The recent wildfires in Southern California has left many residents and families of the golden state in dismay, broken and devastated after mainly losing everything to Mother Nature’s ravenous path. Altadena, a city of African American prominence and affluence, was one of the areas that saw the Eaton fire destroy everything in its trajectory.
UC Santa Barbara Black Studies Professor Jeffery C. Stewart and author of “The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke,” recalled how his family and other African Americans sought a safe haven from racism in Altadena.
“We came from Chicago, which was a fairly Jim Crow situation,” he said.
“Before coming to Altadena, I think the only white people I ran into were when we went downtown, or we went to the store. I lived in a completely Black neighborhood, and when we moved to Altadena, we had white neighbors.”
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A Chicago native, Stewart moved with his family to Altadena at an early age.
“My family came in 1964. My sister, Jocelyn, had come out to go to UCLA. My mother, in particular, wanted to move out to California to be with my sister and get away from the gangs and all of that. So, she, my sister, was really the one who said, ‘Oh, you know, Altadena is a really nice area,’ and we were able to buy a new home relatively inexpensively. At the time, it was $25,000 for a new home in Altadena.”
Stewart attended John Muir High School, which he describes as a status shock. “Pasadena High School, (PHS), which was on the east side, had more of the white students. And of course, at the time I was there in the 60s, it was very clear that you could buy housing west of Lake Avenue,” he explained.
“But buying east of Lake was not usually the case. At the same time, I had people who were in my class and John Muir who lived east of Lake. So, there was a kind of class integration as well as racial that I think is unusual in Southern California.”
Fast forward to January 7, 2025, and now Stewart is watching the town he loved turn to rubble. Upon learning of the event, he was simply astonished.
“I was just stunned because there’s been other fires in the mountains. Altadena is right up against the mountains,” he said. “You have the experience of there being fires up in the hills, but they don’t come down and cross and come down in the community.”
His sister Jocelyn’s home was destroyed in the fire, yet, he states that help is being dispersed. “I will say that one thing that I have heard from my sister and other Black people is that FEMA is doing an excellent job.”
Many Altadena residents, who utilized a vast arts and music district, are nostalgic for former standing establishments.
“It had the Pasadena Playhouse, the Norton Simon Museum, the Ice House, which was a place where folk artists and jazz musicians played,” he said. The district inspired him to open his own hangout.
“I started in Isla Vista a pop-up coffee house connected with my class on the history of jazz. It’s called Jeffrey’s jazz coffee house. I was inspired, in a way, by the coffee houses that I went to when I was in high school down in Pasadena.”
He does feel sorrowful for the Altadena that once brought people of all kinds together.
“There’s an emotional devastation, I think, to the Black community as well as other communities that I think has to be reckoned with because this was a successful, a successful black community that was integrated,” he explained.
“It had this sense that here’s a livable Black community that doesn’t fit the stereotypes, that’s doing well, and now, how do you go about rebuilding it?”
Stewart does feel Black families should remain in Altadena and fight against certain politics.
“I think the homes themselves were kind of citadels of families and communities, and so I think Black homeownership is the thing that’s really taken the hit,” he said.
“I think that’s the hedge against gentrification. And then, since we have such a housing crisis in California in general where are you going to go? I hope that other elements of the Black community in L.A. would reach out and say, ‘Hey, let’s help!’”
