Cultural Heritage Board
Memorandum
Community & Economic Development Department Planning Division 3900 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92522 | Phone: (951) 826-5371 | RiversideCA.gov
DP-2024-01600
CULTURAL HERITAGE BOARD MEETING DATE: JANUARY 15, 2025 AGENDA ITEM NO.: 8
PROPOSED PROJECT
RECOMMENDATIONS
Staff recommends that the Cultural Heritage Board recommend that the City Council:
1. DETERMINE that Planning Case DP-2024-01600 (Historic Designation) for the designation of the Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 as a City Landmark is categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Sections 15061(b)(3) (Common Sense Rule) and 15308 (Actions by Regulatory Agencies for Protection of the Environment), as the proposal will have no significant effect on the environment, identifies the structure as a cultural resource, and preserves the historic character of a cultural resource; and
2. APPROVE Planning Case DP-2024-01600 (Historic Designation), based on the facts of findings, and designate the
Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 as a City Landmark.
Case Numbers DP-2024-01600(Historic Designation)
Request To consider a Historic Designation request to designate Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 as a City Landmark
Applicant
Riverside Housing
Development Corporation on
behalf of Orange Valley
Masonic Lodge #13
Project
Location
2933 Twelfth Street, on the
north side of Twelfth Street
between Howard and Park
Avenues
APN 211203015
Ward 1
Neighborhood Eastside
Historic District Not Applicable
Historic
Designation Not Applicable
Staff Planner
Scott Watson, Historic Preservation Officer
951-826-5507
[email protected]
DP-2024-01600
BACKGROUND
City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context statement (1870-1976) In 2022, the City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context S tatement (HCS) was completed by IS Architecture for the Community & Economic Development Department – Planning Division. The National Park Service grant funded context statement outlines the foundation for identifying historic significance associated with Riverside ’s African American Community. The context uses the National Park Service’s framework for identifying significant sites related to Civil Rights in America, which provides six broad historical phases of development :
• African American Civil Rights in the Nineteenth Century (1870-1900) • Rekindling Civil Rights (1900-1941)
• Birth of Civil Rights (1941-1954)
• Modern Civil Rights (1954-1964)
• Second Revolution (1964-1976)
• Civil Rights Today (1976-Today)
Within these broader phases of development, the HCS identifies four local themes designed to cover a variety of related topics and associated property types, including:
• Local Theme #1: Education – “The Struggle for Desegregation” • Local Theme #2: Employment + Entrepreneurship in Riverside • Local Theme #3: Social Groups, Organizations + Formalized Resistance • Local Theme #4: Public Accommodation + Housing – “The Fight for Access + Equality” As part of the HCS development, nineteen buildings, including Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13, we identified and evaluated for National and California Register eligibility.
California Department of Parks and Recreation Form 523A (DPR Form) were prepared for each of the structures, identifying the structure’s historic significance related to the HCS themes.
The Stokes Family
The following excerpts from the HCS provides background information on the Stokes Family:
In 1900, out of the nearly 8,000 residents in the C ity of Riverside, only a few hundred were African American. Although Riverside offered better economic opportunities and improved social conditions than places in the South, discrimination by employers did limit occupation and wealth building opportunities throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. The earliest African American “pioneers” in Riverside would become role models for the following African American community, owning land, openin g businesses, and building a tight -knit community. While there is little information on the majority of the nineteenth century African Americans in the city of Riverside, a few pioneers of the era are remembered by historians and local citizens. These include Nicey Tibbets, Robert Stokes, and the Decatur, Dumas, Streeter, Carter, and Williams families.
As the first town -lot addition was being developed in Riverside, these pioneering African American settlers were also establishing themselves. Robert Stokes, who arrived with a Caucasian family from Georgia, and Nicey Tibbets, who accompanied Eliza Tibbets, both came to Riverside in the 1870s … the Stokes family raised hogs prior to Robert Stokes becoming the first black policeman in 1889.
…
As with the pioneer era, there were still a small number of entrepreneurs within the African American community, focused in the Eastside neighborhood. As African American and Latino entrepreneurs opened up stores, a small concentration of businesses along Park Avenue and University Avenue emerged in the 1930s.
DP-2024-01600
One such entrepreneur was David Stokes. David, Robert Stokes’ nephew, came to Riverside after hearing from his uncle that Riverside offered better opportunities than he could find in the South. In 1905, he and associates built the Colored American Mercantile Hall at 2931 12th Street in Riverside. According to The Colored Citizen newspaper, “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” It served as a multipurpose building for the Eastside African - and Mexican American commu nities. It housed businesses and was home to the Black fraternal orders. David was treasurer of the Second Baptist Church and a member of the Orange Valley Lodge No. 13 Masons. David’s son, Oscar Stokes helped his father, David Stokes, plant the first Washington navel orange trees in 1917, on the grounds of University of California, Riverside Citrus Experiment Station.
In an oral history transcript, he is recorded as saying, “the ground was so hard we had to blast holes in it.”
Mercantile Hall
As discussed in the 2022 DPR form:
The two-story wood-frame Mercantile Hall was built by David Stokes along with other black investors and opened in 1905. David Stokes was treasurer of the Second Baptist Church and a member of the Orange Valley Masons Lodge No. 13. David Stokes and Aaron Wiley ran the Stokes and Wiley Grocery Store on the first floor along with an ice cream/sweet shop run by Will Goodwin, and the second floor was used for a multi- purpose gathering space. According to The Colored Citizen newspaper, “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” Places such as Mercantile Hall promoted both the establishment and patronage of Riverside’s African American-owned businesses.
By the 1950s its primary use was the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge. It served as a multipurpose building for the Eastside African - and Mexican American communities. It housed businesses and was home to African American fraternal orders. In 1931, the African American community met at Mercantile Hall to raise funds for the defense of the Scottsboro boys. It was the site of meetings, strike planning, and arrests. It also became a “Freedom School” along with churches and homes in 1965 during the boycott of de facto segregation in Eastside public schools (Lowell, Irving, and Casa Blanca) after the burning of Lowell School.
ANALYSIS
The applicant is requesting approval of a Historic Designation to designate the Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 as a Historic Landmark.
The applicant has provided an architectural description, statement of significance, photographs documenting the architecture and building setting, and copies of primary and secondary sources as summarized below.
Architectural Description
The following architectural description was included in the 2022 DPR form:
This two-story, wood-frame structure was built on a square plan with a flat roof. Circa 1912, the building had a false front parapet, clad in wood siding with glass storefronts and transoms on the first floor and two rectangular windows on the second floor. By the 1950s, the false front parapet had been removed and wide horizontal coping had been added between the first and second floor. The coping and the first floor were clad in stucco with a brick veneer wainscot below multi-lite windows, and the second floor was clad in vertical siding and three porthole windows had been added by that time. In 1993 the building was entirely re-stuccoed, the four columns and the brick wainscot were clad in stone veneer,
DP-2024-01600
and the first -floor windows were removed, which achieved the building's current Commercial Vernacular style. The second story front façade includes a solid door to access the coping roof and three porthole windows.
A full-width/full-height mural on the front elevation features the profiles of Cesar Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the second floor. The masonic symbol is painted on the center of the front elevation at the first floor. “Orange Valley Lodge #13 is painted on the front of the coping, and an internally -lit cabinet sign projects from the building and rests on the top of the coping at the east end. There are no windows on the first floor; three solid doors provide access to the building, each raised above the public sidewalk by a set of two or three concrete steps. The west side elevation features a full-width/full-height mural painted by Juan Navarro, Maryam Crogman and Willis Salomon that celebrates Eastside Riverside history and personages and includes a representation of the Stokes & Wiley store.
The upper level of this elevation features a double hung window near the rear corner, and two louvred vents below the roofline that has one step along its edge. The east side elevation exhibits a long, horizontal rectangular frame along the upper level that contains one double-hung window near the rear corner. The coping with the stone veneer cladding below it wraps the front corner of this elevation by about six feet. The roofline has the same step as the west elevation.
Statement of Significance
Mercantile Hall is historically significant as a place of continuous work in economic nationalism, labor issues, and civil planning over decades before, through, and after the Civil Rights Movement.
The social hall is also historically significant for it s association with David Stokes and Aaron Wiley , prominent members of the Riverside's African American community. Therefore, the building is eligible for City Landmark designation under criterions 1 and 2.
Historic Integrity
The historic designation application prepared by Jen Mermilliod of JMRC, a Cultural Resources Consultant meeting the Secretary of the Interior Professional Standard, addresses the historic integrity of the building. JRMC finds that the social hall building’s strong association with important events and people in the history of the African American community of Riverside allows for a lower threshold is properly applied to historic integrity. As stated by JMRC in the application, “Mercantile Hall retains integrity in those aspects most closely relate to its significance and an overall sufficiently high degree of integrity to reflect the full breadth of its time and place in the Eastside community, from 1905 to 1976, qualifying as a City of Riverside Landmark under Criterion 1:
“Exemplifies or reflects special elements of the City's cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history” and under Criterion 2: “Is identified with persons or events significant in local, state or national history.”
TITLE 20 EVALUATION
Under Title 20 (Cultural Resources), “Landmark” means: “Any improvement or natural feature that is an exceptional example of a historical, archaeological, cultural, architectural, community, aesthetic or artistic heritage of the City, that retains a high d egree of integrity .” Based on the applicable criteria from Chapter 20.50 of Title 20, Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 qualifies for Landmark Designation as follows:
FINDING: Criterion 1: Exemplifies or reflects special elements of the City's cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history;
DP-2024-01600
FACTS: Mercantile Hall was established as an African American owned business in 1905 and served the African American and Latino Communities in Riverside’s Eastside Neighborhood. As stated in the Colored Citizen newspaper, “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” The structure provided a gathering place for the community and supported Black fraternal orders, social meetings and gatherings, community engagement and education, and local civil activism significant in th e broader Civil Rights movement. Further, in 1965 the building served as a Freedom School during the boycott of de facto segregation in Eastside public schools.
The building continues to be home of the Orange Valley Mason Lodge #13, which was established in 1905. Restricted from Caucasian fraternal organizations and social clubs prior to World War II, the African American community established their own. By the 1950s, the building was owned by the Mason Lodge, who still retains ownership to date. T hus, the residence is eligible for Landmark designation under Criterion 1.
FINDING: Criterion 2: Is identified with persons or events significant in local, state or national history;
FACTS: The social hall was original constructed and operated by David Stokes, a member of an early African American family in Riverside. Joining his uncle Robert, David Stokes came to Riverside for better opportunities than were available in the South at the time. Stokes open Mercantile Hall in 1905 and operated the African American owned and operated Stokes & Wiley Grocery Store with Aaron Wiley.
Stokes was an active and prominent member of the African American of the community, serving as the t reasurer of the Second Baptist Church and was member of the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13. Through his entrepreneurship and civic engagement , Stokes worked for the betterment of Riverside’s early African American Community; therefore, the residence is eligible for Landmark designation under Criterion 2.
STRATEGIC PLAN
This item contributes to the Envision Riverside 2025 City Council Strategic Priority 2 – Community Well Being (Goal 2.3 – Strengthen neighborhood identities and improve community health and the physical environment through amenities and programs that foste r an increased sense of community and enhanced feelings of pride and belonging citywide).
This item aligns with the following Cross-Cutting Threads:
1. Community Trust: This Landmark Designation request is being reviewed during a Public Hearing before the Cultural Heritage Board and the public is able to provide comments.
2. E quity : Historic property information associated with this designation will be added to the City’s Historic Resources Inventory, which will be available to the public. This will allow information about the historic property to be available to all residents.
3. F iscal Responsibility : No City General Funds are being allocated as part of this Landmark Designation.
4. I nnovation: This Landmark Designation request made use of current research practices and looks at historic integrity based on best practices approaches.
5. S ustainability and Resiliency : This Landmark Designation will help to preserve the City’s collective history for future generations.
DP-2024-01600
PUBLIC NOTICE AND COMMENTS
A public hearing notice was mailed to property owners within 300 feet of the site. As of the writing of this report, no responses have been received by Staff regarding this proposal.
APPEAL INFORMATION
Actions by the Cultural Heritage Board , including any environmental finding, may be appealed to the City Council within ten calendar days after the decision. Appeal filing and processing information may be obtained from the Planning Division by calling 951 -826-5800.
EXHIBITS LIST
1. Aerial/Location Map
2. Historic Designation Application
3. Letter of Consent – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
4. Current & Historic Photos
5. City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement (1870- 1976)
Prepared by: Scott Watson, Historic Preservation Officer Approved by: Maribeth Tinio, City Planner
N
DP-2024-01600 (HD)
Exhibit 1 - Aerial/Location Map
PARK AVE
TWELFTH ST
ALLEY
Project Site
0 40 80
Feet
Parcels
Project Site
Key
Cultural Resources Nomination Application
City Landmark Structure of Merit
Please check the Designation for which you are applying
IDENTIFICATION
1. Common name:
2. Historic Name:
3. Street address:
City State Zip
4. Assessor Parcel number:
5. Present Legal Owner:
City State Zip
6. Present Use:
7. Original Use:
Date form prepared:
Preparer:
Sponsoring Organization (if any):
Address:
City, State and Zip:
Phone:
X
Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
Mercantile Hall, Stokes & Wiley Grocery Store
2931 12th Street
Riverside CA 92507
November 27, 2024
Jennifer Mermilliod, JMRC
(for: Riverside Housing Development Corporation)
4076 Brockton Avenue, Suite 201
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 233-6897
Commercial/Assembly
Fraternal Hall
211-203-015
(Other addresses: 2933 & 2935 12th Street)
Lodge #13 F&AM TRS
Riverside CA 92507
DESCRIPTION
8. Legal property description:
Include approximate property size (in feet): Street Frontage Depth
9. Architectural Style:
10. Construction Date: Estimated Factual
Source of Information: Assessor's Records Building Permit Sanborn Map Publications Oral Interviews
11. Architect's Name: Builder's Name:
12. Condition: Excellent Good Fair Deteriorated
No longer in existence
13. Alterations:
14. Surroundings:
Open Land Scattered Buildings Densely Built-Up
15. Use type:
Residential Industrial Commercial Civic
Other
16. Is the structure on its original site?
Yes No Unknown
If moved, approximate year
17. Related features and/or out-buildings:
LOT 15, BLK 4 MB 006/014 SB SANTA FE TR
Commercial Vernacular
1905
X
unknown David Samuel Stokes
X
X X
(across block) (same block) (vicinity)
X
X (Fraternal)
X
X
None
50 150
Facade remodel (1951), building stuccoed (1951, 1993), stone veneer (1993)
SIGNIFICANCE
18. Historical Attributes:
Unknown Government Building Folk Art
Single Family Educational Building Street Furniture
Multiple Family Religious Building Landscape Architecture Ancillary Building Railroad Depot Trees/Vegetation
Hotel/Motel Train Urban Open Space
Bridge Rural Open Space Canal/Aqueduct
Farm/Ranch Industrial Building Dam
Military Property Public Utility Building Lake/River/Reservoir CCC/WPA Structure Theater Ethnic Minority Prop.
Engineering Structure Highway/Trail Civic Auditorium
Amusement Park Woman's Property Monument/Mural/Gravestone Cemetery Hospital Stadium
Mine Community Center/Social Hall
Commercial Building, 1-3 stories Commercial Building, over 3 stories Other:
19. Architectural Description
20. Statement of Significance
21. Bibliography
22. Photographs
23. Letter from property owner (if other than applicant) X
X
IS Architecture 2022, attached
IS Architecture 2022, attached
IS Architecture 2022, attached
Historic Photos (attached):
1. 1912 Mercantile Hall
2. 1933 Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 28th Anniversary Dinner
3. ca. 1950s Orange Valley Lodge #13 Credit: African American Museum & Library at Oakland
4. ca. 1950s Masons in Front of Orange Valley Lodge #13 Credit: AAM&L at Oakland
5. ca. 1950s (2) Masons in Front of Orange Valley Lodge #13 Credit AAM&L at Oakland
6. ca. 1950s Order of Eastern Star in Front of Orange Valley Lodge #13 Credit AAM&L at Oakland
7. 2013 Group in Front of Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
JM Research and Consulting
Jennifer Mermilliod, M.A., Principal
Architectural Historian|Historian| Preservation Planner
MEMORANDUM
DATE: November 27, 2024
TO: Scott Watson, Historic Preservation Officer
City of Riverside
FROM: Jen Mermilliod, JMRC
SUBJECT: Mercantile Hall/Orange Valley Masonic Lodge No. 13
JM Research & Consulting (JMRC) is pleased to submit a Cultural Resources Nomimation Application for Riverside City Landmark for the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13, historically known as Mercantile Hall and Stokes & Wiley Grocery Store.
With a period of significance spanning 71 years, from 1905 to 1976, the building embodies a long history of engagement with the Eastside African- and Mexican-American communities. Constructed in 1905 by David Stokes, treasurer of the Second Baptist Church and member of the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge No. 13, the Colored American Mercantile Hall first housed the Stokes and Wiley Grocery Store and Will Goodman ice cream and sweet shop on the first floor and a meeting room on the second floor. Promoting African American entrepreneurship and patronage, Mercantile Hall also supported Black fraternal orders, social meetings and gatherings, community engagement and education, and local civil activism significant in the broader civil rights context, from raising funds for the defense of the Scottsboro boys in 1931 to serving as a Freedom School in the 1965 during the boycott of de facto segregation in Eastside public schools (Lowell, Irving, and Casa Blanca) after the burning of Lowell School.
Long known to be an important place on the Eastside and within Riverside’s African American community, a reconnaissance pedestrian survey of the property was completed in 2022 by Teri Delcamp as part of the development of the City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement (1870-1976) by IS Architecture. The study found Mercantile Hall significant under National Register and California Register Criterion A/1 for “serving as a place of continuous work in economic nationalism, labor issues, and civil planning over decades before, through, and after the Civil Rights Movement,” and under Criterion B/2 “for its association with David Stokes and Aaron Wiley who were significant in Riverside's African- American history under themes of Education, Employment & Entrepreneurship, and Social Groups, Organizations & Formalized Resistance.” Although not clearly stated, the assignment by the 2022 survey of a California Historical Resource (CHR) Status Code of 5S3 allows for eligibility at the local level only, which is likely due to reduced integrity from alterations over time that have masked original architectural details particularly on the façade.
JMRC unreservedly supports the finding of Delcamp 2022. As eligibility is considered on the local level, and is based not on architecture, but on the strong association of the building with important events and people in our history, a lower threshold is properly applied to assess integrity. The building remains in its original location and within the historic setting of its time, a neighborhood of modest single-family historic dwellings, across the street from a community park and near the railroad and citrus commerical and industrial corridor. This contriutes to
JM Research and Consulting
Jennifer Mermilliod, M.A., Principal
Architectural Historian|Historian| Preservation Planner
retention of feeling and association as does the fact that the buiding is still under the ownership and active use by the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge No. 13 for fraternal meetings and events as well as a social and community gathering space. Integrity of design, craftsmanship, and materials has been reduced by modifications over the course of the 20th century, which include the infill of the façade storefront and windows, balcony overhang, and application of stucco over wood siding; however, the essential mass and form remains intact. Further, historic photos show that the first façade improvement that infilled the storefront and added the second floor balcony and port hole windows was completed between 1933 and the 1950s, placing the most critical modifications well within the historic period and significant in their own right (see Landmark Nomination Application: historic photos). Thus, Mercantile Hall retains integrity in those aspects most closely relate to its significance and an overall sufficiently high degree of integrity to reflect the full breadth of its time and place in the Eastside community, from 1905 to 1976, qualifying as a City of Riverside Landmark under Criterion 1: “Exemplifies or reflects special elements of the City's cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history” and under Criterion 2: “Is identified with persons or events significant in local, state or national history.”
This modest building is deserving of rightful historic recognition among its Riverside peers such as the Community Settlement House and the Harada House. The local Colored Citizen newspaper succinctly stated the importance of the endeavor in its time: “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” Designating the Mercantile Hall – Orange Valley Masonic Lodge No. 13 as a City Landmark contextualizes the full realizaion of the promise of that endeavor, 120 years later, for the African-American community and all of Riverside.
Best Regards,
Jennifer Mermilliod, Principal, JMRC
Statement of Qualifications
Jennifer Mermilliod, M.A., Principal Architectural Historian exceeds the Secretary of the Interior's Professional Qualifications Standards as a Historian and Architectural Historian based on her Master of Arts degree in History with a Focus in Historic Preservation from the University of California, Riverside, and 25 years of professional work in southern California. She has extensive experience in the production and management of a variety of projects, including National Register and California Register nominations, local designations, large-scale surveys, and Section 106 and CEQA reviews. She has engaged in policy and preservation planning, project management, and oversight of restoration work, served as a consultant and expert witness, developed training and educational programs, and presented professionally on historic preservation and related topics. Ms. Mermilliod is fluent in regulatory compliance and proficient at applying eligibility criteria, analyzing project impacts, and developing successful design solutions, mitigation, and specifications. With project size ranging from a single property to thousands of parcels, Ms. Mermilliod works extensively throughout the region and is thoroughly familiar with the history and development of southern California.
State of California The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
PRIMARY RECORD Trinomial
NRHP Status Code 5S3
Other Listings
Review Code Reviewer Date
DPR 523A (1/95) *Required information
P1. Other Identifier: Stokes & Wiley Grocery Store
*P2. Location: ☐ Not for Publication ☒ Unrestricted *a. County: Riverside *b. USGS 7.5' Quad: Riverside East, CA Date: 1984
c. Address: 2931 12th Street City: Riverside Zip: 92507 d. UTM: 33.984932463242899 mE/ -117.37321007723099 mN (G.P.S.) e. Other Locational Data :
*P3a. Description:
*P3b. Resource Attributes: HP13. Community Center/Social Hall *P4. Resources Present: ☒Building ☐Structure ☐Object ☐Site ☐District ☐Element of District ☐Other (Isolates, etc.) P5b. Description of Photo:
Front Elevation looking NE
IS Architecture, 2022.
*P6. Date Constructed/Age:
☒Historic ☐Prehistoric ☐Both
1905 Riverside Enterprise
*P7. Owner and Address:
--------------
--------------
--------------
*P8. Recorded by:
Teri Delcamp, MA
IS Architecture
5645 La Jolla Boulevard
La Jolla, California 92037
*P9. Date Recorded:
August 2022
*P10. Survey Type: Reconnaisance/pedestrian
*P11. Report Citation: City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement (1870-1976) *Attachments: ☐NONE ☐Location Map ☐Sketch Map ☒Continuation Sheet ☒Building, Structure, and Object Record ☐Archaeological Record ☐District Record ☐Linear Feature Record ☐Milling Station Record ☐Rock Art Record ☐Artifact Record ☐Photograph Record ☐Other (List):
P5a. Photo or Drawing
2933 & 2935 12th St; circa 1908: 263-269 12th Street
This two-story, wood-frame structure was built on a square plan with a flat roof. Circa 1912, the building had a false front parapet, clad in wood siding with glass storefronts and transoms on the first floor and two rectangular windows on the second floor. By the 1950s, the false front parapet had been removed and wide horizontal coping had been added between the first and second floor. The coping and the first floor were clad in stucco with a brick veneer wainscot below multi -lite windows, and the second floor was clad in vertical siding and thr ee porthole windows had been added by that time. In 1993 the building was entirely re -stuccoed, the four columns and the brick wainscot were clad in stone veneer, and the first-floor windows were removed, which achieved the building's current Commercial Vernacular style. The second story front façade includes a solid door to access the coping roof and three porthole windows. (See Continuation Sheet)
State of California ⎯ The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI#
BUILDING, STRUCTURE, AND OBJECT RECORD
*Resource Name: Mercantile Hall *NRHP Status Code: 5S3
DPR 523 (1/95) *Required information
B1. Historic Name:
B2. Common Name: Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
B3. Original Use: Commercial/Assembly B4. Present Use: Fraternal Lodge *B5. Architectural Style: Commerical Vernacular
*B6. Construction History:
*B7. Moved? ☒No ☐Yes ☐Unknown Date: N/A Original Location: N/A *B8. Related Features: N/A
B9a. Architect: Unk b. Builder: David Samuel Stokes
*B10. Significance Theme: 1,2,3 Area: Eastside
Period of Significance: 1905-1976 Property Type: Fraternal Hall Applicable Criteria: A/1, B/2
B11. Additional Resource Attributes:
*B12. References: Riverside Permits Online.
City of Riverside, Planning Department Address Files.
City of Riverside City Directories
Digital Sanborn Maps.
McAlester, Virginia, and A. Lee McAlester. A Field Guide to American Houses.
New York: Knopf, 2013.
B13. Remarks: None.
*B14. Evaluator: IS Architecture
*Date of Evaluation: August 2022
(Sketch Map with north arrow required.)
(This space reserved for official comments.)
1951, Permit 10692, Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 - Stucco outside, reinforce foundation, remodel front 1993, Permit 93-0468, Masons/David Jenkins - Restucco building, install 4' stone veneer 1993, Permit 93-0708, David Jenkins - Reroof, replace electrical, add door (See Continuation Sheet)
The two-story wood-frame Mercantile Hall was built by David Stokes along with other black investors and opened in 1905. David Stokes was treasurer of the Second Baptist Church and a member of the Orange Valley Masons Lodge No. 13. David Stokes and Aaron Wiley ran the Stokes and Wiley Grocery Store on the first floor along with an ice cream/sweet shop run by Will Goodwin, and the second floor was used for a multi - purpose gathering space.
According to The Colored Citizen newspaper, “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” Places such as Mercantile Hall promoted both the establishment and patronage of Riverside’s African American-owned businesses. By the 1950s i ts primary use was the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge. It served as a multipurpose building for the Eastside African- and Mexican American communities. It housed businesses and was home to African-American fraternal orders. In 1931, the African -American community met at Mercantile Hall to raise funds for the defense of the Scottsboro boys. It was the site of meetings, strike planning, and arrests. (See Continuation Sheet)
DPR 523B (1/95) *Required information
State of California Natural Resources Agency Primary# DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
Trinomial
CONTINUATION SHEET
Property Name: Mercantile Hall
P3a. Description: Continued
A full-width/full-height mural on the front elevation features the profiles of Cesar Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the second floor. The masonic symbol is painted on the center of the front elevation at the first floor. “Orange Valley Lodge #13 is painted on the front of the coping, and an internally-lit cabinet sign projects from the building and rests on the top of the coping at the east end. There are no windows on the first floor; three solid doors provide access to the building, each raised above the public sidewalk by a set of two or three concrete steps. The west side elevation features a full-width/full-height mural painted by Juan Navarro, Maryam Crogman and Willis Salomon that celebrates Eastside Riverside history and personages and includes a representation of the Stokes & Wiley store. The upper level of this elevation features a double hung window near the rear corner, and two louvred vents below the roofline that has one step along its edge. The east side elevation exhibits a long, horizontal rectangular frame along the upper level that contains one double-hung window near the rear corner. The coping with the stone veneer cladding below it wraps the front corner of this elevation by about six feet. The roofline has the same step as the west elevation.
*B6. Construction History: Continued
2002, Permit No. 02-0284, Lodge #13 - Reroof
*B10. Significance: Continued
It also became a “Freedom School” along with churches and homes in 1965 during the boycott of de facto segregation in Eastside public schools (Lowell, Irving, and Casa Blanca) after the burning of Lowell School. Mercantile Hall is significant under criterion A/1 for serving as a place of continuous work in economic nationalism, labor issues, and civil planning over decades before, through, and after the Civil Rights Movement, and under Criterion B/2 for its association with David Stokes and Aaron Wiley who were significant in Riverside's African -American history under themes of Education, Employment & Entrepreneurship, and Social Groups, Organizations & Formalized Resistance. orange valley lodge #13
Free and Accepted Masons, State of California, Inc.
P. O. Box 55218
Riverside, CA 92517
Location: 2931 12th St. Riverside, CA 92507
Scott Watson
Historic Preservation Officer
City of Riverside
3900 Main Street
Riverside, California 92522
Subject: Application for Landmark Status - 2931 12th Street, Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
Dear Mr. Watson:
The leadership of the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13 is aware of, and fully supports, the application prepared by Jennifer Mermilliod for the Riverside Housing Development Corporation (RHDC) to designate our historic home as a City of Riverside Landmark.
We are currently cooperating with the RHDC on this, and potentially other activities on our property.
The Masonic Lodge hopes that the Cultural Heritage Board acts affirmatively on this application to formally recognize an important part of our community’s history.
Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
___________________________ ____________________________ Worshipful Master Lodge Secretary
Exhibit 4 - Current & Historic Photos
Figure 1 – Façade (South Elevation) and West Elevation, view looking northeast
Figure 2 – Façade (South Elevation) and east elevation, view looking northwest
Exhibit 4 - Current & Historic Photos
Figure 3 - Rear (North) Elevation, view looking south
Figure 4 - Mercantile Hall, 1912
Exhibit 4 - Current & Historic Photos
Figure 5 - 28th Anniversary of the Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13, 1933
Figure 6 - Facade of Mercantile Hall, circa 1950s; Credit: African American Museum & Library at Oakland
Exhibit 4 - Current & Historic Photos
Figure 7 - Masonic Lodge members in front Mercantile Hall, circa 1950s; Credit: African American Museum & Library at Oakland
Figure 8 - Masonic Lodge members in front Mercantile Hall, circa 1950s; Credit: African American Museum & Library at Oakland
Exhibit 4 - Current & Historic Photos
Figure 9 - Order of Eastern Star in front Mercantile Hall, circa 1950s; Credit: African American Museum & Library at Oakland
Figure 10 - 2013 Group in Front of Orange Valley Masonic Lodge #13
CITY OF RIVERSIDE
AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT (1870 -1976)
FINAL AUGUST 2022
Picture 1: Mercantile Hall in the early 20th Century.
Photo Courtesy of The Riverside African American Historical Society
Prepared for:
City of Riverside
Community and Economic Development Department
3900 Main Street, 3rd Floor, Riverside, California 92522
Prepared by:
IS Architecture
5645 La Jolla Boulevard
La Jolla, CA 92037
City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Historic Context Statement Aug. 2022
GRANT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DISCLAIMERS
This material was also produced with assistance from the Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. However, the contents, opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior.
Regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination in departmental federally-assisted programs on the basis of race, color, sex, age, disability, or national origin. Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of Federal assistance should write to:
Director, Equal Opportunity Program
U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
P.O. Box 37127
Washington, D.C. 20013-7127
City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Historic Context Statement Aug. 2022
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. i List of Figures ................................................................................................................................... ii Part I: Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Project Scope ...................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................... 1 Study Area ........................................................................................................................... 2 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 8 Part II: How to Use This Document ............................................................................................. 10 What is a Context Statement? .......................................................................................... 10 Overview of Applicable Designation Programs ................................................................ 11 Document Organization .................................................................................................... 17 Part III: Historic Context Statement ............................................................................................ 19 Historical Overview ........................................................................................................... 19 Contexts + Themes ............................................................................................................ 19 African American Civil Rights in the Nineteenth Century ..................................... 22 Local Theme: Employment and Entrepreneurship ................................... 26 Rekindling Civil Rights 1900-1941 ......................................................................... 28 Local Theme: Housing and Public Accommodation ................................. 30 Local Theme: Employment and Entrepreneurship ................................... 33 Local Theme: Social Clubs, Organizations and Formalized Resistance ..... 36 Birth of the Civil Rights Movement 1941-1954 .................................................... 37 Local Theme: Housing and Public Accommodation ................................. 39 Local Theme: Social Clubs, Organizations and Formalized Resistance ..... 41 Local Theme: Education ............................................................................ 43 Local Theme: Employment and Entrepreneurship ................................... 43 Modern Civil Rights Movement 1954-1964 .......................................................... 44 Local Theme: Education ............................................................................ 46 Local Theme: Social Clubs, Organizations and Formalized Resistance ..... 47 Local Theme: Public Accommodation and Housing.................................. 49 City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Historic Context Statement Aug. 2022
ii
The Second Revolution 1964-1976 ....................................................................... 50 Local Theme: Education ............................................................................ 51 Local Theme: Employment and Entrepreneurship ................................... 52 Local Theme: Social Clubs, Organizations and Formalized Resistance ..... 52 Civil Rights Today 1976- Present ........................................................................... 53 Associated Property Types ................................................................................................ 55 Part IV: Preservation Goals and Recommendations ................................................................... 60 Appendix A: Study List ................................................................................................................. 61 Appendix B: Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 62 Appendix C: Civil Rights Timeline ................................................................................................ 65
City of Riverside African American Civil Rights Historic Context Statement Aug. 2022
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Regional location. Google Maps. ..................................................................................... 4 Figure 2: City of Riverside and its constituent neighborhoods. City of Riverside. ......................... 5 Figure 3: Planning Area Boundaries, City of Riverside General Plan 2025. .................................... 6 Figure 4: Riverside Daily Press from March 6th, 1900 discussing a WCTU meeting .................. 254 Figure 5: Riverside Daily Press, March 1914 ............................................................................... 266 Figure 6: Riverside Daily Press, 1912, Advertising the Opening of the Fairmount Pool............... 31 Figure 7: Riverside Independent, 1922, Discussing Segregation at Fairmount Pool .................... 31 Figure 8: Riverside Daily Press, 1932 Advertising the Opening of the Orange Sweet Shop ......... 32 Figure 9: Riverside Daily Press, 1933, Discussing the Role of the Orange Sweet Shop ................ 32 Figure 10: Riverside Daily Press, January 1957, Discussing Fire Captain Ed Strickland ................ 26 Figure 11: Booker T. Washington visits Mission Inn ..................................................................... 26 Figure 12: Booker T. Washington Speaks in Riverside .................................................................. 35 Figure 13: Jackie Robsinon Breaks the Color Barrier in Baseball .................................................. 37 Figure 14: Riverside Daily Press, Eddie Streeter and his Housing Tract ....................................... 38 Figure 15: Subdivision Map for Eddie Streeter's Housing Tract ................................................... 39 Figure 16: Riverside Daily Press, Omar Stratton ........................................................................... 39 Figure 17: School Segregation in Riverside ................................................................................... 40 Figure 18: Riverside Daily Press, Lowell School and Segregation ................................................. 40 Figure 19: Riverside Independent Enterprise, Article on Housing Discrimination ....................... 48
1 PART I: INTRODUCTION
PROJECT SCOPE
The African American Civil Rights Movement Historic Context Statement was prepared by IS Architecture at the request of the City of Riverside Community and Economic Development Department. The study was funded through a grant provided by the National Park Service (NPS).
This historic context statement addresses the significant themes and eligibility criteria associated with the African American Civil Rights Movement in Riverside, California. A framework for identifying and evaluating properties relating to African American and civil rights history in the Riverside community is provided.
This historic context statement:
• Provides the foundation for the historical overview of the establishment the African American community in Riverside and the civil rights movement in the area. • Helps to indicate the likelihood of encountering historic resources within the community and will guide the future identification of such resources. • Addresses built environment themes and excludes the evaluation of themes relevant to only archaeological and intangible cultural resources.
This context statement is not intended to serve as the definitive history of the study area, but rather provides historical background to identify and discuss the thematic contexts.
This context statement was developed without a field survey element and is not a definitive listing of all building types and periods of significance in Riverside; resources that do not fit into the significant building types and periods of significance identified in this study are not necessarily excluded from eligibility consideration for significance not related to the resource’s property type.
PURPOSE
The Civil Rights movement was a national transformation, impacting African American communities in the North and West as well as the South. The Civil Rights movement, which included national goals and leadership, also pursued a distinct local agenda in Riverside, California. In Riverside, the Civil Rights movement was also the campaign of community members to end job discrimination, fight for fair housing, and desegregate schools. An examination of the civil rights movement in Riverside offers opportunities to identify themes of the era, educate the public, and evaluate historic resources.
2 TERMS AND ACRONYMS
Terms:
Anglo(s): Caucasian (white) people.
African American: The use of African American in this context statement refers to anyone of a black racial group. The phrase generally refers to descendants of enslaved black people who are from the United States.
City vs. city: The governmental agency the City of Riverside is referred to as the “City.” The location of Riverside is referred to as the “city.”
City of Riverside vs. Riverside County: The City of Riverside will be referred to herein as either the “City” or as “Riverside.” The full identifier will be used when referring to Riverside County.
De facto segregation: Inherent segregation, such as that found in most neighborhood schools by the nature of the varying economic and social classes of the surrounding neighborhood rather than by deliberately-drawn district boundaries.
De jure segregation: Segregation caused by legislation or policy, such as that caused by deliberately drawing district boundaries to include or exclude certain groups of students.
Public Accommodation: generally defined as facilities, both public and private, used by the public. Places of public accommodation include a wide range of entities, such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, doctors' offices, pharmacies, retail stores, museums, libraries, amusement parks, private schools, and day care centers.
White: Caucasian or Anglo people.
Acronyms:
BPP: Black Panther Party
CRHR: California Register of Historic Resources
FEPC: Fair Employment Practices Commission
FHCRC: Fair Housing Council of Riverside County
MPL: Multiple Property Listing
3 NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NCDH: National Committee against Discrimination in Housing
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
RAAHS: Riverside African American Historical Society
STUDY AREA
The City of Riverside (Figure 1), is located in Riverside County, California, and is part of the Inland Empire metropolitan area, as well as the region of Greater Los Angeles. The city of Riverside is located approximately 55 miles east of Los Angeles and 54 miles west of Palm Springs. Surrounding development includes the cities of San Bernardino to the north, Moreno Valley to the east, Corona to the southwest, and Jurupa Valley to the northwest. The March Air Reserve Base is located to the southwest of the city of Riverside.
The boundaries for the purposes of this context statement follow the corporate boundaries of the City as identified in the City of Riverside’s General Plan 2025. (Figure 2) The City is composed of 25 neighborhoods (Figure 3). This context references the specific neighborhoods of Casa Blanca, Downtown, Eastside, and Victoria.
4 Figure 1: Regional location. Google Maps.
5 Figure 2: City of Riverside and its constituent neighborhoods. City of Riverside.
6 Figure 3: Planning Area Boundaries, City of Riverside General Plan 2025.
7 EXISTING LITERATURE, ARCHIVES, AND OUTREACH
This historic context was based off the foundation set by the National Parks Service’s overview of civil rights history, Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites (2002, rev. 2008). The following list of sources, collections, and outreach outline the existing literature, archives, and histories that were consulted for this context. A bibliography is included at the end of the document.
• Primary sources
o Oral Histories Conducted by IS Architecture
o Oral History Conducted by Riverside African American Historical Society (RAAHS) o Archival Newspapers
Riverside Daily Press
Riverside Independent Enterprise
• Secondary sources
o No Easy Way, Arthur L. Littleworth
o Our Families, Our Stories, Riverside Municipal Museum o Journal of the Riverside Historical Society
The African American Presence in Riverside, 2004
o Specialized studies
Cultural Resources Survey Report: Casa Blanca & Eastside Communities Cultural Resources Survey: Chicago/Linden Strategic Plan Eastside Neighborhood Plan
Civil Rights in America: A framework for Identification of Significant Sites, National Park Service
• Collections
o Riverside Historical Society
o Riverside African American Historical Society
o California African American Museum
• Outreach
o Through the process of developing this project, City staff and RAAHS have reached out and formed ready partnerships with the African American Community and other leaders to illuminate this aspect of Riverside’s history.
8 PERSONNEL
This Historic Context Statement was researched and written by Rebecca McManus, MHP, and Kelsey Kaline, MHC, Historic Preservation Specialists and Architectural Historians for IS Architecture. Christopher Usler, Architectural Historian with IS Architecture and Heather Crane, Architect with IS Architecture, performed additional research and project assistance. All team members meet and exceed the Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards, as published in the Code of Federal Regulations, 36 CFR Part 61 for architectural history.
Project oversight was performed by Scott Watson, City Historic Preservation Officer with the City of Riverside, with the assistance of Tara Gann, intern with the City of Riverside. Ione R.
Stiegler, FAIA is the Principal Historic Preservation Architect of IS Architecture and reviewed the report for quality management.
METHODOLOGY
This historic context statement is the result of research of primary and secondary sources, community meetings, and oral histories. IS Architecture and the City of Riverside organized two community meetings as part of the scope of work for this context. The purpose of the meetings was to explain the goals and objectives of the project and to solicit information from the community to inform the context. The first meeting hosted by the City of Riverside in July of 2018 was attended by various community members and representatives of community groups.
Oral histories were gathered from four community members, based on a series of questions about the themes identified as important to the civil rights movement. These oral histories were augmented with a fifth oral history, gathered in 2017. As a result of these meetings and histories, community members have contributed important information about people and places significant to the African American Civil Rights Movement of Riverside.
Primary and secondary sources, oral histories, historic photographs, newspapers, and maps were consulted (See Existing Literature Section). The following groups provided research materials and sources, scholarship, and support during the research phase of this project:
• Riverside African American Historical Society (RAAHS) • Riverside Historical Society
• Riverside Public Library
• City of Riverside
9 PROJECT LIMITATIONS
This document was in preparation during the onset and continuation of the COVID- 19 public health crisis. California Executive Order N -33-20, severely limited City of Riverside resources during this time. The Executive Order and ongoing Coronavirus pandemic made a second community meeting to review the draft historic context statement unobtainable. Community input was gathered through the proliferation of the draft and using the oral histories, and community kick off meeting, along with City staff knowledge and conversations with RAAHS members. In the future, if new information is discovered, especially from the community, this document will be updated. This document should be viewed as flexible.
ACKNOWLED GMENTS
IS Architecture wishes to acknowledge the contributions provided by the following:
Erika Bennett
Katie Greene
Bill Howe
Rose Mays
Edna Milan
Ola Faye Stephens
Sue Strickland
Riverside African American Historical Society (RAAHS)
10 PART II: HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
WHAT IS A HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT?
Historic context statements identify important themes in history and provide frameworks for evaluating extant resources for significance and integrity. Historic context statements are not intended to be all-encompassing narrative histories. Instead, historic contexts establish the significance of themes and related topics and then provide guidance regarding the characteristics of the built environment as it relates to the theme. The overriding goal of this context statement is to distill much of what is known about the evolution and development of the African American Civil Rights movement in Riverside, and to help establish which physical places may be considered historically significant within one or more of those themes. It is intended to be used as a starting point for determining whether a specific property is eligible for designation as a historical resource under a national, state, or local designation program.
This historic context statement provides an overview of themes relating to the African American Civil Rights Movement in Riverside. Architectural resources and properties that do not fit into the context themes or periods of significance identified in this study are not necessarily excluded from eligibility on the local or national level. This document does not make eligibility determinations for any potentially important properties. Instead, it presents the information necessary to assist in the evaluation of properties for significance and integrity on a case-by-case basis and may be used to guide certain aspects of city planning. Additionally, it will hopefully inspire members of the community to nominate places for formal designation.
This historic context statement is intended to be a living document that will change and evolve over time. For more information on what a historic context statement is and is not in general, see “Writing Historic Contexts,” by Marie Nelson of the State Office of Historic Preservation:
http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/writing%20historic%20contexts%20from%20ohp.pdf .
11 OVERVIEW OF APPLICABLE DESIGNATION PROGRAMS / REGULATORY SETTING
However, the following designation programs guide the discussion of eligibility criteria and integrity thresholds in Part III of this historic context statement.
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is an “authoritative guide to be used by federal, state, and local governments, private groups and citizens to identify the nation’s cultural resources and to indicate what properties should be considered for protection from destruction or impairment.”1
Designation Criteria
To be eligible for listing in the NRHP, a property must be at least 50 years of age and possess significance in American history and culture, architecture, or archaeology. A property of potential significance must meet one or more of four established criteria:
2 A. Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
B. Associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or C. Embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
D. Yield, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Historic resources eligible for listing in the NRHP may include buildings, sites, structures, objects, and historic districts.
Integrity
Integrity is the ability of a property to convey its significance. To be listed in the NRHP, a property must not only be shown to be significant under the criteria, but it also must have integrity. The evaluation of integrity is grounded in an understanding of a property’s physical features and how they relate to its significance. Within the concept of integrity, the NRHP criteria recognize seven aspects of integrity. These seven aspects include location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. To retain historic integrity a property
1 Title 36 Code of Federal Regulations Part 60.2.
2 Title 36 Code of Federal Regulations Part 60.4.
12 will always possess several, and usually most, of the aspects. The seven aspects of integrity are defined as follows:
• Location: The place where the historic property was constructed or the place where the historic event occurred.
• S etting : The physical environment of a historic property. • Design: The combination of elements that create form, plan, space, structure, and style of a property.
• M aterials : The physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular period of time and in a particular pattern or configuration to form a historic property. • W orkmanship : The physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory.
• Fe eling : A property’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time.
• As sociation : The direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property.
Integrity Considerations:
Determining which of these aspects of integrity are most important to a particular property requires knowing why, where, and when the property is significant. In general, in order to understand integrity requirements, we must understand the specific context and types of resources likely to be found. Integrity specifications may vary from theme to theme. There is a diversity deficit in preservation, that has precluded sites and stories such as African American Civil Rights from being fully incorporated into the preservation narrative. Only a small percentage of NRHP sites are related to minority heritage and history. In order to re-cast preservation standards to recognize and support a wider range of places and histories, special considerations for integrity may be needed in determining district creation and resource significance.
Individual buildings, especially those related to African American history, are often not considered individual examples of exceptional architectural or cultural significance on their own. In many cases, resources relating to minority history was erased – through decay, arson, gentrification, and the processes of urban renewal. In other cases, the resources were altered to suit the evolving needs and changes of the communities around it.
In such instances, the primary goal should be to support people and communities in retaining the places that are significant to them and doing so in a way that supports their evolving needs.
While not all buildings retain significant integrity under the current Standards, that should not preclude resources from significance and therefore protection and recognition.
13 For sites that are identified as relating to the following historic context for Riverside, attention should be given to feeling, association, and location- more so than design, workmanship, and materials. More information will be discussed in the Associated Property Types section of this report.
Criteria Considerations:
Within the Guidelines of the NRHP and the National Park System, criteria considerations are given for properties that fit in a category not normally considered eligible for listing. Because of the nature of the African American Civil Rights movement in Riverside, potentially significant properties include those owned and used as religious facilities. This is a category not normally considered eligible for listing in the NRHP. Criteria Consideration A focuses on this:
Criteria Consideration A
Certain kinds of properties, like those associated with religious properties, are not usually considered eligible for listing in the NRHP. A religious property requires justification on architectural, artistic, or historic grounds to avoid any appearance of judgment by government about the validity of a religion or belief. If a religious property is significant under another historical theme, such as social philanthropy, or education; or is significantly associated with traditional cultural values it may be eligible for Criteria Consideration A. 3 Demonstrating
historical significance requires the development of a historic context statement for the resources being evaluated, a comparative analysis with similar resources, and scholarly sources on the property type and historic context.
There are six other Criteria Considerations identified in National Register Bulletin #15. No others are immediately relevant to the resources and themes identified in this historic context statement; however, should further research and survey identify properties covered by other Criteria Considerations, those would apply as well.
More Information
The National Park Service’s website features PDF documents of National Register Brochures and Bulletins, technical guidance, and guidance by property type. These resources can be found at:
https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/
3 National Register Bulletin #15, p. 2.
14 California Register of Historical Resources
In 1992, Governor Wilson signed Assembly Bill 2881 into law, establishing the California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR). The CRHR is an authoritative guide used by state and local agencies, private groups, and citizens to identify historic resources and to indicate what properties are to be protected, to the extent prudent and feasible, from substantial adverse change.
The CRHR consists of properties that are automatically listed as well as those that must be nominated through an application and public hearing process. 4 The CRHR automatically
includes the following:
• California properties listed in the NRHP and those formally Determined Eligible for the NRHP;
• California Registered Historical Landmarks from No. 0770 onward; and • Those California Points of Historical Interest that have been evaluated by the OHP and have been recommended to the State Historical Resources Commission for inclusion on the CRHR.
Designation Criteria
The criteria for eligibility of listing the CRHR are based upon NRHP criteria, but are identified as 1-4 instead of A-D. To be eligible for listing in the CRHR, a property must be at least 50 years of age and possess significance at the local, state, or national level under one or more of the following criteria:
1. It is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history, or the cultural heritage of California or the United State; and/or
2. It is associated with the lives of persons important to local, California, or national history; and/or
3. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values; and/or
4. It has yielded, or has the potential to yield, information important in the prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation.
Historic resources eligible for listing in the CRHR may include buildings, sites, structures, objects, and historic districts.
4 Public Resources Code Section 5024.1.
15 Integrity5
The CRHR uses the same seven aspects of integrity as the NRHP. While the enabling legislation for the CRHR is less rigorous regarding the issue of integrity, there is the expectation that properties reflect their appearance during their period of significance.6
Properties Less Than 50 Years Old
While the CRHR does not use Criteria Considerations like the NRHP, it does make allowances for resources less than fifty years old to be designated if it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand the subject resource’s historical importance.
More Information
Further information about the CRHR and other state-level preservation programs and initiatives can be found on OHP’s website: http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=1056
City of R iverside Cultural Resources
The City of Riverside’s Cultural Resources Ordinance is codified in Title 20 of the Municipal Code. The ordinance establishes the criteria and process for designating potential cultural resources (historic resources) as local landmarks, structures of merit, or historic districts.
Landmark Criteria
A cultural resource may be designated by the City Council upon the recommendation of the City's Cultural Heritage Board as a Landmark if it retains a high degree of integrity and meets one or more of the following criteria:
1. It exemplifies or reflects special elements of the City's cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history;
2. Is identified with persons or events significant in local, state, or national history;
3. Embodies distinctive characteristics of a style, type, period, or method of construction, or is a valuable example of the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship;
4. Represents the work of a notable builder, designer, or architect, or important creative individual;
5. Embodies elements that possess high artistic values or represents a significant structural or architectural achievement or innovation;
6. Reflects significant geographical patterns, including those associated with different eras of settlement and growth, particular transportation modes, or distinctive examples of park or community planning, or cultural landscape;
5 As stated with the NRHP, integrity considerations should be made for properties identified within this context. 6 Public Resources Code Section 4852.
16 7. Is one of the last remaining examples in the City, region, state, or nation possessing distinguishing characteristics of an architectural or historical type or specimen;
8. Has yielded or may be likely to yield information important in history or prehistory.
Integrity
Historic District Criteria
In Riverside’s Cultural Resource code, a Historic District means an area which contains:
1. A concentration, linkage, or continuity of cultural resources, where at least 50 percent of the structures or elements retain significant historic integrity, (a "geographic Historic District") or
2. A thematically-related grouping of cultural resources which contribute to each other and are unified aesthetically by plan or physical development, and which have been designated or determined eligible for designation as a Historic District by the Historic Preservation Officer or Qualified Designee, Board, or City Council or is listed in the National Register of Historic Places or the California Register of Historical Resources, or is a California Historical Landmark or a California Point of Historical Interest (a "thematic Historic District").
In addition to either 1 or 2 above, the area must also meet one of the following criteria:
• Exemplifies or reflects special elements of the City's cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history; • Is identified with persons or events significant in local, State, or national history; • Embodies distinctive characteristics of a style, type, period, or method of construction, or is a valuable example of the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship; • Represents the work of notable builders, designers, or architects; • Embodies a collection of elements of architectural design, detail, materials or craftsmanship that represent a significant structural or architectural achievement or innovation;
• Reflects significant geographical patterns, including those associated with different eras of settlement and growth, particular transportation modes, or distinctive examples of park or community planning;
• Conveys a sense of historic and architectural cohesiveness through its design, setting, materials, workmanship or association; or
• Has yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.
More Information
Further information designation programs and other preservation-related activities can be found on the City of Riverside’s website: https://www.riversideca.gov/historic/
17 DOCUMENT ORGANIZATION
This historic context statement is organized into the following primary sections:
⋅ Part I: “Introduction” provides information on the purpose of this document, its intended use, scope of study, and source material.
⋅ Part II: “How to Use this Document” provides information on historic context statements, the regulatory framework of applicable designation programs, and document organization.
⋅ Part III: “Historic Context Statement” provides both historical context to the broader themes and activities relating to Civil Rights in the United States and in the West along with those in Riverside, California. This section is split into three distinct sections, “historic overview”, “historic context statement themes”, and “preservation goals and priorities”. This section provides an overview of key national events in the Civil Rights movement, and how they inform the environment of the Riverside Civil Rights movement.7
- “Historical Overview” Provides historical context to the broader themes and activities relating to Civil Rights in the United States and in the West. This section specifically discusses the distinct time periods relating to Civil Rights that have been identified by The National Park Service.
- “Historic Context Statement” Provides a narrative overview of the historic context time periods and their local themes. Four major themes are then discussed as relating to the City of Riverside’s community history. Examples of events and property types that are associated with those themes in a significant way are also identified.
- “Associated Property Types” identifies potential property types significant to the time periods and local themes. This section provides information on what types of properties could be associated with the theme, applicable significance criteria and integrity considerations. They are general and broad to account for the numerous variations among associated property types.
7 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008.
18 ⋅ Part IV: “Preservation Goals and Priorities” identifies the next steps in protecting the potential historic resources in Riverside based on the context and associated property types. Within Appendix A, a study list of properties identified by the City of Riverside is presented. It is provided for information purposes only to help focus future research and is not a comprehensive list of all eligible resources within Riverside. Additional properties may be identified as associated with the significant themes upon site-specific evaluation. Conversely, a resource’s presence on this study list does not automatically make that resource eligible for designation at any level.
⋅ “Appendix A: Study List” includes the master study list of properties of interest identified during the course of this study.
⋅ “Appendix B: Bibliography” lists the major sources of information for this context statement. Additional sources used for specific quotes or subjects are cited directly within the text.
⋅ “Appendix C: Civil Rights Timeline” An overview of major civil rights events is listed on a national, state, and local level.
19 PART III: HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT
INTRODUCTION
This context statement follows the National Park Service’s framework for identifying significant sites related to Civil Rights in America in order to document the history and typology of buildings and sites related to African Americans civil rights struggles in the city of Riverside. The NPS Framework is discussed below, along with the structure and local themes utilized in the following narrative context. After the framework discussion, the “Historical Overview” section serves as an overview of the national and regional backdrop for the local themes presented in the “Historic Context Statement” section.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FRAMEWORK
The National Park Service developed a framework of “broad themes within the civil rights story,” published under the title Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites. The following chronological sections identify phases in the development of civil rights between 1900 and 1976 and were identified as:8
• Rekindling Civil Rights 1900-1941
• Birth of Civil Rights 1941-1954
• Modern Civil Rights 1954-1964
• Second Revolution 1964-1976
The NPS thematic framework identified the following broad themes related to 20th Century African American Civil Rights:
• Equal Education
• Public Accommodation
• Voting
• Housing
• Equal Employment
Broader NPS thematic categories for designation to the NRHP can be found in National Register Bulletin 16A: How to Complete the National Register Nomination Form.
8 These timeframes were established by the National Park Service, Land marks Division in 2002 and revised in 2008.
20 AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS IN RIVERSIDE FRAMEWORK The NPS chronological sections were used as a starting point to identify phases in the development of the African American Civil Rights movement in Riverside. The history has been broken into six broad historical phases of development. • African American Civil Rights in the Nineteenth Century (1870-1900) • Rekindling Civil Rights (1900-1941)
• Birth of Civil Rights (1941-1954)
• Modern Civil Rights (1954-1964)
• Second Revolution (1964-1976)
• Civil Rights Today (1976-Today)
The following local themes were identified as significant to the civil rights movement in Riverside and apply to multiple phases in the development:
• Local Theme #1: Education – “The Struggle for Desegregation” • Local Theme #2: Employment + Entrepreneurship in Riverside • Local Theme #3: Social Groups, Organizations + Formalized Resistance • Local Theme #4: Public Accommodation + Housing – “The Fight for Access + Equality”
These local themes are designed to cover a variety of related topics and associated property types. Local themes were only developed if extant properties directly associated with the theme and located within Riverside city limits are potentially identifiable. The specific topics covered by each theme are outlined below:
Local Theme #1: Education – “The Struggle for Desegregation and Quality Education” School segregation and integration is one of the most impactful themes within the African American Civil Rights movement within Riverside. Both de jure and de facto segregation created unequal education until community-led protests and arson pushed the school district into voluntarily integrating schools. This theme explores the history of school integration in the city, looks at the history of Riverside Unified School District, along with Alvord USD, and identifies potentially significant places associated with those histories.
Local Theme #2: Employment + Entrepreneurship in Riverside Entrepreneurship was a big component of the establishment of the African American community in Riverside. African American owned and operated businesses were located throughout the city during all periods of the African American Civil Rights movement. Because
21 African Americans were denied access to services in areas outside traditional black neighborhoods, there was a strong push within the African American community for the establishment of African American owned businesses. They not only offered services to African Americans, successful business owners reinvested in the black community. Places such as Mercantile Hall promoted both the establishment and patronage of Riverside’s African American-owned businesses.
This theme explores the history of working African Americans within Riverside, as well as the role that such businesses played in the community. This section also identifies potentially significant places associated with that history along with issues of job discrimination.
Local Theme #3: Social Groups, Organizations + Formalized Resistance While Riverside was not the site of large-scale demonstrations, marches, or riots during the Civil Rights era, African Americans within the city were making their voices heard in politics and in society. This theme explores how they made themselves heard, such as small-scale demonstrations, organizations, and newspapers, and identifies potentially significant places associated with that history.
Local Theme #4: Public Accommodation + Housing – “The Fight for Access + E quality” The experiences of African Americans in both public and private spaces included instances of segregation and discrimination. From pools to restaurants, African American residents were often excluded from community spaces. Potentially significant places such as early housing tracts, neighborhood community centers, and individual sites that are associated with the African American experience and history with public services, accommodations, and housing are identified.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
After the Civil War, market practices, public policies, and individual behaviors, created and reinforced racial separation and inequalities across the United States. The root of Jim Crow laws and its subsequent legal segregation date back to as early as 1865, immediately following the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which freed the over four million slaves in the United States.9 Although the struggle for civil rights often focused on the legally mandated segregation and policies, it also extended to fights against discrimination in the workplace, housing markets,
9 Constitutional Rights Foundation, “A Brief History of Jim Crow,” n.d, https://www.crf-usa.org/black-history- month/a-brief-history-of-jim-crow.
22 consumer marketplace, and educational arenas.10 Throughout the western United States - including California - African American civil rights activists created a web of organizations, collaborated with religious institutions, elected officials, and utilized unions to influence local and state policymaking. As they did so, they were inspired by events that were occurring in the South and were sharing their experiences with the rest of the country. National organizations such as social organizations, women’s clubs, civil rights organizations and churches linked their movement with others across the nation.
PHASES OF RIVERSIDE CIVIL RIGHTS DEVELOPMENT + LOCAL THEMES
AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE NINTETEENTH CENTURY 11 Founded in 1870 by John North and a group of Easterners who wished to establish a colony dedicated to furthering education and culture, Riverside was built on land that was once a Spanish rancho. Since California was declared a free state when it entered the Union in 1850, those that arrived enslaved were officially free. John North and James Greves were both documented abolitionists in the East.
In general, first African Americans in Riverside County arrived between the founding of Riverside in 1870 and the turn of the century, often accompanying white families as service workers or as their former slaves. As with many other communities, the African Americans came “unannounced and mostly unrecorded”.
12 In 1900, out of the nearly 8,000 residents in the city of Riverside, only a few hundred were African American.
13 Although Riverside offered better economic opportunities and improved social conditions than places in the South, discrimination by employers did limit occupation and wealth building opportunities throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. The earliest African American “pioneers” in Riverside would become role models for the following African American community, owning land, opening businesses, and building a tight-knit community. While there is little information on the majority of the nineteenth century African Americans in the city of Riverside, a few pioneers of the era are remembered by historians and
10 Richard White, “Race Relations in the American West,” American Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1986): 396, https://doi.org/10.2307/2712674.
11 The NHLP references this time period as both “An Emerging Cause 1776 -1865” and “Reconstruction and Repression 1865- 1900”. They are condensed in this context but can be found in the NHLP report (pg4 -10). 12 Strickland, African Americans in Riverside. P 41.
13 Richard Esparza and H. Vincent Vince Moses, Westward to Canaan: African American Heritage in Riverside, 1890 to 1950 (Rivers: Riverside Museum Press, 1996).
23 local citizens. These include Nicey Tibbets, Robert Stokes, and the Decatur, Dumas, Streeter, Carter, and Williams families.14
As the first town-lot addition was being developed in Riverside, these pioneering African American settlers were also establishing themselves. Robert Stokes, who arrived with a Caucasian family from Georgia, and Nicey Tibbets, who accompanied Eliza Tibbets, both came to Riverside in the 1870s. Frank Johnson arrived with this wave of newcomers to, and married into a family that had settled in San Bernardino with a Mormon caravan in 1851. These settlers often wrote to family members and friends in states back east, encouraging them to follow.
This in turn prompted another wave of settlers by the beginning of the twentieth century.
These early members of the African American community were educated, and of sufficient means to move across the country in search of a reprieve from escalated violence, disenfranchisement, and poor working conditions in the south and elsewhere in the U.S.
The establishment of religious institutions also played a large role in the early African American community in Riverside. By 1875, Walter Williams was among the small congregation of the African American Episcopal Church- which met in a home on Seventh Street. By the early 1890s the African American Episcopal Church had built a small one-room building on the corner of Sedgwick and Tenth Street. Other African American families, including the Stokes and Carters, were members at the First Baptist Church in Mile Square, before forming their own Second Missionary Baptist Church in 1890. These churches were mostly located in the Eastside community, creating a place for newcomers and a gathering place for others who resided in various parts of the city.
Just as the Citrus industry was taking off in the broader Inland Empire in the late nineteenth century, the national African American civil rights movement was amidst large institutional and societal obstacles, many of which were a direct consequence of the changes that occurred in the post-civil war United States. Although the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Act was passed in 1875, giving blacks equal access to hotels and other public accommodations – rapid urbanization, and the emergence of women’s professions contributed to a complicated setting for the struggle for African American civil rights.15
14 More on these pioneers can be found in “Black Origins in the Inland Empire” by Byron Skinner, and Susan Strickland’s, “African Americans in Riverside: Migrating West”. 15 James M. McPherson, “Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875,” The Journal of American History 52, no. 3 (1965): 493–510, https://doi.org/10.2307/1890844; NHLP 2008:8
24 National Context:
In 1883, the US Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional and asserted that the Fourteenth Amendment forbad states- but not citizens- from discrimination.16 In 1896, the same court issued the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that “separate but equal” facilities satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection guarantees.17 Both cases effectively sanctioned the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation throughout the South and influenced the treatment of African Americans throughout the country.18 Between the end of Reconstruction and World War I, whites enacted numerous state and local laws and customs to limit black freedoms and lynching became a common practice in Southern states. Even when states did not legalize segregation through Jim Crow practices, often segregationist customs and traditions were common, which had similar effects on wealth-building and well-being.
These setbacks and obstacles helped to inspire intensified civil rights efforts, for African Americans but also for women’s suffrage. Excluded from most white suffrage associations, middle-class African American women led by journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett mobilized extensive networks of clubs and reform associations on behalf of women’s suffrage, creating an educational and civic infrastructure within the black community by the 1890s. 19 Some of these
groups included the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), which became an umbrella group for hundreds of black women’s club and incorporated in 1904 as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC).20 In Riverside, African American women established the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). This active organization dealt not only with women’s suffrage, but also provided a space for women of color to meet and discuss community events and provide support to each other. The group often held meetings that were chronicled in the Riverside Daily Press.
16 U.S Supreme Court Case 109 US 3. Case text from https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/109/3 17 Constitutional Rights Foundation, “A Brief History of Jim Crow,” n.d, https://www.crf-usa.org/black-history- month/a-brief-history-of-jim-crow.
18 “Jim Crow Laws - HISTORY,” November 25, 2019, https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim- crow-laws.
19 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 8.
20 NACW Constitution, quoted in Leslie 2012.
25 Figure 4: Riverside Daily Press from March 6th, 1900 discussing a WCTU meeting State Context:
African Americans in the new state of California were facing complex dynamics with respect to civil rights during the mid to late 19th Century. In 1849, California ratified its first constitution, which outlawed slavery or indentured servitude. However, the State Legislature also concurrently voted to disenfranchise all but white male U.S. citizens.21 The 1850 Census counted 962 African Americans in the state- by 1900 there were just shy of 8,000.22 Over time, other laws further restricted African Americans including a law that allowed anyone who claimed a black person as an ex-slave to not only detain, but also re-enslave that person.
In addition, thousands of African Americans lost their land in the courts because the nation refused to recognize land titles that were granted during the eras when California was under Spanish and Mexican control. The all-Caucasian California Legislature passed a law banning
21 California officially became a state in 1850; Key Points in Black History and the Gold Rush - Instructional Materials (CA Dept of Education).”
22 KCET, “‘We Feel the Want of Protection.’ The Politics of Law and Race in California, 1848 -1878 | KCET,” accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/we-feel-the-want-of-protection-the-politics-of-law-and- race-in-california-1848-1878.
26 African American, Chinese, and Native American testimony in cases involving Caucasian plaintiffs and defendants. Laws also passed that prohibited African Americans from voting and going to school with Caucasian children. These laws hindered the development of African American economic and political power in the state for the rest of the century.
Local Theme: Employment + Entrepreneurship
African Americans were drawn to California and to Riverside by the same forces which attracted everyone else. It offered a chance at a “new start, in an idyllic climate”.23 Many African American southerners migrated to California under labor contracts, immigration bureaus, freedmen's relief associations and other organizations which were established to facilitate the move to help the relocation.
24 Many of the early African Americans in Riverside had attended black schools in the South, Fisk University in Tennessee, Spelman College in Atlanta, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and Western University in Kansas.
25 Although they were well-educated, they were often excluded from hiring processes and industries. Therefore, many became entrepreneurs, opening their own businesses which included stores, cafes, and services.26
Riverside, an early agricultural hub, was a prime spot for farming and service-related businesses. In 1905, early black pioneer John Culpepper established a business hauling fertilizer, hay, and crops to outlying communities in San Bernardino County. Filmore Davenport was a landowner and a rancher, while the Stokes family raised hogs prior to Robert Stokes becoming the first black policeman in 1889.
23 Sue Strickland. African Americans in Riverside. Riverside Historical Society. RHS Journal No 6 24 Riverside Municipal Museum, “Westward To Canaan”, 1996 p1-3; The Riverside African American Historical Society, “The African American Presence in Riverside”. Journal, 2004. 25 The Pioneer Black Families of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties 1826 -1940. Compiled and Edited by Delora Allen and Riverside Old Timers Reunion Committee.
26 Riverside Municipal Museum, “Westward To Canaan”, 1996 p1-3; The Riverside African American Historical Society, “The African American Presence in Riverside”. Journal, 2004.
27 A handful of African Americans also owned their own, or worked for citrus ranches throughout the region. For example, in August 1905, The Colored Citizen boasted, “Rev. A. Simpson is one of Riverside’s oldest and most substantial citizens…From his orange ranch, upon which his large two-story house sits, he realizes quite a sum.”27
Showcasing the overt challenges to being an entrepreneur, was Frank Johnson- an early prominent black business owner in Riverside. In 1882, Reverend Frank Johnson, a clerk with Stewart and Lett Dry Goods Store, married Alice Rowan. Alice, in 1888, graduated from the Los
27 A.K Smiley Archive Collection, “The Colored Citizen”.
These ranges tended to grow predominantly oranges, with the occasional lemon crop.
Figure 5: Riverside Daily Press, March 1914.
Proclaiming that Frank Johnson's business was
thriving and moving to a larger location
28 Angeles Normal School, the first African American in the San Bernardino area to graduate from college.28 Alice who had studied teaching, taught a predominantly white class in Riverside. She was born to Lizzy and Charles Rowan, former slaves who came to San Bernardino with a train of Mormons in the 1860s. The Johnson’s became the proprietors of the Riverside Carriage Company, a business which Frank grew operated on the north side of either street between Orange and Lemon.29 Johnson would later discuss that since there were few African American run blacksmiths nearby, he would have to use Caucasian owned and run stores for materials.
They were often pressured into not doing business with him because of his success and race.30
Before the turn of the century, African Americans settled primarily along Park and Sedgwick Avenues and on Howard Street from Ninth to Twelfth and Thirteenth. Some of the earliest African American families in Riverside had bought, built, or rented homes along Ninth and Tenth streets. The following decades would bring increasing segregation and struggles in the African American community showcased in the following Context Areas.
REKINDLING CIVIL RIGHTS, 1900– 1941 31
National Context:
The first four decades of the twentieth century were defined by massive social and governmental changes in the United States, fueled by the Progressive Era (1900–1920), World War I (1914–1918), and the Great Depression (1929–1939), all of which exerted tremendous force on the civil rights movement.
32 New organizations and public and private institutions developed to address the challenges that arose nationally and regionally.
The pace of the Great Migration, or the movement of blacks out of the rural south, accelerated rapidly during the Progressive Era, and millions moved north and west in search of better economic opportunities.
33 At the same time, several important national organizations formed
28 Riverside County was not incorporated until 1893, while San Bernardino County was incorporated in 1853. The region that now incorporates Riverside County was part of the umbrella of San Bernardino region prior to incorporation.
29 Riverside Municipal Museum, Our Families, Our Stories: From the African American Community 1870 -1960 (Riverside, California: Riverside Museum Press, 1997), 8. 30 Riverside Municipal Museum, Our Families, Our Stories: From the African American Community 1870 -1960 (Riverside, California: Riverside Museum Press, 1997), 7-9. 31 The NHLP references this time period as Rekindling Civil Rights in the NHLP report (pg 11- 20). 32 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 11. 33 US Census Bureau, “The Great Migration, 1910 to 1970.”
29 to address issues related to African American civil rights.34 Booker T. Washington led the first nationwide African American civil rights organization, the National Afro-American Council, founded in Rochester, New York, in 1898. Civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois and the Boston activist William Monroe called other activists to a meeting in Niagara Falls in July 1905 and urged more direct action to achieve black civil rights.35 The group formed the Niagara Movement (now the NAACP), and drafted a list of demands that included an end to segregation in courts and public accommodations.36 It met each year through 1909, when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in New York City. The NAACP, now American’s largest civil rights organization, was formed partially in response to the ongoing violence against African Americans, and made anti-lynching their central campaign.
Organizations like the NAACP bolstered African Americans as they faced growing restrictions throughout the country in the aftermath of World War I. The overseas conflict had impacted black and white Americans alike, with 350,000 men and women of African American heritage serving in almost every branch of the military.
37 African American women, however, were often
prevented from obtaining some wartime jobs at home even as women overall entered the labor force in unprecedented numbers.
38 As the war effort contracted, returning African
American service members found limited opportunities for employment, housing, education, and public accommodations. Restrictive housing covenants proliferated across the country, racially separate schools became the norm, and community centers run by the YMCA/YWCA were strictly segregated.39 Racial tensions and riots consequently increased, and KKK membership reached between three and eight million members nationwide, gaining strongholds in northern and western states.
40 An expanding African American press using the language of rights and democracy used and supported by the Roosevelt administration played an important role in strengthening the civil rights movement. By 1940, the United States had 155 black newspapers, 60% of them with circulations that spanned multiple states. The publications ranged in their political leanings but as a group covered stories of everyday discrimination and grassroot civil rights efforts that were
34 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 10. 35 https://www.nps.gov/articles/niagara-movement-cornerstone-of-the-modern-civil-rights-movement.htm 36 https://www.nps.gov/articles/niagara-movement-cornerstone-of-the-modern-civil-rights-movement.htm 37 U.S Army “African-Americans Continue Tradition of Distinguished Service.”; Army Historical Foundation and Bryan, “Fighting for Respect- African Americans in WWI” 38 RIBHS Context Statement 2018 p 8.
39 Thomas Sugrue, “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation” (University of Pennsylvania, July 2008), https://www.prrac.org/projects/fair_housing_commission/chicago/sugrue.pdf . 40 “The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s | American Experience | PBS.”
30 typically ignored in white newspapers throughout the North and South.41 In the broader Inland Empire region, the first black paper, The Colored Citizen, operated out of Redlands, California from 1905 to 1906.42 While a short run, it broke a major barrier- giving a voice to the community of African Americans in the Inland Empire.
Local Theme: Housing and Public Accommodation
By 1900, there were 7,858 African Americans in California.43 As African American residents of Riverside continued to write to family members in other parts of the country of their success, and due to the rising tensions in the segregated south, a second wave of African American migration occurred in Riverside up until World War II.44 Prior to 1920, the African American community in the City were generally spread out throughout the City boundaries, “reflecting the freedom which drew them West.”45 The first two decades of the twentieth century saw a steady shift in the patterns of neighborhoods within Riverside. African Americans began settling in the City’s Eastside Neighborhood in larger numbers. Partially this is because of the number of established churches in the Eastside, but also because of the work of Frank Johnson, an African American carriage house owner who bought a large tract of land in the Eastside and subdivided the area. The area north of University Avenue (originally Eighth Street) became home for the Eastside’s early African American community, while the area south of University became an area for Latino settlement.46 These two groups would share spaces, struggles, and victories in the second part of the Twentieth century.
Even as the African American community continued to grow and contribute to the city, they faced both unofficial and official discrimination and segregation.47 The 1923 California Civil Code specifically banned discrimination but the reality for Riverside’s African American community was different.48 The Riverside City Charter was accepted in 1907, forming the Riverside City School District which de facto segregated neighborhood schools. By 1917, zoning and racially restrictive covenants were being used to restrict future sale of property to African Americans. Often times, unspoken agreements between buyers, neighbors, and real estate
41 Thomas Sugrue, “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation” (University of Pennsylvania, July 2008), https://www.prrac.org/projects/fair_housing_commission/chicago/sugrue.pdf .; NHLP 2008 p20 42 The U.S Census Bureau places Redlands in the Riverside-San Bernardino- Ontario Metropolitan Area, which is also known as the Inland Empire. Redlands is approximately 15 miles northeast of Riverside. 43 US Census Bureau, “The Great Migration, 1910 to 1970,” U.S. Census, accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/020/.
44 Westward To Canaan, Riverside Municipal Museum p3
45 Richard Esparza and H. Vincent Vince Moses, Westward to Canaan: African American Heritage in Riverside, 1890 to 1950 (Rivers: Riverside Museum Press, 1996), 3.
46 City of Riverside, Latino Context Statement
47 Other communities of color, especially the Latino community, faced similar segregation and discrimination. 48 Riverside Municipal Museum, Our Families, Our Stories: From the African American Community 1870 -1960 (Riverside, California: Riverside Museum Press, 1997), 13.
31 agents ensured the further segregation of neighborhoods. This segregation and exclusion went beyond purchasing property and included being barred from employment opportunities, housing options, as well as public places such as movie theaters, hotels, and parks.
Like Frank Johnson, who purchased property that he subdivided into a housing tract, Edward Streeter, Jr., invested in real estate, buying four lots south of Fourteenth Street. When he bought the land, the planning commissioner divulged that this land was not part of land that could be developed or resided on by African Americans. His grandfather, Ben Decatur, had been told the same thing in 1912, and his family had been persuaded to trade their home on Center Street (now Prospect) for one on Twelfth. Streeter did not make the same choice, choosing to keep and develop the land, continuing to desegregate the area and fight for fair housing.
For children in Riverside, recreational opportunities were either provided by local school programs, by community organizations, or by the City. In 1911, the pool or “plunge” at Fairmount Park was opened as a segregated space. Frank Johnson, now a Reverend for a local church and president of the National Association for Colored People in Riverside, sued the City under California Civil Code, Sections 51 and 52 when his daughter was barred from using the Fairmount Park plunge. After lengthy negotiations between Riverside mayor Horace Porter, a citizen committee, and Johnson, the Fairmount Pool was opened to residents of color, but only on certain days. Although the fight cost Frank Johnson his job, the lawsuit also led to the establishment of one of the first City-built parks for communities of color, Lincoln Park. With the formal opening in August 1924, Lincoln Park was established along Park Avenue between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets in the Eastside neighborhood. By this time, the Eastside was a neighborhood comprised primarily of African Americans and Latinos. In 1927, a new indoor baseball diamond and tennis courts were installed at Lincoln Park. Through the 1930s, the park’s facilities included nighttime baseball, which hosted many games and tournaments.
During the era of segregation, the Lincoln Park pool, provided one of the few swimming facilities open to citizens of color. Beginning in the 1930s, summertime activities at Lincoln Park included swimming meets, swimming lessons, and general recreational usage. The park had a concession stand, including the Orange Sweet Shop, and by 1941 added changing rooms and offices.
49In a reflection of the lesser importance placed on parks in minority communities, in the fiscal years of 1939/1940 and 1940/1941, the City’s annual budget for Fairmount Park was approximately “five times greater than that of Lincoln Park”.50 The priority placed on parks in Caucasian neighborhoods is just one small example of the segregation and discrimination that people of color faced in Riverside during this time period.
49 The 1941 renovation and addition was done by City Engineer Henry Jekel, and was commissioned by the Riverside Parks Department. In subsequent years, the pool and plunge building were removed from Lincoln Park. 50 City of Riverside, Latino Context Statement
32 Although Lincoln Park was welcomed and celebrated by neighborhood residents, it also reflected the ongoing discrimination and separate-but-equal approach applied by the City of Riverside to its communities of color.
The 1930s and 1940s illuminated numerous municipal and infrastructure discrepancies between neighborhoods with mainly Caucasian families, and those such as the Eastside and Casa Blanca that housed African American and other communities of color. In 1940 in the neighborhood of Casa Blanca, only 42% of homes had sewer connections and only 34 individual homes had indoor plumbing.
51 While Riverside did not have many violent or racially motivated events, social and economic racism was ever-present. Riverside had a large following of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK held an open induction of over 200 new members in July of 1924- at the time the largest assemblage of any fraternal order in Riverside.52 In 1927, Riverside elected a Klan backed Mayor, Edward Dighton.53 Although there was never any documented Klan inspired violence in Riverside, the
51 City of Riverside, Latino Context Statement, see mapping at beginning of document. 52 Richard Esparza and H. Vincent Vince Moses, Westward to Canaan: African American Heritage in Riverside, 1890 to 1950 (Rivers: Riverside Museum Press, 1996), 2.
53 Richard Esparza and H. Vincent Vince Moses, Westward to Canaan: African American Heritage in Riverside, 1890 to 1950 (Rivers: Riverside Museum Press, 1996), 2.
Figure 7: Recognizing that access to public accommodations was legal, the City Newspaper encouraged that voluntary segregation was the most helpful solution
Figure 6: The Opening Season of the Fairmount Pool, a
Segregated Space, was advertised in the paper
33 KKK’s popularity through the 1920s stood as visible expression of the obstacles African Americans had to overcome in order to build a community in Riverside. Those who migrated to Riverside, found themselves in a segregated community, that although cut off from the rest of the community, facilitated a strong social and family structure.
Local Theme: Employment + Entrepreneurship
Like other African Americans who came to Southern California at the end of the 19th century, this era saw those who were educated and of sufficient means to make the move across the country in their search for a reprieve from escalated violence, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow segregation in the south. While Riverside continued to flourish in the citrus industry in the mid twentieth century, African Americans remained mostly employed in the service industries as hotel waiters, porters, and barbers. The nearby Mission Inn, run by Frank Miller, was a center of employment, often hiring African Americans as their service workers. John Allen came to Riverside from Chicago at Frank Miller‘s urging, and worked at the Mission Inn from 1909 to 1941 as an elevator operator, porter, and motor livery manager. From 1932 to 1949 he operated the Orange Sweet Shop, in a Spanish Eclectic building in Lincoln Park, which was fondly remembered in later years as having a “well-stocked juke box beside an elevated platform for dancing.”
54 (Figure 8-9)
54 Riverside Municipal Museum, Our Families, Our Stories: From the African American Community 1870- 1960 (Riverside, California: Riverside Museum Press, 1997).
Figure 8 (right): Riverside Daily Press, May 1932 advertising the opening of the Orange Sweet Shop
Figure 9 (above): Riverside Daily Press, July 1933 discussing the use of the Orange Sweet Shop for athletic events.
34 As with the pioneer era, there were still a small number of entrepreneurs within the African American community, focused in the Eastside neighborhood. As African American and Latino entrepreneurs opened up stores, a small concentration of businesses along Park Avenue and University Avenue emerged in the 1930s.
One such entrepreneur was David Stokes. David, Robert Stokes’ nephew, came to Riverside after hearing from his uncle that Riverside offered better opportunities than he could find in the South. In 1905, he and associates built the Colored American Mercantile Hall at 2931 12th Street in Riverside. According to The Colored Citizen newspaper, “This was the biggest enterprise undertaken by the colored people of Riverside.” It served as a multipurpose building for the Eastside African- and Mexican American communities. It housed businesses and was home to the Black fraternal orders. David was treasurer of the Second Baptist Church and a member of the Orange Valley Lodge No. 13 Masons. David’s son, Oscar Stokes helped his father, David Stokes, plant the first Washington navel orange trees in 1917, on the grounds of University of California, Riverside Citrus Experiment Station. In an oral history transcript, he is recorded as saying, “the ground was so hard we had to blast holes in it.” Usually African American community members had to work multiple jobs.
55 Many worked for long periods of
time at menial jobs while also pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities within the black community.
For many, even education did not provide an exit from menial labor and holding a multitude of jobs at once. The African American population was not large enough to sustain a realtor or a banker who held no other such position.
The Davenport family also owned land and a farm in West Riverside, today Jurupa Valley. They were truck farmers, coming to town in a horse and wagon to supply Eastsider’s with fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and poultry, a business dominated by the 1920s by Japanese and Japanese Americans in the area. Susan Davenport married into the Williams family, whose patriarch, Edward, had come from Georgia in the 1890s. Trivel Williams joined his father in 1905, worked as a night watchman at the Mission Inn, and labored on a hog farm, perhaps at his wife Susan‘s family farm. (Their house at 3985 Park still stands.) Eddie Streeter, Jr. who became a leader within the Businessmen’s Club and in land development made his start with the railroad and sideline businesses in janitorial services and trunk hauling.
The African American community in Riverside experienced growth in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as employment prospects picked up citywide with a diversified economy and the advent of defense-related work. With the U.S entry into World War II, California faced a pressing labor shortage. Riverside saw a spike during the war years, especially in African American and Latino
55 City of Riverside, Marketplace Context, p74.
35 communities. In Riverside, this translated to the expansion of the Eastside neighborhood. With this expansion also came the growth of institutional offerings in the Eastside neighborhood. In 1937, at Eighth and Franklin Streets, Fire Station No. 4 was constructed, with designs by local architect G. Stanley Wilson. Based at this Fire Station No. 4 was new firefighter, Ed Strickland, who was the first African American firefighter in 1937, and was promoted to engineer, and eventually captain for the Riverside Fire Department. Born in Georgia in 1913, Strickland moved to Riverside with his family in 1918. He became known in the city for his pioneering innovations in firefighting equipment and technology in 1940, as well as his athletic abilities.56
Figure 10: Riverside Daily Press article showcasing Ed Strickland as Fire Captain
56 Riversider.org, Unsung Heroes/ Ed Strickland
36 Local Theme: Social Clubs, Organizations + Formalized Resistance Restricted from Caucasian fraternal organizations and social clubs prior to World War II, the African American community established their own. The Orange Valley Lodge #13 was established in 1905. Meeting in Mercantile Hall (extant), a building owned by David Stokes, it gave members a space to discuss community issues and business. The 1920’s saw the establishment of the Businessmen’s Club, led by Edward Street, Jr, and the Citizen’s Committee (1930) an outgrowth of the San Bernardino NAACP. These groups worked together to re- enforce family values and produce local leaders.
As a City facing rising racial tensions, the African American community welcomed Booker T.
Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, as a visitor in 1914. Washington, who was a friend of Frank Miller (Founder of the Mission Inn), visited the Mission Inn, and gave three speeches within Riverside, including at Congregational Church, a predominately African American congregation. (Figure 10-11)
Reacting to the news that on March 25, 1931, nine African American teenagers were accused of raping two white women aboard a Southern Railroad freight train in northern Alabama, the Riverside community decided to organize.
57 Dozens of individuals met at Mercantile Hall the
next week to raise funds for the boys’ defense, showing that the fledgling new local Civil Rights movement had both a social organization and a sense of responsibility within the local community, along with a shared cause to fight for national concerns.58
57 National Museum of African American History + Culture, “The Scottsboro Boys,” NMAAHC/ Smi thsonian, March 15, 2017, https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog/scottsboro-boys.
58 Catherine Gudis, “RECONNAISSANCE SURVEY AND CONTEXT STATEMENT FOR THE MARKETPLACE SPECIFIC PLAN, CITY OF RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA,” July 2012.
37 BIRTH OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1941– 1954
National Context:
The various strands of civil rights activism forming in America at the end of the 1930s combined into a clearly identifiable social movement with the country’s entrance into World War II in 1941. Major efforts within the movement focused on employment, housing, education, and military service. In Riverside, the construction of Camp Anza in 1942, marked the beginning of the nearly 600,000 soldiers that would be processed in the city of Riverside. The camp included segregated barracks and social clubs – showcasing that even for soldiers, accommodations were separate.59
In 1941, after the nationally prominent labor activist A. Philip Randolph threatened a massive march on Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) mandating non-discrimination in defense industry hiring. After the war,
59 Galvin Preservation Associates, “Camp Anza/Arlanza 2006-2007 Certified Local Government Grant Historical Resources Inventory And Context Statement” (Riverside, California, September 2007): 31-32, https://www.riversideca.gov/historic/pdf/Surveys/camp-anza.pdf.
Figure 11: Booker T. Washington and Frank
Miller in Riverside, 1914
Figure 12: The Riverside Daily Press Covered Washington's Visit
38 however, Congress cut funding to the FEPC, and the group formally dissolved in 1946. Civil rights activists continued the uphill battle to end employment discrimination at the federal level but increasingly focused their energies on state legislatures and local politics.60 Public accommodations became a major battleground for racial equality where Jim Crow traditions remained firmly in place in many aspects of day-to-day life. Publications like The Negro Motorist Green Book, published by New York mailman Victor Green from 1936 to 1966, helped African Americans navigate the unpredictable landscape of segregation in many parts of the country, including Los Angeles and broader Riverside areas.
Limited anti-discrimination progress occurred with respect to housing, education, and military service at the federal level, much of it resulting from the legal work of the NAACP. Headed by Thurgood Marshall, the organization’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund mounted multiple challenges to Plessy v. Ferguson during and after World War II. Landmark cases such as the 1948 Shelley v. Kramer verdict declaring racially restrictive housing covenants unconstitutional and Executive Order 9981 formally integrated the U.S. Armed Forces. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision against separate but equal education marked major civil rights advances.
State Context:
This period was a time of growth for California. The influx of wartime industries and workers created a “boom” for housing. Racial tensions continued to rise between minorities and Caucasians cumulating in the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles during June of 1943. These riots between latino youths and white servicemen was sparked from the disagreement that “zoot suits” or suits made baggy with extra fabric, were unpatriotic and extravagant during wartime.
While most of the violence was directed toward Mexican American youth, young African American and Filipino Americans were attacked as well because they also sported zoot suits.
Significant social milestones in the visibility of civil rights and integration continued to happen.
Jackie Robinson, raised in Pasadena, California and a UCLA alum, broke the color barrier playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943.
60 Thomas Sugrue, “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation,” 2008, 121.
39 Local Theme: Public Accommodation and Housing
After World War II, the Eastside, now predominately an African American community, faced a major housing shortage. The northern area of the Eastside was rezoned from single family residences to multi-family housing in 1949. Racial minorities moved into homes further north, between 8
th and Blaine, and south of 14th streets. At the same time, the arrival of neighbors of color triggered “white flight” or “panic selling” and Caucasian homeowners began to move out of these areas, further segregating the area. By the mid-1950s, the Eastside neighborhood was more segregated than ever, even as federal regulations instituted the rolling back of racially restrictive housing policies. A YWCA tailored for African American women was opened in 1944, although located on Twelfth street in the Eastside, a segregated community- showcasing that public accommodation and housing were still influenced by City preferences and local politics.
Although African American residents in Riverside benefited from legal victories in the pre- and post-war period, the practices of unspoken agreements and the steering of African Americans away from certain neighborhoods remained intact throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The Figure 13: Jackie Robinson's debut was covered in the
San Francisco Chronicle
40 Riverside Daily Press noted in 1956 that Riverside neighborhoods were “closely fenced in by ‘Gentlemen’s Agreements’ that aim to keep people of color out of primarily Anglo neighborhoods.”61 Between 1950 and 1956, more than 210 new housing subdivisions were constructed in the City. Among these, only three catered exclusively to minority groups. Those three neighborhoods were the Streeter Tract of Pennsylvania (discussed below), the Los Ranchitos tract in Casa Blanca and the Wood Subdivision east of Kansas Avenue, also in the Eastside.
Eddie Streeter, who owned four tracts of land in the Eastside neighborhood secured funding for the subdivision and tract development in 1950 through African American and Latino investors.
The Streeter Tract was the first tract development in Riverside after WWII, signaling the return of growth and investment in the city. While Streeter worked to ensure that the African American would be able to buy these properties by 1952 half of all lots subdivided in the City contained restrictive racial covenants forbidding sale to non-white citizens. Within the Streeter Tract, Eddie Streeter worked with the American Legion and NAACP to ensure that the homes would be available to families of color. John Sotelo, was one of the first buyers of a home constructed by Penn Homes in the Streeter Tract (around 1950). The home was at 2427 Pennsylvania avenue, and lived there from 1950 to 1972.
61 Riverside Daily Press, 1956.
Figure 14: Eddie Streeter's Housing Tract covered in the April 4, 1950 edition of the Riverside Independent Enterprise
41 Local Theme: Social Groups, Organizations + Formalized Resistance World War II empowered a new generation of activists and community organizers in California.
Returning veterans organized and actively asserted their rights to equal treatment and access, and the changes they helped bring about expanded their options in all areas of life.
In Riverside, leisure was also the site of conflict in the early 1940s. Lincoln Park, for instance, served as a recreation center for both white and black servicemen from nearby
Camp Haan and Anza and March Fields, although activities were segregated.
62 Accounts differ regarding wartime racial
incidents, but one seemed to revolve around a baseball
game in which whites and blacks exchanged insults until an African American player took his bat to the offenders. In the months afterwards, African Americans became targets
62 Camp Haan and Camp Anza are discussed in further detail on page 41, under Local Theme : Employment Figure 16: December 13, 1942 in the Riverside Daily Press covered the new NAACP branch president speaking
Figure 15: Original Subdivision Map for Eddie Streeter's Housing Tract
42 of unprovoked attacks, whether walking the streets of downtown or elsewhere.
Alarmed at the recent developments, the African American community kick-started the process to begin establishing a branch of the NAACP in Riverside. The NAACP website still mentions that prior to this instance most of the African American community did not feel unsafe or that violence was likely. The NAACP branch was fully established in 1942, with their first President being Omar Stratton - renewing efforts that had begun with the Citizens‘ Committee in the 1930s.
Over the following few years, the Riverside NAACP fought to end segregation in downtown commercial establishments, and to increase job opportunities. Movies and restaurants were reportedly desegregated in the 1940s, although motels were not. The NAACP and other social groups supported Reverend Moss (Preacher form the Park Avenue Baptist Church) in his 1946 unsuccessful bid for a seat on the City Council, and through the 1950s brought hiring discrimination complaints to the State Fair Employment Practice Commission.
This time period also saw the further establishment of African American churches. The Negro Baptist Church (at Fifth and F Street) and the Negro Seventh-day Adventist Churches were dedicated in the 1950s.
Figure 98: County Schools Superintendent Ray Johnson
publicly denounces segregation. Riverside Daily Press
Figure 17: The Riverside Daily Press covering the March 7th 1952 Opening of the New Building for the Second Baptist Church
43 Local Theme: Education
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision against separate but equal education marked major civil rights advances, although the schools in Riverside were still segregated, causing frustration amongst parents, and a growing education gap amongst children. This launched an interracial bloc fight for better schools and to end school segregation.
The County Schools Superintendent, Ray Johnson, publicly denounced segregation stating that “the laws of learning apply in exactly the same way to Negro children as to white or brown children”.
Local Theme: Employment + Entrepreneurship
The job market during this period remained limited for African Americans in Riverside, although the war time economy did bring and employ African Americans to Riverside. As wartime opportunities began to drastically change the region at large, the African American population of the Riverside region nearly doubled.63 Employment positions were expanded during the War due to defense and industrial developments in the Inland Empire. During World War II, March Airfield was a major base to the southeast of the City- providing military training and aircraft repair. Camp Haan, located adjacent to the March Air Field, was home to over 80,000 troops, while Camp Anza, a staging area for the Los Angeles Port of Embarkation, was located six miles southwest of Riverside and saw 600,000 military personnel pass through. For African American servicemen, these camps typically featured a separate recreation hall, although were generally desegregated. Local industry also expanded during the war years to produce war related production demands in steel, machinery, and other military contracts. African Americans were sometimes stationed at these camps, or local residents often held skilled labor positions during the war- making parts for various contracts. Often times, however, African Americans and other minorities were relegated to menial labor at military camps, serving as cooks and janitors to the thousands of soldiers. After the war, African Americans generally remained in these same positions, even as the industry transitioned back to the non-war related products. Returning veterans were often able to use the GI Bill and Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 to receive educational subsidies or loans for homes. While other young veterans and residents found professional professions to transition to, African Americans in Riverside were often in positions that offered little upward trajectory, and many chose to leave the city to find employment elsewhere.
Certain fields remained staunchly segregated. By 1949, only two African American teachers were employed in the Riverside City Schools. By the 1950s, the Riverside Daily Press had taken
63 The African American population in Riverside doubled between 1940 and 1950.number?
44 note of, and began chronicling, the changing landscape for employment among Riverside’s communities of color. By the end of the 1940s, and into the 1950s, the Riverside NAACP fought to end segregation in commercial establishments and to gain opportunities for African Americans. By 1950, the Hunter and FMC churches were employing nearly 20 African American residents in Riverside. The African American community was also supportive of Park Avenue Baptist Church’s Reverend Moss, who bid for a seat on City Council in 1946. Although unsuccessful, it brought members of the African American community, especially the church community, together.
64 MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1954 –1964
National Context:
If the modern civil rights movement was born in the labor and housing struggles of World War II and the immediate post war period, it came of age in the ten years between 1954 and 1964.
Civil rights activists became increasingly impatient with opposition to full equality in housing, employment, and public accommodations. Two strands of activism emerged: the nonviolent resistance espoused by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the more radical responses represented by Malcolm X.
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision formally ruled that racial segregation in public schools; even with “equal but separate” facilities, was unconstitutional. As school districts around the country grappled with this decision, the direct impact of Brown v.
Board of Education was complicated in California and Riverside. In California, school and housing segregation were inextricably linked. Residential segregation was increasing in California’s urban areas, including Riverside, leading to both formal and informal methods of school segregation. Broadly, most civil rights activists from the 1930s to the mid-1960s favored school integration, and boycotts across the country typically occurred in small cities and suburbs with black populations or in individual transitional neighborhoods within larger cities.
Laws generally prohibited outright racial segregation, but tracking and other local policies often resulted in separate schools for blacks and whites, with those for black students often deteriorating and underfunded.
65 School desegregation in many parts of the South resulted in the growth of white resistance to civil rights progress, epitomized by the standoff between the
64 Riverside NAACP, history, accessed February 2020.
65 Thomas Sugrue, “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation” (University of Pennsylvania, July 2008); 181 and 201, https://www.prrac.org/projects/fair_housing_commission/chicago/sugrue.pdf .
45 federal and state governments outside a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957.
Nation-wide substantial civil rights gains were made in the decade after Brown v. Board of Education. The NAACP’s continuing legal and lobbying work helped obtain the passage of the first rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1957, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The act created the United States Commission on Civil Rights, established a civil rights division at the Justice Department, and provided penalties for voting rights violations. In 1964, Congress passed another sweeping civil rights bill initially proposed by President John F. Kennedy and signed into law by his successor Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted the federal government power to enforce civil rights and withhold funds, prohibited discrimination in most public accommodations, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
66 African American residents of Montgomery, Alabama, led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. boycotted the city’s bus service for a year following the December 1, 1955, arrest of Rosa Parks for her refusal to cede her bus seat to a white passenger. Through the 50s student sit-ins became a popular form of protest, occurring in cities across the north and south. The rise in prominence of figures like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael who both questioned the effectiveness of nonviolence, fueled growing divisions among civil rights leaders. 67 The civil
rights movement reached a “fever pitch” in 1963, in part due to the deaths of four young girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. In August 1963, 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, for the massive protest march known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and listened to King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.68
State Context:
In California, the concept of fair housing continued to prove controversial. The Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1959 protected California residents from discrimination from businesses, which included housing providers such as hotels, motels, broker-sellers, and property managers. Then in 1963, California was one of the first states to enact a fair housing law targeting discrimination
66 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 17-18. 67 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for I dentifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 17. 6868 National Park Service Landmarks Program, “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008, 17-18.
46 in all aspects of housing through the Rumford Act. The Rumford Act enabled the state’s Fair Employment Practices Commission to intervene on behalf of potential tenants and homebuyers. If a manager or homeowner was found to have refused rental or sale due to race, the FEPC in some cases could force them to rent or sell to the potential tenants or buyers in question. By some estimates, the law covered only 25 percent of the over 3.7 million single- family homes in California and less than 5 percent of its duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes. Its greatest impact was on the 738,000 apartment complexes consisting of five or more units.
However, the following year an overwhelming majority of Californians voted in favor of Proposition 14 - a measure spearheaded by the California Real Estate Association - to repeal the progressive law. African American Civil Rights activists and community members in Riverside organized a protest against the repeal of the Rumford Act and Proposition 14.
The passage of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) in 1959 preempted the national 1968 Fair Housing Act by a number of years, offering protections to citizens experiencing harassment and discrimination in their housing based on their membership in a protected class. FEHA also established the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), the state-level governmental organization responsible for the filing, investigation, and conciliation of complaints alleging practices in violation of Fair Housing Law. Through the institutions and enforcement mechanisms created by this law, victims of discrimination now had a place to voice their complaints and seek justice.
The modern civil rights movement in Riverside was a time of frustration and solidarity.
Riverside community members were still faced with segregated schools, and strong racially motivated social divides.
Local Theme: Employment + Entrepreneurship
By the 1950s, the Riverside Daily Press had taken note of, and began chronicling, the changing landscape for employment among Riverside’s communities of color. A survey in the Eastside neighborhood in 1956 showed a variety of employment options, including civil service jobs, construction work, or industrial work and manufacturing. 69 The 1950’s were also a period of
growth for the African American communities local commercial enterprises, including general stores, barber shops, retail stores, and machine shops. Many of these buildings were still located in one- or two-story wood-framed concrete buildings along Park and University. The post-war years were a time of multi-ethnic collaboration, and the continuation of a long-term effect involving numerous community members and organizations to roll back segregation and
69 City of Riverside, Latino Context Statement
47 discrimination. These partnerships helped the rise of activism and the emerging movement in Riverside surrounding equal education.
Local Theme: Equal Education
Riverside civil rights activists and community members faced the obstacle of the traditional “neighborhood school” situated in racially homogeneous school districts. The combination of racially restrictive covenants on properties along with racist real estate and bank practices (redlining) created a completely segregated housing market defined by racial boundaries.
In 1960, minority populations (African American and Latino) comprised approximately 14% of Riverside’s population. At this time the Lowell school, in the Eastside neighborhood had an enrollment of 50% minority students. The Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) was created on July 1, 1963 from the combination of the previous Riverside City School District, a portion of the Riverside High School District, and the Highgrove School District, all of which had existed as independent entities since the late 19th century. The newly formed district contained twenty-six elementary schools, five junior high schools, and two high schools. All thirty-three neighborhood schools were de facto segregated.70 De facto segregation occurs when the way in which a school draws its attendance area boundaries inherently segregates students. In the case of the RUSD neighborhood schools, the school boundaries were drawn to encompass the neighborhoods immediately surrounding each school and without express intent to segregate – whatever the demographic of the population surrounding the school was the demographic of that school’s student body.
The neighborhood school system had been the standard system for determining who went to what school for centuries because it is a straightforward method of determining which students attending which schools. Sending a child down the road to a school rather than across town was logical, efficient, and comfortable for both students and parents. The social climate of the 1960s, however, soon caused people to re-evaluate the values upon which the neighborhood school system had been based. While this system ostensibly did not draw its school boundaries with the intent to segregate, the result was ultimately a collection of segregated schools.
The de facto segregation of Riverside’s neighborhood school system, while unpopular, was technically legal. The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Brown v. Board) had ruled that de jure segregation – that is, segregation caused by legislation or policies – was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.71 The ruling did not, however, explicitly address de facto segregation like that found in the
70 History and Plot Plans, 1
71 Brown v. Board.
48 neighborhood schools. The first challenge to the neighborhood school systems’ de facto segregation was triggered by the opening of Alcott School, a new elementary school near Lowell School. The new school attendance area boundaries for Alcott School would have syphoned Anglo children from Lowell School, which was already predominantly composed of minority students. A petition from a citizens’ group at Lowell School was presented to the School Board on May 15, 1961 to request a study committee for the formation of the new Alcott School boundaries to consider the problem of de facto segregation.72 The Lowell School Committee was formed, composed of members of the African American, Mexican American, and White communities. The findings showed that in the 1961-62 school year, the Lowell school had an enrollment of 90% minority students, although it had only been at 50% the year prior.
The committee recommended the dispersal of upper grades to other schools. Moreover, Riverside had adopted a policy termed ‘Open Enrollment’ in 1961. This policy allowed for fifth and sixth graders at Lowell School to transfer to another school, preserving the neighborhood school system while allowing for students who desired a more integrated school setting to change schools.73 The problem with open enrollment was that there was not enough infrastructure in place to support busing. Nor was there other help getting students who wished to open enroll to different schools across the city.
In 1962, the California State Board of Education required local school authorities to avoid segregation. Concurrently in Riverside, Arthur Littleworth is elected president of the school board. An advocate for integration and a system that promotes “one city”, Littleworth helps to change the city rules to allow school boundaries to be drawn to avoid de facto segregation. 74 The School Board also voted to expand “open enrollment” to all schools and grades. While this was a step in the right direction regarding the Riverside Civil Rights movement push for better education. Still, most schools remained de facto segregated because of the lack of infrastructure and available help (such as busing) to those who wanted to open enroll in other schools. Shortly thereafter, in response to the 1964 San Dimas Conference that established compensatory education, Riverside’s African American community leaders began to advocate for full integration.75
72 No Easy Way, 12-14.
73 No Easy Way, 14.
74 Arthur Littleworth, No Easy Way
75 Arthur Littleworth, No Easy Way
49 Local Theme: Social Groups, Organizations + Formalized Resistance The modern civil rights era saw a renewed growth in social groups, organizations, and protests for equality in Riverside. Everyday citizens became activists, standing up for their children, their jobs, better representation and housing.
The NAACP continued to meet and work towards the pressing issues of housing, education, and employment in Riverside. Members such as Dr. Barnett Grier, who moved to Riverside in 1951 to work at the National Bureau of Standards and joined the NAACP in 1956 were pivotal in fair housing and desegregation.
Different minority groups throughout Riverside continued to band together to work towards progress and representation. African American and Latino residents forged political coalitions that led to the election of Riverside’s first Latino council member, John Sotelo. Although minorities made up a sizeable percentage of Riverside’s demographics, no formal city leader represented a minority group in Riverside until Sotelo was elected in 1963. Sotelo, the first Mexican-American member of City Council grew up in Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood. As an Eastside businessman, working alongside many of the leaders of the African American Civil Rights movement in Riverside, Sotelo became increasingly involved forging a coalition of progressive citizens of all ethnicities. Sotelo was instrumental in securing equal representation for minority groups in local government and pushed to ensure community facilities for under- served neighborhoods.
Local Theme: Public Accommodation and Housing
The continued struggle for equal and desegregated housing in Riverside continued into the Modern Civil Rights era, especially since between 1940 and 1950, the African American population doubled. Although population had doubled, housing opportunities had remained relatively stagnant. In 1956, the Riverside Independent Enterprise wrote an article proclaiming “Discrimination Mars an All-American City’s Beauty” focusing on a young World War II veteran and his wife, searching for housing in Riverside. The article chronicles the search by the couple, recently stationed at the March Air Force Base nearby, only to be told repeatedly that the home had just been rented. Eventually one real estate agent reportedly said, “I really do want to rent the house to you. But I don’t want a long fight with my neighbors.” The couple eventually were offered to rent a small cottage that needed immediate repairs, in a price range well below their budget. Instead, they purchased a home in the Eastside, since it was understood buying in another neighborhood would require a lengthy, uphill battle. Although legal remedies to housing discrimination were available at this time in Riverside, it was often an arduous, expensive and unpopular route- and certainly one that most people avoided for fear of retribution in their workplace or socially.
50 Figure 19: Riverside Independent Enterprise, August 1956 THE SECOND REVOLUTION, 1964– 1976
The passage of the national Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year, represented a significant shift in the civil rights movement, from securing civil rights to enforcing them. While African Americans would see measurable gains in equal access to housing, employment, and public accommodations, there were still deep divisions between the races across the United States.
National Context:
During the tumultuous era leading to the 1960s, the country as a whole struggled to advance a broad civil rights agenda that built on previous successes. African American mass demonstrations, televised racial violence, and the federally enforced desegregation of higher education institutions led to adoption of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Considered the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in U.S. history, the act granted the federal government strong enforcement powers in the area of civil rights. It prohibited tactics to limit voting; guaranteed racial and religious minorities equal access to public accommodations; outlawed job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; continued the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
51 The Commission on Civil Rights created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 focused its efforts primarily on affirmative action and federal enforcement efforts. Federally funded community- based initiatives obtained modest equal housing and employment gains for African Americans.
Protestors and lobbyists successfully advocated for more legislative protections against discrimination in areas like voting and housing. In August 1965, after King and others led the march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery on March 21–25 of that year, Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination. Voter registration subsequently increased, particularly in the South, although not without sometimes deadly conflict.
In the mid-1960s, the National Committee against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) launched an aggressive campaign across the country. On April 11, 1968—one week after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee—President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Residential segregation persisted, however, due to a lack of enforcement mechanisms in the law.
Late in the 1960s, the Black Power Movement advocated black pride, control over black institutions, and self-determination over integration. It began to replace the earlier strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience with a more militant and aggressive approach.
Local Theme: Education
In the Riverside School District, three of the most segregated schools in the district were Lowell School, Irving School, and Casa Blanca School. These three elementary schools had almost complete minority student populations by 1965, when the average minority representation in the rest of the school district’s elementary schools averaged seventeen percent. 76 The community continued to fight for equal education and integration. Robert Bland and other African Americans in the community worked to desegregate the schools, citing the Supreme Court decision that segregated education was unequal education. During the summer of 1965 the Watts Riots in Los Angeles occurred, raising tensions. Three weeks later, the Lowell elementary school in the Eastside neighborhood was set on fire, a symbol of increasing segregation and racism. The fire was clearly arson, but authorities never discovered who set the blaze. It started about 2 a.m. and was not reported until 4 a.m. the day after Labor Day – a week before the first day of school. After the fire, community member Robert Bland led a parents’ movement for integration, presenting a petition demanding that Lowell and Irving schools, the two segregated Eastside campuses, both be closed and integrated with the other Riverside schools. The Riverside School Board, at the urging of President Arthur Littleworth
76 No Easy Way, 9.
52 voted to voluntary integrate all schools in the district. Therefore, in 1965, Riverside became the first city of more than 100,000 in America to desegregate without the enforcement of a court order.77 Within a month, a plan had been put into place to desegregate all Riverside public schools, which was accomplished with the help of activists such as Edna Milan.78 Edna Milan grew up in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, where she rode the buses with Rosa Parks, experiencing the racism and abuse that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When she moved to Atlanta, she became involved in the civil rights movement as a parishioner at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where she was in the congregation to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preach his first sermon as co-pastor with his father.79 She was recruited by Riverside Unified School District to assist with integration of Riverside schools, specifically assisting in the transfer of Casa Blanca children to Washington Elementary School. Ms. Milan even accompanied the students riding on the school bus that took children to their new schools.
Local Theme: Employment + Entrepreneurship
By 1970, 21% of Riverside’s African Americans lived below the poverty line, while only 4.1% of the City’s overall population did. As with previous eras, small African American businesses serving the local community were common in areas such as the Eastside and Casa Blanca.
Various professionals also opened offices, including doctors, dentists and real estate professionals. Some combined more than one business in a single building.
In the late 60s to early 70s out of nearly 900 staff in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, only 5 were African American showcasing the racial divide and lack of representation in various industries in Riverside. At this time, no elected representative had ever been African American in Riverside.
Local Theme: Social Groups, Organizations, + Formalized Resistance Social groups and organizations remained an important aspect of the Civil Rights movement in Riverside. Formal social groups, such as the NAACP branch were pivotal in securing the integration of Riverside schools. Informal networks, such as the tight-knit Eastside neighborhood also helped to resist and fight for change.
77 Arthur L. Littleworth, No Easy Way: Integrating Riverside Schools - a Victory for Community, 1st edition (Riverside, CA: Inlandia Institute, 2014).
78 Journal of the Riverside African American Historical Society, Preserving the Past, Capturing the Present - The African American Presence in Riverside, ed. Lulamae Clemons (Riverside, California, 2004), 28- 30. 79 Journal of the Riverside African American Historical Society, Preserving the Past, Capturing the Present - The African American Presence in Riverside, ed. Lulamae Clemons (Riverside, California, 2004), 28-30.
53 These types of networks were inspiring youth as well. In 1968, an estimated 60 students led by Charles Jenkins founded the Black Student Union at the University of California, Riverside. Soon after, in 1969, the group helped originate the Black Studies Department. The major was dissolved in 1970 and categorized as an interdisciplinary study instead. The newly formed Black Student Union remained active though and, along with those involved in the former Black Studies department, remained committed to giving value to the Black student experience.80 Not only the student voices became more prominent. Reginald Strickland started and ran the Riverside Reporter, the city’s first black newspaper, from 1969 to 1970.
The Second Revolution time period was not entirely peaceful. In 1970, the San Diego branch of the Black Panthers transferred to Riverside. The Black Panthers, also known as the BPP were a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to challenge police brutality against the African American community. Dressed in black berets and black leather jackets, the Black Panthers organized armed citizen patrols of Oakland and other U.S. cities. At its peak in 1968, the Black Panther Party had roughly 2,000 members. Fearing the BPP’s reputation for violence, the Riverside police raided the Black Panther Riverside headquarters the following year, leading them to transfer again to the City of Los Angeles in 1971, but not before two Riverside police officers were ambushed and killed. Never formally connected, it was reported to be the work of the Black Panthers.
CIVIL RIGHTS TODAY 1976- PRESENT
National Context:
Since the 1970s, many laws have been passed to guarantee civil rights to all Americans. But the struggle continues. Today, not only blacks, but many other groups — including women, Latinos, Asian-Americans, people with disabilities, homosexuals, the homeless, and other minorities — are waging civil-rights campaigns. The civil rights coalitions that formed in the 1950s and 1960s often provide necessary frameworks for these civil rights movements to take place. Meanwhile, there is still work to be done to ensure the equality of African Americans across the nation.
Politically, African Americans have made substantial strides in the post–civil rights era. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting more African Americans into politics and unprecedented support and leverage
80 ASP-UCR, “Our Proud History,” African Student Programs, n.d, https://asp.ucr.edu/who -we-are/our-history.
54 for people of color in politics. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the first President of the United States of African descent.
In the same period, African Americans have suffered disproportionate unemployment rates following industrial and corporate restructuring, with a rate of poverty in the 21st century that is equal to that in the 1960s. Modern forms of social and judicial discrimination have resulted in African Americans having the highest rates of incarceration of any minority group, especially in the southern states of the former Confederacy.
State Context:
In 1991, four white police officers were videotaped beating African American Rodney King in Los Angeles. Their acquittal lead to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The 1992 civil unrest was more destructive than any other uprising in our nation’s history: More than 60 dead by the Los Angeles Times’ count, 2,000 wounded, thousands arrested, a billion dollars in property damage. Underlying it all, was deep racial divides that still exist in California communities and nationwide.
Local Context:
The trends and patterns of the African American civil rights movement that evolved over the first three-fourths of the twentieth century continue to define the movement today.
Characterized by strong coalitions of diverse groups targeting specific areas of access of equal rights, the movement has grown to incorporate more voices and has celebrated more successes. Challenges remain in areas such as affordable housing, income gaps, criminal justice, and immigration reform. In Riverside as across the country, the Civil Rights movement continues today – with community members working to ensure future equality but also to remember the past.
In 1986, Jack Clarke Sr. was the first African American in Riverside elected to city council. Clarke was one of the first African Americans hired as a full-time professional in the California Department of the Youth Authority in 1946. It can be said that Jack Clarke led the way for the hiring of African Americans at the state agency. When he retired in 1978 he was the Chief of Parole and Institutions for Southern California. He was the first African American elected to the Riverside County Office of Education in 1981, where he served as president. A few years later in 1994, Ameal Moore was the first African American woman elected as City Councilman for Ward
2. 1986 also saw the creation of the Fair Housing Council in Riverside (FHCRC). Since 1986, FHCRC has strived to ensure that all individuals will live free from unlawful housing practices and discrimination. The FHC works to ensure that the housing discrimination that was documented in the twentieth century does not continue.
55 The year 1998 unfortunately saw the death of Tyisha Miller, killed by a Riverside police officer.
This event is often seen as the impetus for the unification of various minorities civil rights activism in Riverside.
The Riverside African American Historical Society was founded in the year 2000, bringing a voice to personal and community histories and stories that didn’t have a home prior, validating and remembering the work and voices of Riverside residents.
ASSOCIATED PROPERTY TYPES
Introduction
Places significant for their association with the history of African American civil rights in the City represent a wide range of property types, from modest houses and residential districts to commercial buildings, churches, schools, and social institutions. Properties that may be eligible for Local, State, and National historic designation include individual buildings; complexes of a number of historically related buildings or districts; sites where important events occurred; as well as structures and/or objects.
The places associated with the struggle for African American civil rights in the city of Riverside represent a particularly fragile class of resource. Many important buildings and sites have been lost as a result of new development, or neglect. As the resource pool is diminished, the cultural legacy and story that the buildings portray rises in importance.
DISTRICTS
Subtype: Residential Districts
The district property type encompasses contiguous groupings of buildings related to Riverside’s African American Civil Rights history. One example would be the historically black neighborhoods that developed as a consequence of and in response to de facto segregation, such as the Eastside and Casa Blanca neighborhoods.
Residential neighborhood districts consist of single-family homes and buildings with two-to three-family flats. Within these neighborhoods, there may also be scattered apartment buildings as well as commercial clusters or the remnants of a larger commercial corridor.
Subtype: Districts Built by and for African Americans
This subtype is significant because racial restrictions in federal loan and mortgage programs, the practice of redlining, and discrimination within the insurance, mortgage, and building industries made it almost impossible for African Americans to engage in new construction or
56 residential building. On rare occasions, black businessmen were able to fund the construction of a small residential development of single-family homes for African Americans, such as the Johnson Housing Tract in the early 20th century. The dire need for defense worker housing during World War II and the relaxing of restrictive lending practices after the war led to the construction of a handful of neighborhoods by and for African Americans. The homes built by and for African Americans typically follow the design trends of the period in which they were built.
Subtype: Commercial Districts
Because of racial restrictions and segregation, small commercial corridors or nodes of commercial buildings typically grew around key cross streets in African American residential neighborhoods. Black business owners and professionals also frequently adapted residential buildings to function as commercial businesses, sometimes combining live and workspace in one building.
Significance
Criterion A/1/1
Districts eligible under Criterion A for their association with events that have made an important contribution to the broad patterns of African American civil rights history may relate to the following areas of significance:
• community planning and development -reflecting the establishment of African American neighborhoods in the city as a result of or in response to formal and informal policies of segregation,
• ethnic history -for association with African American residents of those neighborhoods, • social history - reflecting the creation of cohesive social groups within African American neighborhoods and the meeting of community commercial, social, and recreational needs within such areas.
Residential districts may be significant for their ability to illustrate the struggle against racially restrictive housing and the changing residential patterns that resulted from that struggle. This property type includes both neighborhoods built by and for working and middle-class African Americans. As well as existing neighborhoods that were populated by blacks as they moved into formerly white areas.
Commercial districts may also be significant under the areas of social history and commerce, for their association with the common practice of locating black businesses, professional offices, and social institutions within residential neighborhoods. This represents a residential re-use pattern, to a degree, not generally seen in their white neighborhood counterparts. This pattern can be attributed to a result of discrimination that prevented blacks from patronizing white
57 businesses and blacks from opening businesses, offices, and institutions in white commercial districts. In many cases, a residence may have also doubled as a small business or professional office, or small clusters of businesses were located on residential streets or at street intersections.
Criterion B/2/2
A district as a whole will typically not be significant in relation to an important person, except in a case where an individually significant person was responsible for building a neighborhood.
However, individual properties within these districts may be significant under Criterion B for their direct association with the life and/or career of a person who made important contributions to the history of civil rights.
BUILDINGS
Description
The building property type encompasses single buildings or small groupings of buildings (a house and detached garage) that are associated with significant events, people, and/or institutions important to the history of African American civil rights in the city of Riverside.
Related buildings may include residences; commercial buildings; professional offices; religious, social, or educational institutions; hospitals; or recreational facilities.
Subtype: Residential Dwelling
Residential dwellings may range from a single-family home to a two-family flat or a large apartment building. Residential dwellings significant for their association with the history of civil rights in the city may be located anywhere in the city, especially because significant events often occurred when African Americans attempted to move outside of historically segregated neighborhoods
Subtype: Commercial Building
Commercial buildings are buildings that housed significant African American businesses or professional offices. Because of the restrictions they encountered, African Americans worked in, operated, and founded businesses and professions in a variety of building types that were available to them. Such buildings may range from a converted house or portion of a house, to a small neighborhood storefront, to a standalone building. Initially, commercial buildings associated with the history of African American civil rights in Riverside were set within the handful of segregated neighborhoods open to African Americans during much of the context period.
58 Subtype: Religious Institutions
Religious properties were the locus of most African American civil rights activities from the nineteenth century to present day. In the early twentieth century, many black congregations moved into churches left by white congregations when they moved, repurposing them and making them their own. Other congregations constructed their own places of worship. During the latter part of the period, as congregations moved into formerly white areas, they also repurposed non-religious building types, such as community halls, which were particularly suited to the needs of the congregations because they included large open areas for worship.
Religious institutions often have auxiliary buildings that served as church halls, auditoriums, or recreation centers.
Subtype: Social Institutions
African Americans in Riverside approached the struggle for civil rights through different avenues during the context period, including social and political institutions. Social institutions range from women’s clubs housing the social welfare activities of black women in the early twentieth century, fraternities that sponsored civil rights activities, or a YMCA that offered programs and facilities to African Americans. Political institutions might include a political party headquarters or a student activity room at a university where a radical group was formed and met. Such institutions often leased space within existing buildings, from churches to office buildings. Others moved into repurposed residential dwellings and commercial storefronts. In some cases, institutions had no official home, but met at various locations like local restaurants and social halls.
Subtype: Educational Institutions
African Americans experienced discrimination and inequality in primary and secondary education facilities. School locations reflected the de facto segregation settlement patterns that were created by restrictive housing covenants. The segregation of educational resources was widespread. Typically, as African Americans populations became predominate in a changing neighborhood, the neighborhood school would be designated for blacks. City government was responsible for providing schools in black as well as white neighborhoods and black-majority schools were often crowded and more poorly maintained than white-majority schools. Protests occurred against this inequality, such as the one at Lowell School in 1964.
Subtype: Recreational Resources
Recreational facilities for African Americans were typically segregated and often inadequate for their underserved populations. The city began establishing recreational facilities in African American neighborhoods around 1920s. Institutions such as churches also provided
59 recreational facilities for their neighborhoods. Swimming pools, ballparks, tennis courts, etc. where protests occurred may also qualify.
Subtype: Legal and Political Institutions
Legal and political activities, including the interpretation and enforcement of legal codes, the enactment of civil rights laws, and political advocacy, were critical in the struggle for 20 th
Century African American civil rights in Riverside. The buildings that are associated with significant events, people, and activities are included in this subtype. Examples could include the offices or places where organized groups worked in support of voting rights or other civil rights issues, which may have been located in a residential building, commercial space, or on a university campus.
Significance
Criterion A
Resources in the building type category may be eligible under Criterion A for their association with events that have made an important contribution to the broad patterns of African American civil rights history. Buildings important under Criterion A may relate to a number of areas of significance, depending on their history and subtype, including social history, ethnic history, commerce, religion, education, entertainment/recreation, law, politics and government.
Criterion B
Buildings may also be significant for their association with an important person connected to the history of civil rights in Riverside.
60 PART IV: PRESERVA TION GOALS AND PRIORITIES
In Riverside, most potential historic resources relating to Civil Rights have not been reviewed for eligibility, due to the lack of a historic context statement to guide evaluation. Social movements with resources that span districts and corridors pose an increased risk of losing possibly eligible extant resources. This is partially due to the turnover of businesses and owners in commercial areas, and the alteration of the built environment in places that are seeking revitalization or new development. The priority, therefore, should be identifying eligible resources in a manner and timeframe that will allow for the least number of potentially eligible resources to be lost.
The following recommendations are outlined in the order of priority:
RECOMMENDATION 1:
Complete a focused, intensive-level survey of the study list properties. (See Appendix A) These properties are potentially significant based on the African American Civil Rights context identified during the course of research as prominent to the thematic record. These properties should be evaluated for both individual significance and as potential members of future potential historic districts, as applicable. This recommendation should be carried out as soon as is feasible.
RECOMMENDATION 2 :
Conduct more research and gather more community input surrounding individual experiences of the Civil Rights Movement in Riverside, California. Education and outreach should also be undertaken to ensure the longevity and preservation of the identified (and yet-to-be identified) resources.
RECOMMENDATION 3 :
Complete a Reconnaissance Survey of the Community Plan Area to identify potential historic districts and individually eligible resources within the city. This recommendation should be carried out as soon as is feasible after the completion of Recommendation 1, ideally within five years.
61 APPENDIX A: STUDY LIST
The following study list represents properties of thematic interest within the study area. This list is not an exhaustive list of all eligible properties but a representation of potentially eligible resources identified by the City of Riverside, along with archival research and limited fieldwork conducted in the development of this historic context statement. Conversely, a resource’s presence on this study list does not automatically constitute eligibility.
Number Street Name Notes
2933 12th Street Mercantile Hall
4009 Locust Street Allen Chapel (AME)
Various Homes in 9th Street NCA
3985 Park Avenue Trivel and Susan Davenport Williams home 3649 Mission Inn Avenue Mission Inn
Frank Johnson housing tract (12th to 14th streets)
1330 14th Street Lincoln Continuation High School (formerly Irving Elementary School)
3600 Park Avenue United Brethren Church
2433 10th Street St. John Baptist Church (formerly Second Baptist) 2911 9th Street Second Baptist Church (current)
3511 Park Avenue Seventh Day Baptist Church
331/2843 11th Street Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church (former) 4192 Park Avenue Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church (designed by Stanley Wilson)
1910 MLK Blvd Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church (current) 4195-4197 Park Avenue Former Grier Employment Agency
4096 Park Avenue Aaron Wiley home
4104-42 Park Avenue Row of shops significant in AA community historically 2874 10th Street Tillman Riverside Mortuary
2665 11th Street Former Bartee’s Beauty Shop
2667 11th Street Former Jackson Beauty Salon
4244 Park Avenue Former barbershop + restaurant (now a residence) 4173-4177 Park Avenue Palmer’s Chicken Shack + Former Blue Note Record Shop Blaine + Canyon
Street
Former WWII barracks style industrial labor housing
(UCR housing- current)
FMC + Hunter
1st Street + Pine Willis Boyd Property
2929 Tenth Street Willis Boyd + Robert Barrett House
4366
Bermuda Ave
Community Settlement Association
62 APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY
Army Historical Foundation, and Jami L. Bryan. “Fighting for Respect: African-American Soldiers in WWI.” Military.com. Accessed December 2, 2019. https://www.military.com/history/fighting- for-respect-african-american-soldiers-wwi.html.
Badger, Emily. “Whites Have Huge Wealth Edge Over Blacks (but Don’t Know It).” The New York Times, September 18, 2017, sec. The Upshot.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/black-white-wealth-gap- perceptions.html, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/black-white- wealth-gap-perceptions.html.
California Department of Education. “Key Points in Black History and the Gold Rush - Instructional Materials.” CDE.gov, n.d. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/im/didyouknow1.asp.
Constitutional Rights Foundation. “A Brief History of Jim Crow,” n.d. https://www.crf-usa.org/black- history-month/a-brief-history-of-jim-crow.
Downey, David. “Lowell Elementary Students Reunite.” Press Enterprise, August 15, 2018. http://www.pe.com/lowell-elementary-students-reunite-53-years-after-a-desegregation- battle-burned-down-their-school.
Esparza, Richard, and H. Vincent Vince Moses. Westward to Canaan: African American Heritage in Riverside, 1890 to 1950. Rivers: Riverside Museum Press, 1996.
Galvin Preservation Associates. “Camp Anza/Arlanza 2006-2007 Certified Local Government Grant Historical Resources Inventory And Context Statement.” Riverside, California, September 2007. https://www.riversideca.gov/historic/pdf/Surveys/camp-anza.pdf .
Gilmore, Gerry. “African-Americans Continue Tradition of Distinguished Service.” www.army.mil, February 2007.
https://www.army.mil/article/1681/african_americans_continue_tradition_of_distinguished_s ervice.
Green, Victor Hugo. The Negro Motorist Green Book, 1949. New york, 1949. http://archive.org/details/history_green_book
.
Gudis, Catherine. “RECONNAISSANCE SURVEY AND CONTEXT STATEMENT FOR THE MARKETPLACE SPECIFIC PLAN, CITY OF RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA,” July 2012.
Hendrick, Irving G. “RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA: A HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVE,” n.d., 273.
Inland Empire Voice. “Calloused Hands: Black History of the Inland Region.” Voice (blog),
63 November 26, 2019. https://theievoice.com/calloused-hands-black-history-of-the-inland- region/.
History.com. “Jim Crow Laws - HISTORY,” November 25, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws.
Journal of the Riverside African American Historical Society. Preserving the Past, Capturing the Present- The African American Presence in Riverside. Edited by Lulamae Clemons. Riverside, California, 2004.
KCET. “‘We Feel the Want of Protection.’ The Politics of Law and Race in California, 1848-1878.” Accessed December 11, 2019.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/we-feel-the-want-of- protection-the-politics-of-law-and-race-in-california-1848-1878.
Littleworth, Arthur L. No Easy Way: Integrating Riverside Schools - a Victory for Community. 1st edition. Riverside, CA: Inlandia Institute, 2014.
McPherson, James M. “Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.” The Journal of American History 52, no. 3 (1965): 493–510. https://doi.org/10.2307/1890844 .
National Museum of African American History + Culture. “The Scottsboro Boys.” NMAAHC/ Smithsonian, March 15, 2017. https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog/scottsboro-boys .
National Park Service Landmarks Program. “Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites,” Telling All American Stories, Revised 2008 2002, 69.
PBS. “The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s | American Experience.” PBS.org, April 2001. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/ .
Riverside Municipal Museum. Our Families, Our Stories: From the African American Community 1870-1960. Riverside, California: Riverside Museum Press, 1997.
Riverside Unified School District. “Board Minutes 5-1-61,” May 1, 1961. http://riversideunified.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_580721/File/Riverside%20Unified%20Scho ol%20District/Board%20of%20Education/Desegregation/Board%20Minutes%205-1- 61%20page%20214-222.pdf.
Riverside United School District. “The Desegregation Movement.” Riverside United, n.d. http://riversideunified.org/board_of_education/the_desegregation_movement .
Sides, Josh. L.A. City Limits. 1st ed. University of California Press, 2003. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pp5j3
.
64 Skinner, Byron. “Black Origins in the Inland Empire.” City of San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, 1983.
Straight, Susan. “The Heroic Hours: Men Who Changed Education in Riverside -- and America.” KCET, May 15, 2013. https://www.kcet.org/socal-focus/the-heroic-hours-men-who-changed- education-in-riverside-and-america.
Sugrue, Thomas. “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation,” n.d., 6.
US Census Bureau. “The Great Migration, 1910 to 1970.” U.S. Census. Accessed December 2, 2019. https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/020/
.
White, Richard. “Race Relations in the American West.” American Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1986): 396. https://doi.org/10.2307/2712674
.
65 APPENDIX C: CIVIL RIGHTS TIMELINE
Date(s) Event(s)
National California Riverside
1870s to
1890s
Civil Rights Act of 1875 is
passed, giving blacks equal
access to hotels and other
public facilities
African American families begin
to move to Riverside and
establish businesses
African Methodist Episcopal
Church established.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (federal)
inspired plan to exchange two
Chinese men for one AA man,
Chinese exclusion act
stimulated the westward
movement of African American
families into California for
economic opportunity.
1883 Civil Rights Act of 1875 is ruled
unconstitutional
1889 Robert Stokes becomes
policeman in the City of
Riverside.
1890 Second Missionary Baptist
Church established.
1891 Irving School built. Was originally
de facto integrated but soon
boundaries were redrawn so it
became de facto segregated.
1893 African Methodist Church and
Second Baptist Church
established.
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but
equal)
1905 Niagara Movement established
(would turn into the NAACP)
1st black paper, The Colored
Citizen, operated in Redlands
from 1905 to 1906
Orange Valley Lodge, a Masons
Lodge, organized by Riverside
African American community.
1907 Riverside City Charter accepted,
forming Riverside City School
District and de facto segregated
neighborhood schools.
1909 NAACP established
1910 National Urban League
established
1911 Lowell School opens to serve
white community east of the RR
tracks and south of 14
th St.
Fairmount Plunge opens as a
segregated pool.
66 1914 Booker T. Washington visits Frank
Miller, founder of Riverside’s
Mission Inn.
1915 First showing of Birth of a Nation
(nationally) was in Riverside at
the Loring Theater.
Park Avenue Missionary Baptist
Church established.
1917 Zoning and racial covenants
restrict future sale of property
to AAs
Zoning and racial covenants
restrict future sale of property to
African Americans
1920s Height of KKK activity Eastside is a segregated
community with mostly minority
population.
Businessman’s Club established.
1924 Induction of 217 KKK members at
Polytechnic High School includes
a cross burning
1925 KKK parade down 10th St.
Lincoln Park pool constructed as
a result of Frank M. Johnson’s
lawsuit (1921) against the City for
discrimination.
1928 A believed Klan member elected
into political office
1930 Citizen’s Committee established
by Reverend Leander Moss as an
outgrowth of the San Bernardino
NAACP.
1931 AA community met at the
Mercantile Hall to raise funds for
the defense of the Scottsboro
boys.
1940s (Late 1940s) Baseball
desegregated.
Movie theaters and restaurants
desegregated?
Eastside considered an AA and
Latino area.
1941 Softball game between colored
and white soldiers ended in a
“near riot.” Process begun to
establish a branch of the NAACP
in Riverside. NAACP website
indicates that the community had
felt no need for such an
organization before this event
due to the relatively mild
conditions for AAs in the city.
67 1942 Riverside branch of the NAACP
founded. Omar Stratton was the
first president.
1943 Zoot Suit Riots in LA (against
Latinos)
1948 Shelley v. Kraemer (restrictive
covenants unenforceable)
Executive Order 9981 began the
integration of the US Armed
Forces.
1949 Northern area of Eastside
rezoned from single- to multi-
family housing. Racial minorities
moved into homes further north
(b/t 8th and Blaine) and south of
14th street. Whites began to
move out.
1950 First AA attorney admitted to
the Los Angeles Bar
Association.
Injunction suit on file in
superior court to end race
segregation in CA prisons.
AA and Latino investors funded
Eddie Streeter’s tract
development in Eastside (first
after WWII)
The Negro Baptist church (Fifth
and F) and the Negro Seventh-
day Adventist Church were
dedicated
1952 “Half of the lots subdivided in the
city [of Riverside]… contained
clauses in their deeds forbidding
sale to non-whites.”
Interracial bloc fights for better
schools and to end school
segregation.
County Schools Superintendent
Ray Johnson publicly denounces
segregation.*
1953 Barrows v. Jackson (racial
covenants illegal)
Segregation on trains
determined illegal in CA.
Riverside chapter of League of
Women Voters begun (not
explicitly racial civil rights, but
woman’s and general civil rights).
1954 Brown v. Board of Education.
Defense Secretary orders the
Army, Navy, and Air Force to
integrate their schools by Sept.
1955.
Irving School rebuilt on the site of
the original 1891 school
1955 Rosa Parks arrested for bus
incident in AL.
Imperial County Schools sued
for segregation by the NAACP.
68 Brown II (integrate with “all
deliberate speed”).
Supreme Court determines
segregation in all public
facilities unconstitutional-
during the second Supreme
Court ruling on Brown V. Board
of Education
El Centro schools sued for
segregation by the NAACP.
1957 The 1957 Civil Rights Act passed
(created US Commission on Civil
Rights).
Martin Luther King Jr. gives his
first national address.
Little Rock Nine integrate
Central High School with the
protection of the National
Guard
1960 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-
ins begin in Greensboro, North
Carolina
Minorities comprise
approximately 14% of Riverside’s
population, Lowell School is
approximately 50% minority
students
1961 Taylor v. BoE of New Rochelle
(no gerrymandering based on
race)
The first group of Freedom
Riders leave Washington D.C to
New Orleans
The Riverside School District
constructs Alcott School and sets
a boundary that will leave Lowell
school segregated, parents
object. Lowell school jumps to
90% minority.
Lowell study committee formed,
with recommendation of the
dispersal of upper grades to
other schools.
Superintendent recommends
open enrollment instead of
integration.
1962 California State Board of
Education requires local school
authorities to avoid
segregation
Arthur Littleworth is elected
president of the School Board.
Riverside changed rules to allow
boundaries to be drawn to avoid
de facto segregation.
Riverside expanded Open
Enrollment to all schools and
grades
1963 Hummel v. Allen (segregation
by race unconstitutional, but
racial imbalance not; anti-
affirmative action)
John Sotelo elected the first
Mexican American member of
the City Council (served until
1973).
69 Rumford Act (prohibits
discrimination in housing)
Martin Luther King Jr. leads the
march on Washington
16th Street Baptist Church
Bombed
San Dimas Conference explores
race relations in Riverside,
leading to the Compensatory
Education Program.
1964 Deal v. Cincinnati Board of
Education, Downs v. Board of
Education of Kansas City, Bell v.
School City of Gary all fail to
uphold affirmative action
policies
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed
(outlaws discrimination based
on race, color, religion, sex, or
national origin and outlaws
segregation).
Repeal of the Rumford Fair
Housing Act
MLKJ is Time’s Man of the Year
and receives the Nobel Peace
Prize
Civil rights organizations
conduct massive voter
registration drives in the south,
three volunteer registration
workers James, Chaney,
Michael Goodman, Michael
Schwerner murdered in
Mississippi.
Libraries opened at Irving, Lowell,
and Casa Blanca Schools. Jesse
Wall and Richard Purviance
named responsible for
Compensatory Education in 1964.
Riverside Unified School District
recognized by NAACP.
Riverside community leaders
begin to advocate for full
integration, not compensatory
education.
Riverside community members
protest the repeal of the
Rumford Fair Housing Act.
1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
occur in support of voting
rights.
Voting Rights Act of 1965: The
law includes measures that
prohibit any state or local
government from imposing any
voting law that discriminates
against minorities. It specifically
includes measures used to
“qualify” voters, like literacy
tests.
Watts riots in LA.
Sparked by a traffic stop, the
Watts Riots shake nation with
34 deaths, 900 injuries, and
destruction or damage to
almost 1,000 buildings, 13,900
members of National Guard
deployed.
Parents meet and decide to
petition RUSD for integration,
holding a petition drive.
Lowell School is burned down by
an arsonist on September 7,
1965.
School Board and administration
develop new plan for Lowell
students, integration is
supported, without the support
of City Council- is passed.
70 Parents and children, mostly
from Lowell and Irving, hold a
peaceful boycott of schools, and
200 to 250 attend Freedom
Schools in 6 locations under the
banner "Parents Boycott for
Better Schools”
1966 The California Supreme Court
overturns the 1964 proposition
that allowed property owners
to discriminate in the sale,
lease, or rental of housing. The
basis for the decision was that it
violated the Fourteenth
Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution.
Black Panther Party founded in
Oakland, CA.
“The Movement,” a Black
Nationalist publication, called
Eastside “The All American
Ghetto”
School integration in Riverside is
fully implemented district wide.
1968 MLK Jr. assassinated in
Memphis, TN.
Civil Rights Act of 1968:
Congress passes the Civil Rights
Act of 1968 making housing
discrimination illegal.
(Late 60s, early 70s) Out of
perhaps 900 staff in the Riverside
County Sheriff’s Office, only 5 or
6 were AA
An estimated 60 students led by
Charles Jenkins founded the
Black Student Union at University
of California Riverside.
1969 Reginald Strickland started the
Riverside Reporter, the City’s first
black newspaper.
1970 San Diego branch of the BPP
transferred to Riverside. The
same year, the Riverside police
raid the BPP office. The branch is
shut down and transferred to LA.
1971 Once de jure segregation is
found, courts have obligation to
fix and wide discretion in
methods
Officers Christiansen and Teel
ambushed and killed, strongly
believed to be work of Black
Panthers (Black Council?)
1972 Agreed upon date in which the
“Black Students United” and
“Black Student Activities” groups
formed at UC Riverside.
The Black Voice News, a paper,
started in 1972.
1986 Jack Clarke, Sr. was elected the
first African American member of
the City Council.
Fair Housing Council of Riverside
County founded.
71 1994 Ameal Moore elected as City
Councilman for Ward 2 (retired
2006, died 2013)
1998 Riverside police shoot Tyisha
Miller – Rose identifies as
impetus for unification of various
minorities’ civil rights activism in
Riverside
2000 Riverside African American
Historic Society (RAAHS)
founded.