African Americans in Long Beach and Southern California: a History

By Claudine Burnett

Racial discrimination and unrest are intertwined with the history of Long Beach and Southern California in Ms. Burnett’s latest book. African Americans in Long Beach and Southern California begins in the 1800s and continues to 1970, reaching into later years to describe what that history has led to today. Ms. Burnett spent over five years researching recently digitized African American newspapers which has allowed her access to the black perspective on issues rarely written about in the white press or by other authors. Personal stories, legislation, Southland history and possible solutions to decades old problems are presented, making for an interesting and informative read. It is a unique work, sure to open the eyes of many.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665516785

Claudine Burnett

Claudine E. Burnett's books include From Barley Fields to Oil Town: A Tour of Huntington Beach: 1909-1922 (1996), Strange Sea Tales Along the Southern California Coast (2000), Haunted Long Beach (1996), and Balboa Films: A History and Filmography of the Silent Film Studio (2007). Paul Burnett has a degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he helped organize the university's first surf club. He is co-owner of the premier action sports and surf shop, Surfside Sports (SurfsideSports.com), which started in Newport Beach in 1975.

Book preview

2021 Claudine Burnett. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/09/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1679-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1678-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Race matters for reasons that are really only skin deep, that cannot be discussed by any other way, that cannot be wished away.

Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood he grew up in.

Race matters to the young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown and then is pressed, No, where are you really from? regardless of how many generations her family has been in this country.

Race matters because of the slights, the snickers…the judgments that reinforced the most crippling of thoughts: I do not belong here."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Shuette v. BAMN – 2014

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

LONG BEACH BEGINNINGS

The American Colony

Slaves in the Gold Rush and Civil War

Willmore City Becomes Long Beach

African Americans Move West

Spanish American War

A NEW CENTURY

Earning a Living

Fighting for Respect and Justice

Religion

World War I

THE FIRST GREAT MIGRATION

Change

The Newcomers

Social News

Ku Klux Klan

Leisure

The Great Depression

The New Deal and an Earthquake

THE SECOND GREAT MIGRATION

Preparing for War

The United States Enters the War

African American Servicemen and Women

USO and Other Entertainment

Adjusting to a Short-Lived Peace

Seeking Equality

Convention Troubles

Police Corruption and Brutality

Education

Achieving Success

Conclusion

Footnotes

Bibliography

Foreword

This book centers on the African American population of Long Beach, California, though the role and treatment of blacks in other Southland cities and across the nation is also explored. It begins in the 1800s and continues to 1970, reaching into later years to describe what that history has led to today. The book tells the story of Long Beach, its African American population and intertwines legislation that has affected racism in this country.

My five years of research through recently digitized African American newspapers (California Eagle, Los Angeles Sentinel, Liberator) and microfilm copies of the California Informer allowed me access to the black perspective on issues rarely written about in the white press. What became frustrating were the missing newspapers that would have added much to the history. The 1932 Olympics is one example. Prior to the 1932 Olympics the California Eagle offered to sponsor any black athlete who needed assistance. All who expect to run, box, swim, jump, wrestle or compete in any of the many divisions were invited to register with the Eagle. The Eagle vowed to be a headquarters for black athletes from all over the world. It asked African American youth to get busy, build up their bodies and register with the Eagle so the newspaper could tell the world their story. Unfortunately, copies of the newspaper with the stories were not preserved.

Besides newspapers, other primary sources such as census reports, death certificates, city directories, and building permits were used. The Historical Society of Long Beach also contributed greatly, sharing research conducted for the Society’s annual cemetery tour, and photos from their collection. I cannot thank them enough.

Much appreciation to Long Beach Public Library and its staff (Glenda Williams, Jeff Whalen, Susan Jones, Angela Scott, Jade Wheeler, Michael Martin, and others) for their help in securing photos, research, and maintaining the Long Beach History Index (found on the library’s website), covering the beginning of Long Beach in 1881 to the early 21st century.

I thank my support staff, Dr. Kaye Briegel of California State University, Long Beach, Roxanne Patmor of the Historical Society of Long Beach, and Aaron Day of the Long Beach NAACP. I also want to acknowledge Zadie Cannon of the Christ Second Baptist Church, the CSULB Black Student Union Elders Association for their input on events in the Anthony Wilkins story, Steve Propes for sharing information about Ty Terrell and the Robins, and Charles Brown, Special Advisor, Long Beach 8th District Council Office, for contributions to the Achieving Success portion of the book.

Claudine Burnett

February 2021

Introduction

Most towns throughout America have a history of racism and Long Beach is no exception. Early Long Beach has been characterized as a city of almost puritanical values—a church going citizenry that allowed no alcohol and practiced conservative ideals.

It was founded and settled by Bible belt, white, Midwesterners, conservative in their political and social views. It was famous for having the largest Bible study group in the nation and its draconian purity ordinances—making it illegal to wear a bathing suit that didn’t have skirts, sleeves or was too short or too tight.

Though the many churches in town preached tolerance and acceptance of blacks and other minorities, the truth was they did not want them living anywhere near them. Property values going down, was the most often cited reason for this exclusion, not outright racism. Deeds to property were later written to exclude blacks from purchasing homes in the community, though some did so in an outlying area close to the city called the Negro District (later Central Long Beach). From here they could find employment in the white community as cooks, maids, chauffeurs, and other positions whites did not want.

White settlers to Southern California neglected to see that the region was largely colonized by those with African blood. After Spain entered the slave trade in the 15th century, African, indigenous, and European blood comingled and many of those with mixed blood were recruited into the Spanish armed forces as conquistadores.

Though the practice of slavery in Mexican territories was abolished in 1829, their racially mixed descendants were behind the colonization of California in the 18th century. The Franciscan historian Palou recounts that the first Christian burial with the rites of the holy Catholic Church in California was given to a dead man with black blood. Of the forty-four original founders of the city of Los Angeles, twenty-six were of African and Mestizo descent. In fact, recent DNA studies reveal most Mexicans today have a small amount of DNA dating back to African slave ancestors who had mixed into the predominant Mexican heritage gene pool, averaging to about 5% Sub-Saharan African DNA, according to a 2014 study reported by Randal Archibold in the New York Times.

In Northern California, African Americans, many still slaves, helped garner the gold that brought more and more immigrants to the Golden State. Whereas Northern California was pro Union during the Civil War, the Southland was a hotbed of Southern sympathizers and not the most welcoming of places for African Americans to settle. It would not be until the 1880s that a small number of African Americans began to migrate to Southern California. From 188 African Americans in Los Angeles County in 1880, the number increased to 1,817 in 1890; to 2,841 in 1900—21 of them living in Long Beach. 1880 was also the year that the community later to be known as Long Beach came into being.

I hope the information presented here will increase your knowledge of Long Beach and Southern California history and the struggles experienced by African Americans.

NOTE (Updated prices have been included after costs reported in earlier years. They are based on the July 14, 2020 Consumer Price Index as found on the website Measuringworth.com)

LONG BEACH

BEGINNINGS

1800s-1900

In 1870 William Willmore stood on the mesa where Anaheim Street and Long Beach Boulevard now meet and first conceived of the idea of founding a colony.

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Willmore City was not as popular as its promoters hoped. In the fall of 1882, there were nine dwellings either completed or under construction. Only about a half-dozen families remained in the town site during the winter. Photo: Pine Avenue between Ocean and First, 1886. (Courtesy Historical Society of Long Beach).

The American Colony

I n 1855, a sandy, curly haired Englishman with a high broad forehead and blue eyes, William Erwin Willmore, came to America. At a speech given in 1899, Willmore said that in 1870, en route from Wilmington, where he had disembarked from the East coast on his way to the new town of Anaheim, he stood on the mesa where Anaheim Street and Long Beach Boulevard now meet and first conceived of the idea of founding a colony.

The next few years Willmore spent in Washington and Oregon. There had been little to keep Willmore in sleepy Southern California, described by author Carey McWilliams as having fossil towns, down at the heels. But with the extension of the transcontinental rail line to the Southland in 1876, the region began to boom.

When the Pacific coast was connected to the rest of the continent by rail in May 1869, the event meant little more to Southern Californians than if they had been citizens of the Hawaiian Islands. Separated from the rail terminus by 450 miles of dirt roads or open sea all Southern Californians could do was wait for the railroad to get to them.

Since its incorporation in 1865, the Southern Pacific had been the hope of Southern California. Due to the efforts of many, on September 5, 1876, the Southern Pacific finally reached downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles was at last on the main line of the railroad. It had taken much finagling, and more bond money than originally intended to get it there, but in the end Los Angeles did become the Southern California hub of the Southern Pacific.

With the arrival of the Southern Pacific the number of African Americans in Southern California increased. They had been pivotal in constructing the railroad and later acting as brakemen, firemen, mechanics, porters, cooks, and waiters. But working conditions were poor. Black labor was cheaper than hiring white labor and railroad management even used the threat of hiring a black workforce for white jobs to control unions and deflate salary demands.

In his book Railroads in the African-American Experience, author Theodore Kornweibel tells how railroad work was steady, and it paid better than many of the other jobs open to blacks. As a result, railroad men staffed the middle class in the black community and provided leaders, according to Kornweibel. This wasn’t so much true of the black porters, who had to lead transient lives. The track and shop men, though, could stay in one place. If they saved their money, they could buy houses and real estate, help build churches, and with luck, even send some of their children to college.

Jealous rivalries between black railroad employees sometimes occurred. In August 1913 Corner Bell, a black boiler washer employed by the Santa Fe railroad, assaulted his foreman Liege Matthews, also black, crushing his skull with an iron ball. Bell was alleged to have been upset when Matthews was promoted from the ranks and promoted instead of Bell.

Salaries for African Americans working for the railroad barely allowed them a living, according to the African American newspaper the Liberator. A porter, for example, was paid thirty-five dollars ($972) a month with which he had to live and dress neatly; it took about all his salary to find a place to live, buy clothes and food. Tips were what kept him and his family solvent. It was a practice many abhorred including the editor of the Liberator who called the practice wrong in principal and prejudicial to the service as it affects the travelling public. The passenger soon learns that the porter must have a hand-out, whether he is able to give it or not, if he wants good service. In this tipping business, the railroads play the same game on the public that a slave holder once played on his neighbors by giving his slaves to understand that he would furnish them clothes, but they, the slaves, must live by pilfering from neighboring plantations. ¹ By paying a decent salary this tipping practice could be a thing of the past.

This uncertain income led Dora Robinson to leave Long Beach following her marriage to Pullman Porter Clarence Daniels. Daniels never knew how many tips he would receive on a rail journey across country. He hoped to be able to provide a comfortable income to support a family, but passengers varied. Some were well to do and offered tips, others were poor migrants who had skimped and saved to pay their fare west. They could barely afford meals along the way to California.

Dora and Clarence first met in 1917 when Daniels decided to fulfill a lifelong dream—seeing the Pacific Ocean. The west coast was not his usual rail route, but he had promised himself that one day he would see the Pacific. He managed to get an assignment to Los Angeles and then a train to Long Beach. Little did he realize this dream would lead to a chance encounter that would change his life forever.

Dora lived in a cramped apartment, right by the Southern Pacific rail tracks, on Waite Drive, near First Street between Locust and American, with her aunt, brother, and sister. The four had been living in Long Beach since 1914 when they moved west to seek a better life. There were only around 100 African Americans living in Long Beach at the time and seeing another person of color she did not already know was a pleasant surprise for Dora. The two struck up a conversation and discovered they were both from Arkansas and shared other things in common. It appeared to be love at first sight, but the only thing was Clarence Daniels was stationed in St. Louis, and Dora Robinson lived in Long Beach. Daniels proposed but Dora had to decide whether to leave her family behind or move to Saint Louis. She decided to follow the man she loved.

As newlyweds, the two wanted to be together as much as possible. Although St. Louis was Daniel’s home base for the railroad, he was away much of the time. His new wife was lonely and missed her family. When Dora became pregnant she convinced her recently widowed sister, Effie Sanders, to leave Long Beach and join her in St. Louis. To help with Daniel’s uncertain income, and pay her own way, Effie took in laundry to contribute to the family’s income. Niece Geraldine was born in 1919. Effie remained with her sister until 1922, returning west when she learned her mother and stepfather were moving to Long Beach.

When Clarence passed away, Dora and Geraldine joined the rest of the family in Long Beach around 1929.

The advent of the Southern Pacific into Southern California also brought William Willmore back to the region. In 1876, Willmore returned to California and became manager of the southern branch of the California Immigrant Union, formed in October 1869, following the completion of the transcontinental railroad system. The goal of the Immigrant Union was to promote the division of large estates into small farms, selling them to settlers at reasonable prices. Immigrant Union investors included such notable names as Leland Stanford, Jesse Livermore, Mark Hopkins, Peter Spreckels, and Jotham Bixby of the Rancho Los Cerritos.

Willmore worked for the California Immigrant Union for four years and believed he had learned much from his employment with them and hoped to benefit from his experience. His dream was to start his own real estate venture on the land he had briefly visited on his journey to Anaheim in 1870. He decided to call his enterprise the American Colony

In 1880, Willmore’s plan for his American Colony began to take shape. With backing from the California Immigrant Union and other investors, Willmore met with Jotham Bixby and discussed the subdivision of the Rancho Los Cerritos. Prior to that time Jotham Bixby had offered farmland for sale in a tract of several hundred acres in what is now the northwestern part of Long Beach, in an area known as the Willows. In 1867, floodwaters of the San Gabriel River cut a new pathway to the sea bringing willow seeds to the area. Within a few years, willow trees had taken over most of the area. When subdivided it took on a new name—the Cerritos Colony.

Now Bixby considered Willmore’s offer to subdivide more of his Rancho. With the additional money, Bixby’s Flint-Bixby Company could purchase neighboring Rancho Los Alamitos, which the company had been leasing from the Michael Reese estate since 1878. The extra capital would allow for the purchase. When Bixby expressed an interest in the project, negotiations began.

Through diligence, advertising and additional investors, Willmore’s American Colony took shape. Though he originally hoped to purchase 10,000 acres, Willmore scaled down his dream upon the recommendations of surveyor Charles Healey to 4,000 acres, 350 of which would form his town site. On the Bay of San Pedro, twenty-one miles from Los Angeles, the new city by the sea called Willmore City, got off to a slow start.

In the fall of 1882, there were nine dwellings either completed or under construction. Only about a half-dozen families remained in the town site during the winter. Willmore was advertising the attractions of the new settlement far and wide but, even then, sales were slow. His investors began to question his actions. They had seen their profits go to bringing in water and installing sewers and lighting for the new town. They were not interested in putting up additional capital. The money in the association treasury had not been sufficient to pay either of the first two installments called for in the option contract with Jotham Bixby. As June 1, 1884 approached, the date for making the final payment on the $100,000 ($2.6 million) purchase price, most shareholders decided to relinquish all claims to the property. Several original investors, however, formed a joint stock company, the Long Beach Land and Water Company on June 28, 1884, to take over the American Colony Association’s holdings and renegotiate the sale of the land with Bixby. Feeling betrayed, Willmore decided to seek his fortune elsewhere, in Arizona.

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William Willmore (Author’s collection)

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Nate Harrison, c.1915, slave, gold miner and pioneer. (Author’s collection)

Slaves in the Gold

Rush and Civil War

W hile travelling to Arizona, Willmore’s route may have taken him through the Pala Valley near Mount Palomar. There he may have met, or at least heard of, one of the first African Americans to settle in Southern California—Nate Harrison.

At the start of the Gold Rush in 1848, there were just a handful of African Americans in California (not counting the Afro-Mexicans who considered themselves white). The 1850 U.S. Census showed a population of 962 African Americans in the state. Of these 872 were men; 860 of these were in the Northern California counties. Their numbers increased statewide to 4,086 by 1860, 66 of those in Los Angeles. At the 1849 California constitutional convention, California was admitted to the union as a free state, however the California constitutional delegates decreed that black men could not vote, own property, testify in court, or serve in the militia. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also made things even more difficult for the blacks who had come to the state during the Gold Rush, in fact California passed its own version of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1852 allowing white slave owners to reclaim escaped black slaves.

Although slavery was outlawed in California, Southerners continued to bring African American slaves into the mines. One of them, Archy Lee, refused to return to Mississippi with his master arguing that by coming to California he had become a free man. In 1857, the free black community in the state, now around 4,000, financed Lee’s defense. However, the California Supreme Court did not agree. In February 1858, they ruled in favor of Lee’s owner on the grounds that Lee’s young master, Charles Stovall, had not understood the implications of bringing Lee to a free state, and besides, Stovall was not well and needed Lee’s assistance. William Penn Johnstone, a Southerner as well as federal commissioner, refused to apply the Fugitive Slave Law because Lee had not fled across state lines to escape slavery, but was voluntarily brought to California by his master. Still, to be safe, Lee and hundreds of other African Americans living in California left in the spring of 1858 to British Columbia, where gold had recently been discovered.

One of the first African Americans to arrive in California was Nathaniel Harrison, who entered the state around 1848 with his slave master Lysander Utt. After Nate and Lysander joined a wagon train west to the California gold fields in Sedalia, Missouri, they arrived at the Merced mining district. Here they found many white miners who protested working next to black slaves. In most mining camps, the miners had their own code of laws. Generally, they refused to allow fellow miners to use outside labor for fear it gave them an advantage over those who worked on their own. Some slave owners, however, skirted this prohibition by either congregating in certain camps or by making it appear their slaves were individual miners working their own claims.

Amid the furor of statehood and the issue of using slaves in mining, Nate and Lysander parted ways. Whether Lysander gave Nate his freedom is unknown, but we do know Lysander settled on a ranch near Hotaling in Placer County, where he married Arvilla Platt in 1865. They lived there until 1874 when Utt sold his property and moved to Tustin, California.

It appears Harrison headed south upon leaving Utt, later claiming he had the honor of driving an ox team with the first wagon train on the road being built over the Tejon Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains in 1854. Sympathetic to the cause of the Confederacy, Southern California was not the most welcoming area for ex-slaves, or any African Americans, to settle. Perhaps Harrison headed to Southern California because he was fleeing Utt. He realized the Fugitive Slave Act was being enforced throughout the United States and that he could forcibly be sent back to the slave state of Kentucky. All it took was for someone to claim ownership, and since blacks were forbidden by California law to testify in court, he would not be allowed to state his case for freedom. Harrison made a decision. He no longer wanted to be a slave. The best course of action was to move far away from civilization.

In the early 1850s, California had a hard time maintaining peace and order in a land over-run by adventurers. Stealing horses and cattle was going on all over the state. Historian Kevin Starr points out that Los Angeles County saw 44 murders between July 1850 and October 1851, which meant an annual rate of 414 homicides per 100,000. Between September 1850 and September 1851, the homicide rate in the Los Angeles area spiked off the chart at 1,240 per 100,000, which remains the all-time high homicide rate in the annals of American murder.

Palomar, lying along the route to the Mexican border where criminals felt safe, became notorious as a retreat for cattle and horse thieves. It was here that Nate Harrison made his way, feeling any law enforcement officials that came that direction would rather go after the reward money offered to capture horse and cattle thieves than bother with a possible fugitive slave. He had much to fear since Southerners in the U.S. Senate and House argued long and hard for a Southern California territory leaving the suggestion that slavery might be introduced into this new territory (called the Colorado territory) which included Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado at a later date. In 1851, 1852, 1853, 1855, 1858 and 1859 bills were introduced to separate the state. However, the outbreak of the Civil War put an end to separatist attempts.

Harrison, as an African American, was excluded from the Homestead Act of 1862, which entitled white settlers up to 160 acres of public agricultural land after working it for five years. Harrison was cautious, he knew if a white person wanted the public land that a black settler had cultivated, all he had to do was claim it. The black settler had no recourse for he was denied the right to sue or to testify in court. In 1863, however, the State Legislature of California revised the testimony laws, allowing African Americans their say in legal matters. However, the court still prohibited testimony by Indians, Mongolian and Chinese. With passage of this act, Harrison felt he could homestead his acreage later called Harrison Grade.

From Lookout Point, near his cabin, he would gaze down on the trail he had made, and see travelers coming up the mountain. When they arrived at his spring, Harrison was waiting for them with a brimming pail of water. Harrison’s nine-mile road, climbing 3000 feet from the Pauma Valley to Palomar State Park was originally called Nigger Grade before ethnic sensitivity and political correctness replaced the name in 1955 to Nate Harrison Grade.

In 1865, Americans across the United States celebrated the end of the Civil War, even though many were not happy with the results. The passage of the 14th amendment in 1868 granted citizenship to former male slaves but was not clear on whether African American men could vote.

In 1870, the 15th amendment was ratified allowing male African Americans enfranchisement. African Americans throughout the United States celebrated the passage. However, Los Angeles County Clerk, Thomas Mott, refused to add the name of African American barber Louis Green to the register on the basis that the federal amendments did not overrule a state constitution, and that the state needed to put it in place before the 15th Amendment could go into effect.

Green felt Mott’s position was a subterfuge to keep African Americans from voting and hired Robert M. Widney, who would later become one of the developers of Long Beach and founder of the University of Southern California, to represent him in court. Judge Ignacio Sepulveda ruled in Mott’s favor, but before Widney could challenge the ruling, the United States Congress enacted legislation that imposed fines and other penalties on those who obstructed individuals from voting. Green registered to vote on June 21, 1870, in what would be called the California Great Register along with two other men.

Vigilance committees were prevalent throughout California in the early days of statehood. Newspapers report cases of lynchings in San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Truckee, and throughout the state. Harrison had realized the perils of Los Angeles and other California settlements, which is why he settled in the remote area of Palomar. One disadvantage, however, was getting to the polls, but he did. Nate Harrison is listed in the California Great Register as registering to vote in both 1875 and 1880.

Harrison led a solitary life, except for occasional contact with Native Americans, white settlers and perhaps William Willmore. The native Luiseno Indians who visited Palomar Mountain each fall to gather acorns always stopped off at Nate Harrison’s to water their horses and themselves. Perhaps it was on one of these occasions that Harrison met his wife, or at one of the Luiseno’s fiestas that Nate was frequently invited to.

In Southern California especially, historian Kevin Starr writes, there arose a form of Indian peonage, supported by the law, which was slavery in everything save name only. Native Americans were sentenced for small, alleged offenses to long periods of indentured servitude to local contractors. This indenturing of Indians to whites, sanctioned by the state in April 1850, fostered the rise of a slave trade, with slave raiders being especially interested in kidnapping Indian children. Native people developed a new survival strategy retreating farther into the interior, just as Nate had done. The Native American woman Harrison married had two children, although whether they were his children is unknown. Harrison and his wife shared a common bond—hide away from those that would take them as slaves.

But Harrison did venture out into the white community, working as a freeman; he was sometimes hired to help settlers during harvest season. He was listed as married in the 1880 U.S. Census, working on the Elisha Larson farm as a farm worker, but by the 1900 census (records for 1890 do not exist) he was listed as a widower.

Nate Harrison died October 10, 1920, at the County Hospital in San Diego. For about twenty years when people asked how old he was he would reply seventy-six years old next New Year’s. The birth date listed on his 1920 death certificate is January 1, 1823, probably