Councilmember Curren D. Price Jr. celebrates African American Heritage Month and presents a plaque to Alison Rose Jefferson for her work in preserving the history of Central Avenue and Los Angeles. Los Angeles City Council Meeting in Los Angeles City Hall, John Ferraro Council Chamber. L-R: Curren D. Price Jr. and Alison Rose Jefferson, February 14, 2025.
Season’s Greetings 2025!
What a year!
Happy New Year 2026!
Join me, Alison Rose Jefferson and others, in our unwavering determination to explore and share the African American past to gain inspiration to learn more so we can shape the present and future. The activities I highlight below bring stories to light that are impactful in the conversations that create more equitable societal space and continue to broaden the cultural memory about the African American experience in American historical memory and popular culture. Check my website for more overlooked stories that provide knowledge and inspiration. Wishing you empowerment and joy in the coming new year! You are invited to share this news post with your colleagues, friends, and family.
African American Heritage Commemorations: People, Places and Events of the Los Angeles and California Environs
It was intellectually brain warming that these varied groups mentioned below included me in their programs and wanted to learn more about Black California and American heritage. As Ereshnee Naidu of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and others have observed memory is an act of resistance which leads to shaping historical narratives, upholding the truth, seeking justice, and ensuring accountability for democratic societies to flourish. I join Naidu in affirming, “we must all stand together to defend against the assault on our shared past.”
I was honored to join Los Angeles City District 9 Councilmember Curren D. Price, Jr. in a program recognizing the African American experience and how it has helped to shape the city at an African American Heritage Month program on February 14, 2025. I was humbled by Councilmember Price’s recognizing me with a Certificate of Appreciation for my contributions in preserving the histories of Los Angeles (photograph above). See highlights of the day’s event from Channel 35 CityView here and Los Angeles Sentinel media coverage here. View my L.A. City Council Chambers presentation on the Great Black Migration and its shaping of Los Angeles here.
Historian Alison Rose Jefferson during her keynote address at “California Dreaming…” conference Naples, Italy, June 2025. Photography courtesy of Vincenzo Bavero.
Belmar History + Art permanent outdoor installation components features the Historic Belmar Park across from the high school at Fourth and Pico in Santa Monica, California.
I was thrilled to be a presenter at international conferences alongside several esteemed colleagues over the last few months, where I shared California’s overlooked histories of the African American beach culture and other experiences in the Jim Crow era (1900–1965), and these stories implications for our lives today and in the future.
This past summer in June I was a keynote speaker in Naples, Italy at the “California Dreaming: Visions, Spaces, and Shadows from the Golden State” conference sponsored by the University of Napoli L’Orientale.
In Los Angeles in October, for the 2025 Urban History Association’s biennial conference, “Metropolitan Majorities,” I was a Program Committee member, a presenter on several panels and a tour leader of Santa Monica’s African American beach culture and other hidden histories sites.
The tour featured stops at the Belmar History + Art outdoor installation and online project, along with other hidden histories sites. Learn more about this work from my book Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era and at my website.
Actor and Writer Roger Guenveur Smith and Historian Alison Rose Jefferson in conversation at Outside In Theatre, October 2025.
UCLA Black Beach Day “Teach In” flyer, May 2025. The event was held at Bruce’s Beach, in Manhattan Beach.
Culture Club South Bay display at Paddle for Peace Juneteenth 2025 event in San Diego, California, June 2025. Photography courtesy of Allison Hales.
Storytellers in the house! I was delighted to be part of the TalkBack series, post-performance conversation at Roger Guenveur Smith’s IN HONOR OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT play at Outside In Theatre. We talked about how his friendship with Basquiat in their Los Angeles Venice District experience found places in Smith’s work for the world we live in today and the future. I also participated in a “Wade in the Water: A Journey into Black Surfing and Aquatic Culture” documentary film (by David Mesfin) screening and TalkBack program at the Santa Monica Main Library and other presentations around Los Angeles County.
I shared knowledge at corporate organizations’ programs for their employees that celebrated and recognized Black heritage in Los Angeles, did tours of African American beach culture experience in Santa Monica during the Jim Crow era which included stops at Belmar History + Art and the Bay Street Beach Historic District (sometimes controversial called the Inkwell) for the UCLA Black Master of Business Administration (MBA) Association and with Getty Conservation Institute International Course on Conservation participants. I moderated a panel featuring Black Venice district residents speaking about their lived experiences from the middle to current decades for a Venice Heritage Museum event.
I participated in a “Teach-In” and shoreline enjoyment with students and faculty from UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center and with the Culture Club South Bay youth camps at Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach where we discussed the long history of the site –– a place where Black trailblazers for a time forged community and joy as they attempted to create California coastal accessibility for all, before they were run out of town in 1924 due to White supremacists and racial injustice actions.
More knowledge was shared and fun was made with youngsters at the annual Nick Gabaldon Day event at Santa Monica Beach where we recognized those who enjoyed and contested attempts to hinder Black people’s enjoyment at the Bay Street Beach (sometimes called the Inkwell) their California Dream during the Jim Crow era. Gabaldon was the first documented African American surfer in the Santa Monica Bay. In contemporary times he has become a symbol of African American and People of Color beach culture participation and resistance to anti-Black restrictures to beach access. The L.A. Sentinel newspaper showcased the event.
Nick Gabaldon Day participant, June 2025. This event has taken place for more than ten years. Photograph courtesy of Fran Lyness and the Santa Monica Conservancy.
AF AMs and the NPS, 1872–1965 Study Project with ASALH
ARJ and Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Education Series
I was thrilled to be asked to do a presentation, “Black Land Ownership and the American Dream in the Jim Crow Era” for “Inside the Vault” History Resources education series produced by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. View my presentation here. The Institute is the leading nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to K–12 history education while also serving the general public. Its mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources.
Family of Ebony Beach Club Founder Silas White and the City of Santa Monica Settle on Restitution Amends
So happy to see that my research on the African American experience in Southern California is helping people to achieve some restitution and recognition of our histories. Ebony Beach Club was founded by Santa Monica resident Silas White in the mid-1950s. It was taken via eminent domain proceedings for a parking lot by racist city actors. This story is featured in my essay “Reconstruction and Reclamation: The Erased African American Experience in Santa Monica’s History” which I (Alison Rose Jefferson) wrote for the multiple media Belmar History + Art project. You can learn more about the Black beach culture experience during the Jim Crow era in Santa Monica in this essay and my book Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era (University of Nebraska Press). You can also take a walk to see the Ebony Beach Club and other stories represented in the BH+A project’s outdoor installation component at Fourth and Pico in the Historic Belmar Park across the street from Santa Monica High School. Learn more about the Silas White, Ebony Beach Club and all the other histories presented in the BH+A project here.
Lastly, before you go…
Go view the “Monuments” exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and The Brick, Los Angeles, California, October 23, 2025 – May 3, 2026. Everyone should see this exhibition co-organized and co-presented by MOCA and The Brick shown at each of their locations. The groundbreaking exhibition brings together ten decommissioned monuments, many of them Confederate, with newly commissioned and existing works of nineteen contemporary artists to reflect on America’s histories. The exhibition considers the ways public monuments have shaped national identity, historical memory, and current events.
One more thing…
Need a speaker for Black History Month, Women’s History Month or other activities? Is your organization looking for an expert speaker to talk on American history or the African American experience who can make it relevant in the contemporary context –– for keynote speeches, open and private lectures, seminars or workshops on college campuses and public events? Please contact me to discuss and begin the invitation process for booking me as a speaker.
Historian Alison Rose Jefferson at California African American Museum, 2024. Photography courtesy of Karis McPherson
You are invited to share this newsblast with your colleagues, friends and family.
