Black Californians on here....

[MegaTronBomb!]

My Maternal Grandmother is from the first wave of Blacks born in LA in the 40's after her people came from Texas....went to Dorsey. Grandfather came from Arkansas in the late 50's cause the GM plant had work.

My Paternal Grandmother came in the 50's from Alabama, lived in Watts nearly all of her time before moving into senior living in Comtpon before she died.

My momma tells me about how they were the first black family to move to Lennox in the late 60's and how whites immediately left, and how they eventually ended up moving because the 405 was set to come straight through where their house was.

 

[Hater Eraser]

I’m a NYer but shoutout to my Bay Area nikkas Yall some real official cats I enjoyed my time out there when I was at Stanford

@Stir Fry @Hater Eraser

Rep my nikka ..

My fam went to Stanford and their classmates was this breh Sterling

..

Tiger

..

And Tajai from Souls of Mischief

...



I be all over Cali tho ...

 

[Dirty Mcdrawz]

I moved to California in 2004 after I got out of the marines and I’ve been out here for 22 years. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived somewhere. I moved around a lot as kid because my dad was in the army. My parents are from a small town in TN about 45 minutes away from Memphis but California feels more like home to me if I’m being honest. My wife is a 2nd generation cali native so I guess that makes my kids 3rd generation.

 

[King Sun]

How deep is your California roots, and where did your family come from?

I don't personally know anyone whose family goes deeper than mine, but I'm sure they gotta exist.

On my mom's side, I'm a 3rd-generation Californian. My grandma joined a fee of her sisters in Sacramento around the time my mom was 6 or so, which woulda been in 1972 or 1973. They were all from Little Rock, Arkansas. So I'm the first generation born in California on mom's side, but 3rd generation if you start with my grandma moving there in the early 70s.

But on my dad's side, we go much deeper. On my paternal grandma's side, my black great-grandfather made his way to San Francisco by 1950, possibly late 1940s, which is where he met my white great-grandma. She was born and raised in Sacramento.

My great-grandfather was born in Humboldt, Tennessee; raised in Rolla, Missouri; and his relatives were from Tennessee. My white great-great-grandma, while she was from Sacramento, her dad was from Portland, and her mom was born in some nondescript place in Kansas, grew up in Prosperity, Missouri. My 2x great-grandma already had kids when she had my great-grandma in 1934 in Sac, so she was in Sac by 1934; the white 2x great-grandpa was in San Francisco by 1930, so at some point he made his way to Sac and met the 2x great-grandma.

(Only specifying the fact that these people were white, because this is a thread for Black Californians, but I'm asking people how long they've been in California, so the extension of the white ancestors is only relevant for that context only).

So ultimately, I'm a 5th-gen Californian on my dad's mom's side.

On his black grandparents side, my great-grands, they met in Oakland sometime in the 1940s; my great-grandma was still living in Beaumont, Texas (she was from Jefferson, Texas) in 1940. My great-grandpa was from some unknown area in Louisiana. My grandfather was born in Oakland in 1951.

I'm getting more and more into the historical aspects of Black California, with a belief that black people need to stop leaving California, and hold fort in areas that we helped make what they are today.

So I'm interested in any of you who know how deep your roots go in California!

My grandma had to leave Atlanta the early 60s because my grandpa was schizo and abusive towards her in 1960s and that's what I originally thought until my mom told me we had a great uncle that was already living in LA since the 30s from Dadeville AL which she is originally from before she moved to ATL and met my grandfather. Now my sisters dad side of the family came to LA in the 30s for sure because her grandfather would tell us stories of how racist Arkansas was and for him to have future he decided to just hitchhike to LA in the 30s and his family started to migrate in the 40s when he got situated.

 

[JadeB]

Like anything else, the heavy integration has its benefits and drawbacks. There is a comfortability with other people and cultures, which create a blended culture, that other places don't have. Which again, has its positives and negatives some black West Coasters aren't as comfortable when they get around less integration. The flipside is black people from less integrated areas, there does tend to be a stronger overall connection to blackness that isn't as shared, like black identity is shared on the West Coast.

But black people from those areas also can be uncomfortable in the hyperdiversity and hyperintegration of the West Coast. It's an adjustment either way.

One thing I know I'll miss is the stronger protection of black identity in the South. Which, let me be clear, being out here for so long, I'm not saying that black culture isn't shared out here, because it is. It's just to a lesser degree because the South is the ancestral home of black people in the US. There are more "boundaries" in place, so to speak. And I'm also being clear that we have pride in blackness in California, but everything is blended there, we eat food of other cultures more commonly than black people elsewhere; there are more bilingual/trilingual black people in California than elsewhere; etc. shyt like that.

I can see how you feel about how some Black Californians being too integrated and not having boundaries. Some of these eses get too comfortable with a certain word . I do acknowledge the adjustment that Black West Coasters have and vice-versa. Just talking about how my experience was like from coming from hypersegregated Ohio, where sharing of cultures was rare, and coming to California where's there's not only racial diversity but a lot of cultural diversity within the Black community itself is here felt very nice. I do wish there's was a stronger Black identity and racial pride like the South but I'm in the camp where it's ok to share culture as long as you know your boundaries and respect it (for example, I didn’t know Mexican food was anything other than tacos and burritos before I moved out here and I'm a birria fiend) or how I didn’t discover Japanese fashion or Korean K-dramas until I moved here. I'm cool with sharing the wholesome parts of Black culture because I loved learning and trying other people's cultures but with boundaries as well.

Or maybe, this is just testament how Black people can partake in respectful cultural appreciation while non-Blacks often struggle with that


Either way, excellent response and I enjoyed doing this exercise. Rep!

 

[King Sun]

My Maternal Grandmother is from the first wave of Blacks born in LA in the 40's after her people came from Texas....went to Dorsey. Grandfather came from Arkansas in the late 50's cause the GM plant had work.

My Paternal Grandmother came in the 50's from Alabama, lived in Watts nearly all of her time before moving into senior living in Comtpon before she died.

My momma tells me about how they were the first black family to move to Lennox in the late 60's and how whites immediately left, and how they eventually ended up moving because the 405 was set to come straight through where their house was.

Yo, youre people aren't Barnes isn't it?

 

[Hater Eraser]

I be all over Cali tho ...

 

[MajesticLion]

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.

Respect due, that's a great thing.

 

[degu9089]

My great grandfather on my fathers side came from Georgia around 1902 to become a Pullman porter in Oakland, he sacrificed and managed to get his son into the Union Pacific rail company, and my grandfather worked there for decades (I mentioned him before) and had more of his family come here. On my mothers side, my grandmother moved here in the early 1950s from North Carolina because her father got a job at the Ford auto plant in Southern California.

 

[KFBF]

I'll be honest, alot more black people in Annapolis than I thought there'd be....but there are a LOT of white people too

At work today with this dude from PG County, he basically said its too white for him here, and that black people here are in The Sunken Place one brother was repping Annapolis hard, said they call it "Naptown" and PG dude was like man, these guys are just too different for me out here

But to your point, the shyt that happened to Black San Francisco, is happening to a ton of major cities across the nation. Hyper-gentrification, basically Negro Removal. Granted, I don't think most cities are as aggressive with their anti-blackness in today's climate as SF was (they started this shyt back in the 70s), but you can go from DC to Atlanta to St Louis to Chicago to New York to Miami to many other cities and clearly see the attack on historically black neighborhoods.

Fillmore today is like 15% black, but because it's SF, that makes it one of the blackest hoods in the city, one of the places where you at least see "some" black faces. But it is steeped in so much black history and lore, and there are a couple groups fighting to keep the remaining ownership black people have in SF.

I've been racially profiled in SF, treated like an afterthought, so there is some disdain there, but there is some love I have for The City. I would love for black people to come back there but for SF specifically, I think that ship has sailed. It'll never have a notably large black population again, not in our lifetimes, but the remaining black folk there need to hold on to what they have.

And I would say that for the residents of Anacostia and any area across the US that is seeing aggressive gentrification tactics. If black people helped establish what these areas became, don't willfully run into the night. Keep what's ours and build on it!

Worst racism I experienced was in San Francisco. A lot of people not even realizing they're being racist; thinking living in the Bay area means their politics are perfect.

 

[2 one 3]

Respect due, that's a great thing.

I'm so proud. It's been about a 3 year process with me talking to the city. When I first reached out to them, they said they had no record of my grandfather ever working there.

I had to go to the Santa Monica library to find an official fire fighter book made in 1988 which mentioned my grandfather. He told us so many stories about how racist his coworkers were and just people in the city.

I'm so glad I was able to cement his Legacy in the city and make it official. The city of Santa Monica people asked me if I was looking for any compensation or anything and I told them I just want my grandfather remembered for his contribution

 

[King Sun]

Worst racism I experienced was in San Francisco. A lot of people not even realizing they're being racist; thinking living in the Bay area means their politics are perfect.

Flip side my first racist encounter was with my family and Santa Monica PD in the mid 90s. One of those biker rental places on the boardwalk tried to play us.

 

[Dirty Mcdrawz]

I'm so proud. It's been about a 3 year process with me talking to the city. When I first reached out to them, they said they had no record of my grandfather ever working there.

I had to go to the Santa Monica library to find an official fire fighter book made in 1988 which mentioned my grandfather. He told us so many stories about how racist his coworkers were and just people in the city.

I'm so glad I was able to cement his Legacy in the city and make it official. The city of Santa Monica people asked me if I was looking for any compensation or anything and I told them I just want my grandfather remembered for his contribution

 

[King Poetic]

My family is originally from


Little Rock Arkansas and Louisiana ( mom side)

My dad side (from Illinois)

Family prior was out here since the 50s

Listening to the stories of how LA neighborhoods once was black and proud, all the neighbors communicated with each other , parents will monitor each other kid and make sure they wasn’t getting in trouble, neighborhood watch where families would make sure cops knew who was the cancers of the community and them nikkas would pick up and move


By the 70s, and the 80s neighborhoods became a warzone( THANKS LATE BORN BOOMERS) and then the 90s ( THANKS GENERATION X) where gangs was once at one point form to fight white racist but became anti us and everyone was out for self started destroying the neighborhoods for their own benefits

Today majority once black neighborhoods has become predominantly Hispanic and they are the ones like black families in the 50s and 60s is building they own shyt and got a lot of uneducated and broke nikkas looking like stray cats

A lot of my mom family moved back down south and my dad side i don’t really fukk with and a lot of them move to Cleveland Ohio

 

[murksiderock]

I can see how you feel about how some Black Californians being too integrated and not having boundaries. Some of these eses get too comfortable with a certain word . I do acknowledge the adjustment that Black West Coasters have and vice-versa. Just talking about how my experience was like from coming from hypersegregated Ohio, where sharing of cultures was rare, and coming to California where's there's not only racial diversity but a lot of cultural diversity within the Black community itself is here felt very nice. I do wish there's was a stronger Black identity and racial pride like the South but I'm in the camp where it's ok to share culture as long as you know your boundaries and respect it (for example, I didn’t know Mexican food was anything other than tacos and burritos before I moved out here and I'm a birria fiend) or how I didn’t discover Japanese fashion or Korean K-dramas until I moved here. I'm cool with sharing the wholesome parts of Black culture because I loved learning and trying other people's cultures but with boundaries as well.

Or maybe, this is just testament how Black people can partake in respectful cultural appreciation while non-Blacks often struggle with that


Either way, excellent response and I enjoyed doing this exercise. Rep!

I agree in that sharing culture is a good thing but in the process of doing so, we can't lose ourselves. Black southerners also share culture too, living in the South will show you that; but from afar it doesn't seem like it, it's less "diluted" so to speak, because there are so many black people in the South.

The most genuine people are able to enjoy aspects of other people's traditions without b*stardizing it and mocking us. In general black people who like traditionally nonblack food and style, we don't mock them or use their culture as an excuse for poor mannerisms. We respect people way more than they respect us.

My great grandfather on my fathers side came from Georgia around 1902 to become a Pullman porter in Oakland, he sacrificed and managed to get his son into the Union Pacific rail company, and my grandfather worked there for decades (I mentioned him before) and had more of his family come here. On my mothers side, my grandmother moved here in the early 1950s from North Carolina because her father got a job at the Ford auto plant in Southern California.

This is dope, you the one who has the deepest roots! 1902 man, thats good shyt.