As I said, laying groundwork tends to be simplistic, but you have to start somewhere - right?
Yeah, that was kinda rude and I had second thoughts about “mouth shutting” when pulling that reply together. But you are not Plurlalus, so I gave it a shot.
By 1884, fellow Kentuckians Haggin, Carr, and Lloyd Tevis (one of the richest men in California) had more than three hundred thousand (300,000) acres of cotton fields – and were importing freed slaves from the south to work their cotton fields in Kern County, California.
Rex, do you remember those adorable dancing raisin commercials in the mid-1980s? Well, one hundred years earlier, the Sun Maid Raisin company had employed the tactics of the Klu Klux Klan to monopolize (plantation-ize) the grape industry. Bearing torches and weapons, Sun-Maid’s “Night Riders” (Sun Maid’s term, not mine) visited independent growers who were refusing to join their cooperative. Some of the independent farmers were white, some were Japanese, but most were Armenians. By then, the plantation model and Jim Crow had already spread as far north as Fresno county.
Rex, can you see the historical pattern that flowed into the 1960s, with Cesar Chavez, Delores Heurta and the United Farmworkers grape strike? My daughter works in labor law and specializes in farmworkers. I can assure you, these are current events, not history – yet. Si se puede (it can be done).
In 1922, the Bakersfield Californian published the names of more than 350 local members of the Klu Klux Klan. More than 300 were Bakersfield city residents (including a county Supervisor, Police Chief and city officials). Today, old timers still refer to Kern County as Mississippi 1955.
In the Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck told the story of white Dust Bowl refugees - and Kern County supervisors banned the book. What Steinbeck did NOT include, were the Black Okies who fled Jim Crow in the south and migrated to the California Central valley in search of work.
The story of the Black Okies is NOT history - yet. In 2015, Mark Arax produced a documentary showcasing these original Black Okies, their homes and communities in the central valley. Their stories expose the ignorance of Californian’s who live outside the central valley. Surely, reparations should begin here, not San Francisco. Perhaps rural Californian’s perception of rampant hubris, hypocrisy and ignorance throughout coastal, southland, bay area, Silicone Valley, and northern counties have some merit.
Now, Rex, you have me interested in learning what rural patterns you've observed but cannot explain. If you ask, I might be able to point you towards some answers.
Before I go, one more little fact to stir our pot. Kern County, California is the birthplace of the wind industry (and is known in the industry, as the Wind Capital of the world).
