Years ago, we lived on Ferguson in Oildale. My kids went to Standard Elementary school.

On Saturdays the kkk, in full dress, would walk in front of the School there on N. Chester and try to pass out papers to passing cars.

I wondered how they got away with it.

 Wow.  scary....really.  When ,  I use to live in Chicagoland, I lived in a suburb  in the 80's next to Cicero (Al Capone's home and major mafia corruption town) called Berwyn, where a black family from Jamacia got stoned from the home they had just bought.  I couldn't believe that stuff still happens.  Berwyn was like Oildale, I guess.  

 The KKK people are a bunch of cowards. They only feel power underneath their white sheets. Don't worry about them.

 As opposed to badges and black uniforms...

When I moved to Bakersfield in the 1990's I was told that there used to be a sign on the Oildale bridge up to the 1980's warning blacks not to be in Oildale after sundown.  Is this true or is it a urban myth? 

 It's true Wayfarer.  Some of the old timers will tell you they remember it well.  It's only really changed in the last few years.

 All towns have a past and I'd hate to see this one judged on the ignorance and bigotry of that past.  There's a certain amount of it everywhere even today but it's not the norm.

To be surprised at the bigotry of the early part of the 20th century in Bakersfield is to forget that a large share of the people who lived here migrated from the south.   When reading The Grapes Of Wrath, bear in mind that the bigotry wasn't just toward Blacks, it was toward the migrants from the dust bowl as well.  The book was banned because it made the farmers look bad for one thing but it does depict a sad time in our country's history.

I was at the tail end of that era but still saw the mindset of Oildale during that time.

Circa 1945. Edison Highway, Red and Green Camp.

The Klan has gone through various phases throughout its history. From its founding in 1866 to 1871, it focused on "regaining a seat at the table" after the Civil War. When groups of impatient Klansmen became "night riders" and began terrorizing blacks and anyone else they didn't like, founder Nathan Bedford Forrest resigned and took a powder.

The 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation" led to a a rejuvenated Klan - which included President Warren G. Harding - taking on a pro-America, pro-white, pro-protestant stance, and at one point over eight million Americans were Klan members. This is the Klan you see in those pictures - everyday citizens who were enticed by a pro-America stance shortly after World War I. The conviction of Klan hustler D.C. Stephenson for rape and second-degreee murder in Indiana in 1925 brought the curtain down on the Klan again, only to see it rise once more with the passage of desegregation laws in the 1950s. This "Dixie Drunk" Klan, by far the most emptyheaded of all the Klans, has been the subject of many movies, and old geezer Klansmen from that time are occasionally convicted of something and sent off to the penitentiary.

The Klan in 2000 had shrunk to virtually nothing - 1500 members nationwide - until the illegal alien situation began to make headlines, after which Klan memberships increased. At last count, the Klan had grown to over 5000 members, with the group having a median IQ of about 52 or 53.

 One day coming though Oildale I did see a car painted and smashed up  and the writing said N"""""g never break down in this town again

This was in the 80's

 I heard that same story, Wayfarer.  I suspect it was probably really like that. :(

Nancy, you and I are on the same wavelength on this one because the Okie intolerance in the Grapes of Wrath was the same thing I brought up when Woof was telling me about this on the phone. 

I think what's important is how, today, Bakersfieldians are revolted by this stuff.  For everything that's said about Bakersfield, I find it to be a very culturally tolerant city.  Even the "best" neighborhoods in town have diverse populations.   Although, wasn't that group Prussian Blue (the girls who sang at the fair) part of a bigger group around here somewhere? 

Possum, Vidor, Texas is still a "sundown town." If blacks try to shop or get something to eat there, white people will come right up to them and say, "This is not your town." 

The town of Gardnerville, Nevada used to blow a whistle every day at 6 p.m. as a means of directing American Indians to leave by sundown.

 I have to fix the original link in my post but here's another clip from the nytimes.com link: Farm workers from Oklahoma, Arkansas and other drought-plagued states came to be reviled as shiftless lowlifes who would overrun the good citizens of Kern County--then numbering only 30,000--with their burgeoning numbers. Signs sprang up in Bakersfield restaurants and other public places, proclaiming, "No Ni*****s or Okies."

Off topic Woof but I followed the old link and comments about dolphins and then Toms comment so I thought you might find this interesting.  Hope I did it right. More

My dad told me about the separate white and "colored" drinking fountains in Shafter when he first arrived there from Okla.  No KKK that I remember.

 That's way cool Anglo1, Thanks for sharing - eee, eee, eee!

Chico, I did some checking on Vidor, and that area of Texas is 25% black, but Vidor has a population of 11,000+ and only eight black residents. Lebanon, Oregon had a population of 11,500 in 1991 and there were no blacks. You had to go to Albany, the county seat, to see a black person.

 I got folks from the Beaumont area. They don't have fond memories of the area. Ironically, Bakersfield was seen as a place of oportunity for my Grandparents (they moved here in the late 30's).

My father was a local farmer,as was his father before him,ironically they moved from Germany to S.Dakota and then here. He used to talk to his friends about this time,participated in road blocks and God knows what else.I would make myself small and quite to listen,and can only remember fragments,as i was only 4 and under.

We ,like most places have a past,but we have moved beyond some of it.There is more to do. That 'dealer" should hand those items over to the museum.

.

 Possum, Oildale is the biggest indicator of the change in tolerance in the Bakersfield area.  Just a few short years ago you never, ever saw a Black person there, and very few Hispanics.  Today, you'll find a mix of all races as well as Skinheads all over Oildale.  It's really amazing to me, having been raised in the also predominately white areas of Fruitvale/Greenacres.

I hadn't been in Oildale for quite a while and still remember driving over the bridge and stopping at McDonalds on Roberts Lane only to  see a Black arm reach out the window to hand the customer their order.  I sat there in amazement because that was something you just did not see in the past.  Now, it's not unusual at all.

I've said before that it may be slow, but it's coming.  Not so long ago who'd have thought that the last bastion of prejudice and bigotry would accept all people as neighbors?  If Oildale can do it, everyone can do it.

 It's interesting that you say that, Nancy. My parent don't live too far from the Greenacres area and they bought a house in Oildale. Who would a thunk it possible say 20 or more years ago?

 Like I said too, I live in a suburban town in Chicagoland that didn't allow blacks, I didn't know that when I moved there in the '80's.  They were allowed to work there, but not allowed to live there.  I remember inviting a black friend over to my apt. and when we got off the train from downtown, he said, "You live in Berwyn, they don't allow blacks here".  He was scared to come over to my place.  He was actually worried about me and the ramifications if we were seen together.  That astounded me.  It was the '80's man, that stuff was suppose to happen in the past and be ancient history, not in today's world.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

 I always wondered why my husband would say "pecker woods"....now I understand....thanks Tina.

 Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a pejorative slang term coined in the 19th century by southern Black Americans to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, often with red hair similar to the bird's red plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites.^[1

I've heard that term my whole life but never realized that it was coined by blacks.

 I met a White guy in the army with it tattooed on his arm.

 I did too jf. (met a white dude in the Army with peckerwood tatooed on his arm).

I was going to tell him I agreed with the sentiments expressed by his very appropos tat, but I figured no good  "wood" come of it!

(anyone with that tatooed on his arm --  1) probably already knew it so it would be articulating the blatantly obvious (even to him), and 2) he wouldn't like it coming from the likes of me)

He was a door gunner. Think I made a good decision? (I do)

 One of my best freinds in Houston was a black lady (I worked with) from Arnaudville, La. She was one of the nicest people I ever met. Being from CA she figured I was  "enlightened" I guess as she confided in me all the time. Told me she knew she'd never go anywhere in a big co. as she was a black woman. No matter how smart she was (and she was).

I never really understood what she meant as it didn't affect me or my ambitions at the time. Thinking back on it, she was right.

When I had some problems one time, she was the one (out of all the upwardly mobile yuppies I worked with scratching ourway up that corporate ladder) that really came to my aid. I really didn't even appreciate that then either (at the time).

Life is funny, ain't it?

 Peckerwood is also a prison gang term.  It may even be the name of a white gang. Hope I'm not repeating something already said, I've been fighting a "zlob virus " all day.  I wil thank you from here Nancy until I'm sure it's repaired.  Thank you for the photo info that is, not the virus, whew!

 http://www.scotshistoryonli...

An interesting look at other words considered derogatory.

Ango..anytime.