By Dianne Anderson

Breaking decades of silence around one of the most tragic events in the history of Fontana has led to a monumental fight against race hate.

Even for adults, the pain remains in retelling the story of O’Day Short, an engineer, his wife and two children who died from an explosion of fire in their home.

That fire followed several threats to sell their property and move back to the Black side of town.

At the last council meeting, student Cyrus Moss shared how his research motivated him to petition the school board to rename Randall Pepper Elementary School to O’Day Short Elementary.

“This hurt deeply because I am a young, black man who attended Randall Pepper Elementary for preschool,” Moss said. “It is painful knowing O’Day Short’s two children were around the same age as my little brother and me and were murdered in this fire. I believe we need to make things right and change the name of the school to honor the Short family because they are the true owners of the land the school is built on.”

Helen Short’s sister wrote about the investigations in 1946 that later concluded it was not an accident, as reported in the white newspapers at the time. Randall Pepper Elementary School was built about five years after the killings.

Pastor Emory James said the story must never be forgotten.

He commended the young Moss, now a seventh grader at Southridge Tech Middle School, for the petition to rename the middle school as a rightful memorial. Earlier this month, Fontana Unified School Board voted for the name change, which goes into effect next school year.

“Monuments are designed to remind us where we come from, what we had to fight against to where we are now. It’s a way of honoring people, what they went through that cost their lives. For years it was ignored,” he said.

When communities grow and mature, he said programs can evolve from the devastation to help promote equality, sensitivity training and race relations.

“That’s something the school board has to look at intently, that would help, but those programs have to be developed because you don’t want to be biased or influential to the point that they do more harm than good,” he said.

During the mid-1980s, James settled at Ephesians Church and worked to get the community involved in local activities. Fontana’s racism was thick on the underdeveloped north end where Blacks were allowed to live, but today is considered prime property. It was understood that Blacks could not do anything south of the core.

“Baseline was the race line,” he said. “There has always been a spirit and climate of racism in Fontana. Those of us in leadership, we worked hard to try to dispel that because it was to our advantage economically, socially and it was to our advantage prospectively.”

He joined the Fontana Ministerial Association and began hosting celebrations to honor Dr. King over three decades ago, when the city was better known as Fontucky and Klan territory.

For all the dark past, he believes projects like Fontana Lewis Library & Technology Center with its statue and wall tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., along with Mayor Aquanetta Warren, shows there has been progress.

“Those are changes outwardly seen, it doesn’t address covert racism,” he said. “But these kinds of things let people know that hearts are in place to do the right thing by people, and cultures to learn how to live and get along.”

At the school board meeting, Mayor Warren commended Supervisor Jesse Armendarez for his support with $50,000 toward the name change.

She thanked the Board for the decision to rename the school, and described how her own parents came up from Birmingham Alabama, and witnessed tree lynchings while passing by the church.

“The Short family, God bless them. They endured what none of you would ever recognize just as Emmett Till and other great people that lost their lives and sacrificed and Dr. King and all of those heroes. We are proud that this community has come together and said no more,” she said.

Supervisor Armendarez pledged $50,000 to support the school’s renaming, and emphasized the tragic murder serves as a powerful reminder of the community’s commitment to justice and equality.

“I am proud to see that we are changing the name of this school to O’Day Short Elementary School,” said Supervisor Armendarez. “This name change will remind us that our history has not always been pretty, and it is our duty to make sure our future generations and students know and learn this history.”

Remembering the past can help build a better future, he said. The Short family’s story will teach students about standing up for what’s right and the importance of accepting everyone in the community.

“In a gesture of deep commitment to this cause, I have pledged up to $50,000 to cover the costs of the school’s renaming and rebranding. I want to ensure that the school’s funding can be used to educate their students about the history of this school,” he said.

In a widely publicized 1946  pamphlet after her sister Helen was killed, Carrie Stokes Morrison wrote of how the fire was made to look accidental in her account in the Socialist Workers Party Los Angeles Local pamphlet with full coverage by Myra Tanner Weiss.

“We are convinced that only through spreading the story of what happened in Fontana far and wide can we have the basis for mobilizing public opinion against vigilante terror, Jim Crow, and all other forms of oppression from which minorities suffer,” she wrote.

To read the original pamphlet, “Vigilante Terror in Fontana: The Tragic Story of O’Day H. Short and his Family,” see UC San Diego Library Digital Collections at https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb9735927t