KKK member’s name will be removed from Fresno City College baseball park
Fresno City College is joining the growing number of colleges, universities, and other institutions across the nation in renaming facilities after The Fresno Bee revealed the namesake of the college’s baseball park was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Fresno City College President Carole Goldsmith said the college plans to rename its baseball facility, Euless Park, after learning John Euless was a prominent KKK leader in Fresno in the 1920s.
“Given the work that the college has been and is doing around equity and race, having a building or facility associated with a racist is not in keeping with our mission and vision,” Goldsmith said in a statement to The Bee. “As the first community college in California, our goal is to strive for educational excellence while creating a welcoming, validating, and affirming environment for all of our students.”
The decision to rename the baseball field, located at 1101 E University Ave., came after Bee metro columnist Marek Warszawski uncovered old news articles outing Euless as a member of the white supremacist organization. The story was first reported in 1922 by the Fresno Republican, naming Euless on a Fresno KKK chapter membership list seized by police during a raid in Inglewood.
School officials are assembling a task force to find a new name. The task force will also review the names of all other facilities at the college that could potentially have racist ties.
“Like many others, I was deeply disturbed and saddened to learn that one of the facilities in the State Center Community College District had potential ties to a member of the KKK,” Board Trustee Annalisa Perea told The Bee.
The task force, which will begin meeting in the next few weeks, will be made up of the college’s academic and classified senates, student government representatives, and Black and brown community members.
Goldsmith said the new task force would “thoughtfully, intentionally and methodologically” come up with a new name following Warszawski’s column last weekend. The board will ultimately vote on approving or rejecting the new name.
“I must confess, I did not know the origin of the name of this baseball park, nor a few other names of buildings at Fresno City College,” Goldsmith said. “We may also need to examine the origins of other areas across the entire District.”
Perea said the new task force would be doing meaningful work.
“The purpose of this task force is to ensure that our approach is measured and thorough so that we can continue to do our part in addressing racial inequities,” Perea added. “From a board member perspective, I’m personally looking forward to swift action being taken based on the findings that come from the task force work.”
Home to the Fresno City Rams baseball team, the ballpark is one of the city’s most notable baseball field and former headquarters of minor-league baseball from the early 1940s to the late 1980s.
Euless, who was a well-known businessman and real estate broker, was known as “Mr. Baseball” by sportswriters of the era for being instrumental in the construction of a baseball stadium for the minor-league team the Fresno Cardinals.
Several trustee members condemned the name’s racist ties.
Board Trustee Bobby Kahn said the board is “very serious” about addressing the name change and is confident the proper steps will be taken to rename additional facilities if the task force uncovers any other controversial ties.
Board Trustee Eric Payne echoed those sentiments and said he was “taken aback” by the finding.
“Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning just to deal with, but if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it,” he said, quoting Michelle Obama. “It has to be up to all of us.”
But while Euless’ KKK membership may have been news to the current generation of college officials, the park’s troubling namesake wasn’t exactly a secret.
The issue emerged as far back as 1991 by yet another longtime Fresno Bee writer, Bob McCarthy, who noted the racist links to Euless’ past. In the column from nearly 30 years ago, McCarthy suggested renaming the park for retired Rams coach Len Bourdet.
Warszawski also suggested Ron Scott, the Rams’ head baseball coach for more than three decades.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 1:27 PM.