Elks Again Vote to Reject 2 Blacks Seeking to Join Van Nuys Lodge : 2nd Refusal Expected to Stir Protests Over Racial Policies

Two black men who tried to join the Van Nuys Elks Lodge were rejected Tuesday for the second time in two weeks in a move likely to prompt more protests against the fraternal organization’s policies toward racial minorities.

The lodge’s rejection of Jules S. Bagneris III and Thomas J. Montgomery came at a closed meeting that drew 53 of the 370 members. Only 35 members had voted in last week’s ballot.

Elks officials would not comment on Tuesday’s vote, other than to say that the two men could reapply in six months. But some members said Bagneris and Montgomery’s bid to join the white-dominated organization lost by a slim margin.

Bagneris and Montgomery were sponsored for membership by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), a lodge member. Rejected along with them on Tuesday was a Robbins aide, Jack Sheffield, who is white.

“There was not a proper basis whatsoever” for the rejection, Robbins said. “I am obviously disappointed, but if the majority of the membership were here, they would not have condoned or participated in racism.”

Robbins said he is considering transferring to the Lompoc Elks Lodge, which last week admitted two black members.

Other members of the Van Nuys lodge said they were embarrassed by the vote but planned to remain in the organization.

‘I Feel Awkward’

“I feel awkward, but I also have friends in the Elks,” said John Pulskamp, a member and former exalted ruler of the Van Nuys lodge. “The fact is everybody in the United States has at least one friend who discriminates against others for racial reasons.”

Dan Davis, acting exalted ruler of the lodge, said the lodge should not be considered racist because “the charities we support extend to everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from.”

Robbins said he sponsored Bagneris and Montgomery after hearing of two black men whose attempt to join the Lompoc Elks Lodge sparked a months-long controversy over the organization’s racial policies.

The men were admitted to the Lompoc Elks Lodge last week after the Elks national membership decided that lodges would admit new members who could garner a two-thirds vote. Previously, it took only three opposing votes for a prospective member to be rejected.

The Elks do not admit women and voted at their national convention in July not to change that rule. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, as the organization is officially known, has about 2,300 lodges with 1.5 million members nationwide.

The organization does not keep statistics on the number of minorities who belong. But Dan Davis, a spokesman for Los Angeles-area lodges, said he knows of no black members in the area other than the two recently admitted to the Lompoc lodge. A small number of Latinos and Asians are members, he said.

Bagneris, 29, is a Lake View Terrace resident and minister at an African Methodist Episcopal Church in El Centro who ran unsuccessfully against Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi in April. Montgomery, 67, is a World War II veteran and a retired state motor vehicles examiner living in Pacoima.

“I’m disappointed, but I’m not disheartened,” Bagneris said.

“African-Americans historically have been despised and the struggle continues,” he said. “This is 1989, there is no way I could expect this to occur, even in the San Fernando Valley. We’ll have to find another means to bring about Martin Luther King’s dream in which people are not judged by their color but by the content of their character.”