Webinar recording: Making Visible Overlooked Stories of African Americans in California Dreams with Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson
Based on a chapter in Dr. Jefferson’s forthcoming book with the working title Leisure’s Race, Power and Place in Los Angeles and California Dreams in the Jim Crow Era to be published by the University of Nebraska Press, in this presentation she will briefly discuss the history and public memory of the African American experience at a Santa Monica, California beach site that has some times been called “the Inkwell” and the city of Manhattan Beach’s, Bruce’s Beach. Additionally, she will discuss her efforts towards innovative public programming forged in new partnerships with colleagues in ocean stewardship as well as in the history industry, social action and ocean aquatics, to build interpretation projects at these sites that are facilitating pathways to broader and younger audiences by connecting them with overlooked culturally diverse stories of our collective history and national heritage.
Commemorated with landmark monuments and a park renaming, these sites were preferred gathering place in the Los Angeles region for African Americans during the Jim Crow era for varied durations. In their leisure making practices they made history there, before and after, racial restriction attempts on California’s public beaches were abandoned in 1927. These local stories contribute to the national narrative of mass movement that illustrates how the struggle for leisure and public space, alongside political and economic issues, also reshaped the long civil rights movement.
Dr. Jefferson is a historian and heritage conservation consultant whose research explores the intersection of the history of the African American experience in Southern California, historical memory, heritage conservation, and, spatial and social justice.
A recording of the webinar can be found here.
Latest News
- Press Release: Coastal Conservancy Awards over $40 million for coastal access, restoration, and climate resilienceOakland, CA (4/18/2024) – Today, the Board of the State Coastal Conservancy approved grants totaling over $40 million for coastal access, restoration, and climate resilience. Among the grants awarded today are: A grant of up to $6,000,000 to Humboldt County Resource Conservation District to undertake the North Coast Wildfire Resilience Planning and Implementation Grant Program, which […] (Read more on Press Release: Coastal...)
- Sea Otter Recovery Grants RFP Now Open!The California State Coastal Conservancy announces the availability of grants to public agencies, tribes and nonprofit organizations for projects that facilitate the recovery of the southern sea otter along California’s coasts. The California Sea Otter Fund is one of the state’s tax check-off funds that allows taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to the recovery of California’s […] (Read more on Sea Otter Recovery...)
- Coastal Conservancy Public Meeting in Oakland – April 18Meeting Notice Douglas Bosco (Public Member), Chair Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš (Public Member), Vice Chair Joy Sterling (Public Member) Jeremiah Hallisey (Public Member) Wade Crowfoot, Secretary for Natural Resources; Bryan Cash and Jenn Eckerle (Designated) Caryl Hart, Coastal Commission Chair; Madeline Cavalieri (Designated) Joe Stephenshaw, Director, Department of Finance; Michele Perrault (Designated) Senate Representatives Benjamin Allen (District […] (Read more on Coastal Conservancy Public...)