinceañera to us! A look back at 15 years of telling the other side (that is, the real side) of OC's story

Asylum Denied

Only a fraction of Mexicans get U.S. asylum.

[UPDATED:] Islamaphobes Target Fountain Valley Schools

​UPDATE: Facing a crowd of about 100, the Fountain Valley School District Board of Trustees told anti-Islam activists to go pound sand . . . in Sacramento (see end of this post) . . .Local members of a national group "concerned about" Muslim terrorists posing as Mexicans to illegally cross the sou ... More >>

Racist OC Register Fustercluck of the Day

​Headline: Handling Hard Times: Want to Take an Immigrant's Job? Comment by Warren: What about the jobs all the anchor babies take from real citizens?

Racist OC Register Fustercluck of the Day

​Headline: Obama to send 1,200 troops to border Comment from Molly: We need to get rid of the Monkey in the White House before he ruins this Country any more. We need an AMERICAN for a president

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Who is David Duke's Favorite Orange Countian?

*Updated below . . . Why, none other than our favorite non-racist white supremacist, of course! Martin Millard has made a name for himself in extremist circles thanks to rants against the "Tan Everyman," drawn local ire due to his influence over Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, and even garnered at ... More >>

Minuteman's Time Up

Certain students at Columbia University are none too fond of Jim Gilchrist. Yesterday the former accountant and OC native's speech was interrupted by protesters storming the stage, where some sort of fracas broke out. Though many news accounts suggest that Gilchrist himself was attacked, he appears ... More >>

The French Really Like Us

American Vertigo expands upon Tocquevilles territory

Beauty and the Beasts

Ballets Russes exposes the seamy underbelly of classic dance

Hes Too Sexy

A night of misery, hot lunches, and neither rockin nor tacos in Fullerton

Letters

Emotional Car Wreck

Sadness haunts Daughter From Danang

Diary of a Mad County

White Like Me

Watch as Tyler Stallings and the Laguna Art Museum modestly boast yet another ridiculously giant blockbuster!

Court Jousters

Over the Edge

Shame on the Times Pasco

The Adolescents

Eminems Boyfriend?

Romance!

Fanmail 1995-1996

This Weeks Featured Super Bowl Game: Tennessee Titans vs. St. Louis Rams

HERE ALREADY

Re-creating Southern California in Southern California

Letters