Black Californians on here....

[|r|e|a|d|]

Being away so long, I miss it, man. I have plenty of love for the East Coast (I'm in Annapolis, Maryland as I type this ), fond memories that'll last me as long as I live. I don't know when I'll leave the East Coast for good, it's one of those things that I think I'll just know when it's time. My kids are all here.

But my time out here has an expiration date on it, and I'm cool and accepting of it. I can't wait to be able to be back home for good. The East Coast and the South are fine, I've had my run though, time is eventually ending on this side.

I'm not too far away from you me & the wifely unit are having this exact convo just gathering info on the where's. Would prefer near the water with a thriving black community... would appreciate suggestions

 

[murksiderock]

i am not from cali but my father's paternal family is divided between cali and chicago. they were originally from forrest city, arkansas and marshall, tippah, and pontotoc counties, mississippi. they went west to arkansas because the white owners that enslaved our family were generals who oversaw the removal of the natives from alabama, tennessee, and mississippi to the oklahoma territory so they followed them (and had relations with some of the natives) but moved back and forth between their owners farms in northern mississippi and arkansas. the branch that left for cali settled in san diego from arkansas sometime between the 1930's-1940's after an uncle and his brothers killed a white man. they've been in san diego and further up in orange county since.

That's dope, you're the first person whose roots go as deep as mine! (1930s to 1940s)

1950s South Central (Low Bottoms)
East Texas

This is dope too, because one of my great-grandparents was from a town in East Texas called Jefferson. She also spent early adulthood in Beaumont.

 

[Wiseborn]

Where did your people come from?

Thats what's up, where did your people migrate from?

My great-grandpa from Missouri.

Really interesting story with these two. So my great-grandpa comes from a family of educators/teachers, but he made his way to San Francisco by 1950, and was involved in the huge jazz and club scene in The City back then. He was born in 1925, so he was in SF by his mid-20s.

My white great-grandma, born and raised in Sacramento, was a runaway, and ran off to San Francisco as a young teen. She ended up at a place now known as Sisters Of The Good Shepherd, but back then the name was slightly different (still called something "Good Shepherd"), and at the time it was an all-girls Catholic school.

She ended up leaving there when a traumatic experience happened, and was just running around SF, and met my black great-grandpa from Missouri. Apparently he was already running heroin, they started trapping out together, and were pretty successful. Owned a couple nightclubs in The Fillmore.

My grandma was born in Fillmore in 1953. She has a really traumatic story of watching one of her dad's clubs get raided when she was 5 or 6, and watching SFPD fukk him and one of his business partners up. So this would be sometime between 1958 and 1960 for her.

Her parents did get married in the 1950s, but we all know Californis is historically a national leader in a lot of social justice movements....my grandma was their only child (her dad had another kid before her, my great-uncle currently lives in Berkeley but him and my grandma weren't raised together).

My grandma and her parents relocated to East Oakland in the early 60s and got strung out. My grandma had my dad when she was 15, right before she turned 16 (1969); her parents were pretty much absent and strung out by that point.

My grandma became a Panther in the early 70s and was part of the initial group that established the Sacramento chapter of the Panthers in Oak Park, she moved my dad (who was born in Oakland) and his brother out there by '76.

Her white mom OD'd in Oakland in '76, her dad died in Sacramento (really Citrus Heights, I believe) in 1986.

I was born in Sacramento in 1989, so young-ish....but not that young

They told you that? That´s kinda wild. My mother said some shyt she didn´t mean to say but that was it. shyt My Grandmothers name is completely different on her birth certificate I never found out why.

You gramps was moving work with a white chick in the 50´s and nothing happened, I heard SF was liberal but that´s crazy.

 

[murksiderock]

I'm not too far away from you me & the wifely unit are having this exact convo just gathering info on the where's. Would prefer near the water with a thriving black community... would appreciate suggestions

Yall want Maryland or California?

 

[|r|e|a|d|]

Yall want Maryland or California?

In Cali

 

[Novembruh]

4th gen on mother's side. They from Texas before that.
1st gen on my father's side. He one of 14. They from Arkansas but half the family in Fresno now.

 

[invalid]

That's dope, you're the first person whose roots go as deep as mine! (1930s to 1940s)

it has to be more though. that was around the 3rd wave of the great migration and many of the families that went west from the south started going around the third wave unless they were pioneering families that went around the gold rush years but i'm sure those families are few and mostly bred out by now.

but there seems to be a second migration of the relatives who settled in cali from the third wave who came after them in the 60's/70's/80's.

 

[murksiderock]

They told you that? That´s kinda wild. My mother said some shyt she didn´t mean to say but that was it. shyt My Grandmothers name is completely different on her birth certificate I never found out why.

You gramps was moving work with a white chick in the 50´s and nothing happened, I heard SF was liberal but that´s crazy.

Nah you missed the part where my grandma watched a spot get raided and SFPD beat the fukk outta him and a homeboy when she was a little girl.

In real time she didn't know her parents were moving dope, she found that out later. But the real interesting thing is how certain behaviors and personality traits are biological and genetic.

Many, many years later (remember these people died before I was born), not only was I born into trauma myself, but I also had my run with dealing, and in trouble with the law. And we all had a good conversation a few years ago, about some of the generational curses over my family, how it's affected people all the way to my generation, and how desperate I am to try to break these cycles with my own kids.

But bruh the stories of San Francisco in the 40s and 50s, there are some legendary ones. Yes, my black great-grandpa was moving work in SF with a white chick in the 1950s it didn't come without problems, but it was likely safer for them there than almost anywhere in the US at the time.

I have such a love/hate relationship with SF, on another note, there's so much black history there that was willfully erased.

 

[Wiseborn]

Nah you missed the part where my grandma watched a spot get raided and SFPD beat the fukk outta him and a homeboy when she was a little girl.

In real time she didn't know her parents were moving dope, she found that out later. But the real interesting thing is how certain behaviors and personality traits are biological and genetic.

Many, many years later (remember these people died before I was born), not only was I born into trauma myself, but I also had my run with dealing, and in trouble with the law. And we all had a good conversation a few years ago, about some of the generational curses over my family, how it's affected people all the way to my generation, and how desperate I am to try to break these cycles with my own kids.

But bruh the stories of San Francisco in the 40s and 50s, there are some legendary ones. Yes, my black great-grandpa was moving work in SF with a white chick in the 1950s it didn't come without problems, but it was likely safer for them there than almost anywhere in the US at the time.

I have such a love/hate relationship with SF, on another note, there's so much black history there that was willfully erased.

I kinda see why you love Cali so much considering your history with the place. Wild how once they gentrified SF the former Sucka free city was overrun with suckas


Actually do they call it that? That a movie, It´s sorta how almost no one from the urea called DC Chocolate City In fact when I heard that in a song I asked why they called DC that?

 

[murksiderock]

In Cali

If you wanna be near the water, either go LA or the East Bay. I will always say there are way more benefits to being in LA than The Bay (substantially larger black community in LA; more black stability as in, much larger black middle class, and much larger black wealth, in LA; in addition to LA just has a larger jobs market, and more black cultural specific places and entertainment than The Bay).

But in fairness, you can find this in The Bay, just at a lower quantity than you find in LA. If you chose The Bay, you still find stable black communities in Oakland, Hayward, Vallejo, and Berkeley, and all are on or near the water.

it has to be more though. that was around the 3rd wave of the great migration and many of the families that went west from the south started going around the third wave unless they were pioneering families that went around the gold rush years but i'm sure those families are few and mostly bred out by now.

but there seems to be a second migration of the relatives who settled in cali from the third wave who came after them in the 60's/70's/80's.

There definitely are some, because the first Black Californians on record were there before 1800; and thousands of black people landed in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles during The Gold Rush. So while it may not be a lot, there have to still be some black Californians who can trace their roots really deep, but nobody I personally know, can go deeper than mine, and I go to the 1930s (potentially 1920s because I think the white 2x great-grandpa from Portland, was in California before 1930).

And my black ancestors all go to the 1940s.

 

[2 one 3]

2nd generation.

Moms family came from Memphis, Tennessee.

My grandfather was the first black fire fighter for the Santa Monica fire department in 1964 I believe. The mayor and city just honored him last Tuesday and my grandmother, uncles, cousins, and parents were all in attendance.

My dads family came from Mississippi and moved to Gardena.

I believe my parents met when they were 13 or 14

 

[murksiderock]

I kinda see why you love Cali so much considering your history with the place. Wild how once they gentrified SF the former Sucka free city was overrun with suckas


Actually do they call it that? That a movie, It´s sorta how almost no one from the urea called DC Chocolate City In fact when I heard that in a song I asked why they called DC that?

Mf's definitely call SF "Sucka Free City"

 

[KFBF]

Dad was born here. Grandma's parents came here from Arkansas. Grandpa came from Mississippi. Mom is not from US.

 

[Wiseborn]

Mf's definitely call SF "Sucka Free City"

well what happened to the Fillmore is happening to Anacostia now.

I heard there was a Black Area in annapolis but the shyt looks lilly white to me I used to work at the Academy for a project commuted from Glen burnie Annapolis was too white for me.

 

[Cloutius Maximus]

Thats what's up, where did your people migrate from?

Dad grew up in Johnstown, PA. Mom's side of the family is from West Virginia. Dad's side of the family got roots in Alabama.