In preparing for a--shameless self-promotion alert!--coming Navel Gazing profile of Orange County hate groups, I came across a stunning--though not surprising--revelation: Orange County was officially founded by the Ku Klux Klan.
This insight comes courtesy of Dr. Henry William Head, a Civil War veteran who served as a Los Angeles County Assemblymember (representing the Orange County region) from 1883-1889. Biographies on Head in the Santa Ana Library History Room and subsequent stories about him in the Orange County Register peg the good doctor as one of the men crucial to helping Orange County secede from Los Angeles' evil, evil grasp way back when. Problem is, none of them reveal Head's KKK membership--not Orange County Medical History, not Orange County Through Four Centuries or any of the main Orange County history textbooks, not even the self-congratulatory compendium of "notable" Orange County citizens printed in the 1930s whose title I can't remember but has glowing words about Head.
To find out about Head's uber-racist past, one has to delve deep into the Klan's history and read through Annie Cooper Burton's 1916 pamphlet on the Klu Klux Klan (the Santa Ana History Room has a copy), one of the first histories of the KKK and published just after The Birth of a Nation gave rise to the KKK's more-famous appearance in Orange County. Burton used Head--who she described as "a popular physician of Santa Ana, California"--as one of her primary resources, and Head--a former Grand Cyclops from the days when he lived in his native Tennessee--was more than happy to comply. Head was a Klansman almost since the group's founding 1867 convention in Nashville, by his own admission. He was in the KKK for about three years, until the Klan's reputed leader at the time, Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, ordered all KKK members to burn all "Uniforms, oaths, and rituals ...because it meant death to a Klansman to have them found in his possession, so strong had grown the feeling against the Order, due to unscrupulous outsiders who committed horrible deeds in the guise of the Klan," according to Burton. But Head kept his robes and posed for a shot (pictured above) for Burton. "It was strange how the old feeling came back to him," she wrote. "He felt, he said, as if he were breaking his secret oath in thus displaying his uniform. Certainly he did look guilty and a little self-conscious as he emerged from the funny-looking garment."
There you have it, folks: Orange County was founded by a racist. Surprised? Of course not? Surprised that Orange County historians don't bother with this annoying factoid? If you were, you have a lot of reading to do--and don't bother with the Orange Crate Label school of history!
March 17, 2008 19:25
One glance at the comments in the Register, and you can see that the KKK foundation lives on in the OC...particularly in the OC GOP, which is actually advancing anti-Mexican Rosie Avila against Loretta Sanchez.
March 18, 2008 05:19
Just like the KKK, Orange County loves to hide it's racism under a bed sheet! ;-)
March 18, 2008 08:16
"anti-Mexican Rosie Avila"
Isn't that the same Rosie Avila that you were shilling for until recently Pedroza? Wasn't she your main backer when you ran for school board in Santa Ana Art? Don't forget your past Artie, because we won't.
March 18, 2008 09:26
Anaheim was once a model city for the klan. Check out the url : http://www.anaheimcolony.com/klan.htm
March 18, 2008 09:56
There is no doubt that history continues to repeat itself in the OC.... injustice is alive and well, except of course, if you are rich, famous or a connected member of the OC Republican GOP.
March 18, 2008 12:51
OC RACIST BULLSHIT
March 18, 2008 14:04
God forbid you're a young highschool history teacher reading this...and get the idea of teaching this in class. The backlash will make your head spin
March 18, 2008 15:25
Sal: That's where we need courageous teachers to teach the truth rather than the orange-crate label myth currently pushed on everyone!
March 19, 2008 13:18
Orange County took my baby away
March 20, 2008 17:22
Gustavo, you never fail to amaze me. You consistently find the best dirt. Kudos, sir.
April 4, 2008 07:29
the kkk is some bad people in dis world why do they do that kind of stuff?????????
April 15, 2008 15:53
Very interesting article. I knew the OC had and still has a strong KKK/Skinhead presence, (although most of them are now in Riverside/Lake Elsinore) but I didn't know the whole history about it.
April 21, 2008 19:02
There you have it, folks: Orange County was founded by racists.
Well, one or two, anyway. That’s an awfully broad brush to paint with. There were a lot of founders of the OC, many of them weren’t particularly racist, others were. A unilateral declaration that the OC had racist beginnings is no different than a unilateral whitewash (heh) of Klan history.
As a sidebar, in my vagrant yoot, I spent some really quality time with the great granddaughter of one of the original settlers of Santa Ana. I can assure you that her family weren’t kloseted klanners.