FJC Weekly Torch: 1923

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

The Fullerton College web site contains digital archives of the Weekly Torch, Fullerton College’s newspaper, stretching all the way back to 1923–when the college shared grounds with Fullerton High School.

As part of my research into local history, I’ve begun going through these archives, year-by-year, because newspapers are information-rich sources of local history.

Below are screen shots from articles in 1923, with a bit of occasional context and commentary.

2/16/23

2/23/23

It’s interesting that one of the sports teams Fullerton Junior College played in 1923 was the Sherman Indian School, an Indian boarding school in Riverside. Indian Boarding schools have a sad history in America.

3/9/23

The article below is both disturbing and mysterious. We know that there was an active Ku Klux Klan in Fullerton in 1923 and that Superintendent Louis Plummer joined. And yet the activities described in the article are just weird. Apparently someone associated with the KKK left “a black hand with red nails, a skull and cross bones on the Dean’s desk, all demanding candy and peanuts be left under the steps to the office on pain of death.”

Was it possible that the KKK was considered another campus “prank” group?

In 1923, Fullerton Junior College was part of Fullerton Union HIgh School, and the high school had an Americanization program, which involved sending teachers into the segregated Mexican citrus work camps. To read more about this, click HERE.