Happy New Year, Event Invitations and Reflections || January 2025

WISHING YOU

EMPOWERMENT AND JOY

IN 2025!!!

 

At the 2024 A Great Day in the Stoke event, an African American-owned surfing competition, pictured above are several Black surfing community pioneering members (Tony Corley [seated], Rick Blocker, Will Lamar, Donald Miller, the Rachals, and Ryan Harris) and others with me, Historian Alison Rose Jefferson (on the left, pink jacket) and the event founder and producer Nate Fluellen (yellow event t-shirt), September 14, 2024 at Huntington Beach, California. (Photograph by David Mesfin). This was the third year of the event, see an article about it here. How different beach culture and community residential patterns might have been today in Huntington Beach had African Americans been able to maintain the Pacific Beach Club resort they developed in the 1920s, a short distance from where this event took place. Learn more about this Black resort venture history in my book Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.

Other moving moments and groundbreaking accomplishments filled 2024 in my efforts to document and share hidden, overlooked, and forgotten stories of the African American experience in exhibitions, films, articles, opinion pieces, conference presentations, and various public programs which you can learn about here if you missed them.

In 2025 we could use some joy and a bit of good news after beginning the year with the devastating wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County displacing and upending so many lives. Our deepest empathy goes out to all those who have suffered direct losses of their homes, possessions, livelihoods,  neighborhoods, and communities as they and we are grieving, healing, and recovering from the fire storms across the state. The loss of these tangible and intangible things is especially emotional because they are part of one’s sense of well-being and identity, and are tools of memory-making and placemaking. We share your pain and together we as a civic community offer compassion and support to help all through healing from the wildfire trauma and devastation.

As well the successes of our ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are fraught with new challenges in 2025 under the new presidential administration. Quoting The African American Policy Forum’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day statement (January 20), “We must remain vigilant in defending equity, inclusion, and a vision of an America that works for everyone… [Among other things, this] means continuing to call out censorship in our schools targeting people of color, our histories, and our literature.” Always remember Black history is American history.

Join me 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 spaces. Check my website for more overlooked stories that provide knowledge and inspiration. You are invited to share this news post with your colleagues, friends, and family.

Activities and Events Celebrating the Black American Experience

New African American Migrations History Series Premieres on PBS

“Great Migrations: A People on the Move” is a new four-hour history docuseries series premiering Tuesday, January 28, 2025 from Henry Louis Gates Jr. on PBS. The series tells the story of African American movement over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and how it reshaped American culture.

I, Historian Alison Rose Jefferson, am honored to be a part of this programming sharing knowledge on Black migration to the American West and Los Angeles (Episode 2, Feb. 4)!

Black Beach Culture Film Screening and Panel, Santa Monica Public Library Black History Month Program

Join a screening of “Wade in the Water: A Journey into Black Surfing and Aquatic Culture” directed by David Mesfin at the Santa Monica Main Public Library branch on Saturday, February 1, 2025.

A panel discussion following the film will include me, Historian Alison Rose Jefferson (featured in the film) and others who have experiences with historical and contemporary beach culture legacies.

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Campo de Cahuenga – Studio City, Celebrates Black History Month with a Talk on Afro-Angeleno Histories

On Saturday, February 22, 2025, visit Campo de Cahuenga (historic site and park) and take in an illustrated presentation with Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson about African Americans, the Great Migration, and the relaxation spaces at Southern California beaches and inland places at Santa Monica Beach and Val Verde they created during Jim Crow era, 1900s to 1960s.

During the reception to follow the presentation, on sale will be her award-winning book Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era which illuminates many of the stories she will discuss. Get more information and RSVP for the event here.

Check Out the “World Without End: The George Washington Carver Project” Exhibition at CAAM LA

Hurry over to see the illuminating and engaging exhibition, “World Without End: The George Washington Carver Project” before it closes on March 2, 2025, at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles. Many people are aware of Carver’s work at Alabama’s Tuskegee University with cultivating peanuts and various uses for them. Few are aware of his influential work as an early proponent of sustainable agriculture, and as a trained and practicing artist who did weavings and paintings alongside his scientific activities.

This exhibition features Carver’s artwork, laboratory equipment, notebooks, previously unpublished materials, and more, along with work by modern-day artists and thinkers who are engaging with Carver’s ideas and interests in art and science. There is an exhibition catalogue also.

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George Washington Carver with painting, 1892. Photograph, courtesy Tuskegee University from the CAAM LA exhibition

Check Out the New LA Made Podcast Featuring Overlooked Stories about Early African American Aerospace Engineers
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The stories of Black aerospace engineers who have been left out of the history books for their contributions to the Apollo spaceship mission are explored by Joanne Higgins in a new podcast series called “LA Made: The Other Moonshot” produced by LAist Studios. Philip S. Hart and I (Alison Rose Jefferson) also describe the contributions of these Black engineers and other people of color in the essay “Long Beach Airport and Southern California: A Brief New Aviation and Aeronautics History, 1900s – 1980s” (scroll down to the History Report section) as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Long Beach Airport and Southern California’s launch of the aviation and aerospace industries. Commissioned by the Long Beach Airport and the Historical Society of Long Beach, the essay has many great photographs and much enlightening information on people of color who contributed to the growth of the flight industries.

Join in the Venice Heritage Museum Black History Month Celebration

Lastly, before you go…

Support – Compassion – Hope – Resilience – Action – Rebirth

Colleague Philip S. Hart’s book African Americans and the Future of New Orleans: Rebirth, Renewal and Rebuilding, An American Dilemma (Amber Books), recommends strategies for building New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devasted the city.

His book presents an applicable template for Los Angeles County in the tasks of recovery and rebuilding Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena, and Pasadena now that the wildfires have subsided.

Also here are links to wildfire recovery resources offered by Los Angeles County and the State of California.

The Surprising History of the “Amazing Grace” Hymn

Did you know one of America’s most well-known and recorded music pieces, “Amazing Grace” was written in 1772 by a slave trader who became an abolitionist and a minister? John Newton composed the hymn to amplify a sermon he was preparing and it was first heard on New Year’s Day in 1773. The song had a number of different tunes associated with it until in 1835 it go the one we associated with it today. Steve Turner wrote a book Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song (Ecco) that tells Newton’s story and that of the evolution of the song. Listen to a National Public Radio (NPR) story about the song here.

You are invited to share this news post with your colleagues, friends and family.

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