CSULB newspaper ditches 49er name after 75 years — and a university foundation may be next
Student journalists cited gold rush-era atrocities carried out against natives as the reason for the change. The nonprofit 49er Foundation now says it’s considering a name change as well.
Shortly after the university was founded in 1949, a small group of Long Beach State students came together to form its newspaper. Pulling from the university’s gold rush branding (and the year of its founding), the students dubbed the publication the Forty-Niner.
After 75 years of campus coverage, the paper has ditched its old moniker — one of the last remnants of the university’s 1850s theme — for something fresher (and less steeped in controversy): Long Beach Current.
“Although the name may have seemed fitting for the time, students, faculty and Indigenous community members have voiced their concerns over the decades,” Sam Farfan, community engagement manager for the student paper, wrote in an Aug. 20 editorial.
Given the historical context of the atrocities carried out by prospectors, or 49ers, against Native Americans amid the gold rush as well as the university being built on Puvungna, a sacred site to the Gabrielino-Tongva Indian Tribe, the 49er term is “historically charged,” Farfan said.
Since the 1970s, more than a dozen Native archaeological sites spread over about 500 acres on or near the campus have been identified, including at least one burial ground, according to the university. Most of the sites have been destroyed by university development.
“Yes, a lot of the uproar started in the ’70s, but it’s been controversial to [Native Americans] since they were displaced from their homes,” Farfan said in an interview, adding that Natives have always been a super-minority on campus so “no one heard them. Part of our mission statement is to amplify, not only our student voices, but also those around us.”
The last 22 acres of undeveloped Puvungna land will remain open space thanks to a 2021 lawsuit settlement after workers dumped 6,400 cubic yards of dirt and debris from a construction site on the sacred land two years earlier.
Craig Stone, professor emeritus of American Indian Studies and former director of the annual CSULB Pow Wow, told the Current that the 49er concept was born of a “narrative that reinforced the power and value of the constituent groups” of Long Beach at the time.
“They were all white,” Stone said. “So that narrative is one that was taught in a romanticized way, for a real long time.”
Now 90 years old, Lee Brown was editor-in-chief of the Forty-Niner in 1959. When he spoke with the paper's staff recently, he voiced his opposition to the name change, saying it is an important part of his identity as the foundation of long journalism and education careers.
“It is my personal history,” Brown told the Current, adding that he has “been a 49er for a long, long time. And I know, or at least I understand, that the original 49er miners killed [American] Indians, and that’s terrible. Changing the name, however, doesn’t restore the life of a single [American] Indian.”
Despite the arguments of Brown and others, students voted overwhelmingly in favor of the name change.
Barbara Kingsley-Wilson, who has been an adviser for the student paper for 20 years, said there have been talks over the years about a name change given the growing awareness of the historical context. Even so, students did not make the decision lightly, she said.
The staff talked with many people, including members of the Native American community, and examined historical research on 49ers, which conclusively determined they carried out a genocide of native peoples, Kingsley-Wilson explained.
“It’s a relief because it’s been a long time coming and it’s not easy to change a name that’s 75 years old,” Kingsley-Wilson said, adding that it was gratifying to watch students thoroughly research the issue and listen to different perspectives.
“The nuance, thoughtfulness and curiosity — I’m very proud of them,” she said.
Farfan, who has been a member of the newsroom for two years, said she always understood the general issue with the 49er name but was not well educated on many of the details, despite her own Indigenous ancestry, due to the white-washing of history. Her research amid the push for a name change, however, was eye-opening.
It wasn’t until she “dug deep and looked through archives and had this re-education,” that Farfan truly understood the “merit and responsibility” to change the name, she said.
“In order to convince other people, I had to convince myself that this was a good decision,” Farfan said.
The university has long struggled to reconcile its gold rush branding with its modern ideals of diversity and inclusivity.
In 2018, the school administration sent mascot Prospector Pete packing. A towering bronze statue was relocated to a less prominent place on campus and a citywide vote was held to determine the next mascot. Elbee (a phonetic reference to the city’s initials) the shark was unveiled in August 2020.
The university continued the purge of its prospecting past in 2019 when sports teams dropped the 49er name in favor of Beach — a move that garnered criticism, including from LA Times Assistant Sports Editor Houston Mitchell. And last year, the 49er Shops, independent, nonprofit entities including the campus bookstore and restaurants, rebranded to Beach Shops.
With the newspaper under a new banner, only one vestige of the university’s gold rush roots remains, according to Long Beach State spokesperson Jim Milbury: the 49er Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes philanthropy and manages resources donated to the school.
In response to the newspaper’s announcement, foundation CEO Dan Montoya said the organization is “thoughtfully evaluating whether a name change is warranted.”
“As the last entity on campus with '49er' in its name, we recognize the significance of this history and the evolving identity of our university,” Montoya said in a statement Thursday. “We are considering input from key stakeholders and will carefully weigh this decision to ensure it aligns with our mission and values while honoring the legacy of CSULB.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the author of the 49er Foundation statement.
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