Stanley O. Williford, author of the book, “To Protect and Serve: The Volunteer World of Ozie Bell Gonzaque,” revealed to The Sentinel that he knew nothing of Mrs. Gonzaque before his boss, Mrs. Angela M. Evans, the CEO of Crenshaw Christian Center, introduced him to her as a potential subject for a book.
Apparently, many of her friends and important officials in Los Angeles not only knew of her work but also had been singing her praises for years. Mr. Williford agreed to interview her because she was a friend of Mrs. Evans.
Mr. Williford handles the publication of books written by Mrs. Evans’ dad, Apostle Frederick K.C. Price, who passed away at 89 in February last year. Mr. Williford has also ghost-written several books for other people, almost all Christians.
His background, however, is in newspaper work. He is a retiree from the Los Angeles Times, where he had been a reporter and copy editor. He has also worked as a copy editor for the Herald-Examiner, the Orange County Register, and has been a reporter for The Sentinel, an editor for Our Weekly and several other publications.
Mrs. Gonzaque had been retired for more than 17 years when Mr. Williford met her. She was 95-years-old, so there was an element of urgency in getting her book done. However, being totally unfamiliar with her and her background, he began his questioning from the ground up, so to speak, or from her birth in Fordyce, Arkansas, and her youth in Monroe, Louisiana. He was feeling out the reason for the book.
Complicating the work is the fact that he lived 40 miles away from Mrs. Gonzaque, but he drove to her residence just outside of Watts on many occasions to familiarize himself with her background. He didn’t begin to realize the breadth of her volunteering until their second or third meeting.
Those meetings, Mr. Williford said, were often three hours or longer recorded sessions, after which he would drive home, often in heavy traffic. At home, he was usually too tired to do more than type two or three pages of notes after having dinner. Then he would take in a little television and retire for the evening.
Around that third session he began to grasp Mrs. Gonzaque’s importance. He began to notice the history on the walls of her home – photos of several former mayors, including Tom Bradley, Richard Riordan and James Hahn, each of whom, he would learn, adored her.
There were plaques and awards from police chiefs, attorney generals and various others. There were letters from county sheriffs and judges. There were acknowledgements from such local representatives such as Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Assemblyman Mike Gipson.
There she was in pictures shaking hands with dignitaries and politicians. As he dug deeper into her past, Mr. Williford became aware of her impact on the city and, ultimately, the nation, almost always as an unsung volunteer.
Knowing her volunteer background, Bradley named her to the important Housing Authority Board of Commissioners of Los Angeles (HACLA) where she served for 18 years, the last eight as president. It was at HACLA that some of her greatest work was done.
Few people outside of city government knew this, but Mrs. Gonzaque is responsible for some of the major changes in public housing in Watts, East Los Angeles and around the nation. For those who are not aware, she is the major reason why public housing has begun to rid itself of its horrible history.
Mrs. Gonzaque came up with the concept of tearing down the old, dilapidated, gang-infested public housing and mixing the rebuilds with owner-purchased housing. The gist is that both the public housing and the owner-purchased housing are built with the same integrity.
One can’t tell who lives in the owner-purchased housing from those who live in publicly funded housing. She gave public housing dignity.
It began when she fought with HUD to tear down a housing project called Normont Terrace and to have it rebuilt as Harbor Village. Such a project had never been done before. There were people who bought into the rebuild even though they were well-off enough to have purchased property in almost any other part of the city. Harbor Village was just that nice.
Here’s a quote from Mr. Williford’s book about Mrs. Gonzaque: “Ultimately, or perhaps inevitably, Ozie got a development in her name. Formerly called Hacienda Village, it is now named Gonzaque Village, the brainchild of former Mayor Riordan and former Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich, who were determined to name the project after the woman who revolutionized a large portion of the public housing industry.”
Later, Mayor Hahn would not let her retire from HACLA until after the dedication of Pueblo del Sol, another rebuild with mixed public housing and owner-purchased housing in East Los Angeles. Hahn wanted her to be acknowledged for her work.
According to Mr. Williford, what also is not generally known is that Mrs. Gonzaque was one of the main people subpoenaed to testify before the McCone Commission after the Watts Riot. As she entered, the building to testify, an official outside the hearing room asked her what the LAPD meant to her.
She told him the police department’s duty was “to protect and serve.” He told her to write the words in a note and put the note into a suggestion box. All this is detailed in the book Mr. Williford wrote on her entitled, “To Protect and Serve: The Volunteer World of Ozie Bell Gonzaque.”
About six months after her testimony before the McCone Commission the words “to protect and to serve” were on the police cars. The LAPD website gives credit for the slogan to an officer named Joseph S. Dorobek, but Mrs. Gonzaque says she was the first to come up with the wording except for the second word “to.”
Mr. Williford reveals that almost all the work Mrs. Gonzaque did for and around the city was volunteer work. Her then-husband, Roy Gonzaque, knew she had a heart for volunteering, so early-on he encouraged her to leave her job and become a full-time volunteer. Roy then took on the full support of the family.
Much of her work was done for Watts and its residents and for many of the disenfranchised in other parts of the city because Roy gave her the freedom to do it. None of it was done for personal glory. In addition, she devoted 25 years as a rater for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Being such a longtime volunteer, Mrs. Gonzaque rarely benefited from her work, which lasted more than 30 years. Other than her volunteering for the city, she spent eight years in a paid position on the police department’s board of rights.
Mrs. Gonzaque still lives in the house near Watts that she found for her family eighty years ago. I might also add that Mrs. Gonzaque is no withering rose. She is feisty, and she will tell anyone who thinks he or she can pull something over on her where to get off. She might even sprinkle in a few salty words.
At 96, she has an excellent memory. She knows a lot of inside information on some of the top people in the city. She is one of the few Black people – maybe the only one – who were able to get an audience with former police chief William H. Parker, who was much despised in the minority communities. While he had few-to-no admirers in the Black community, he seemed to welcome Mrs. Gonzaque’s input.
Mr. Williford feels that everyone in the city needs to know of her volunteerism. People in Watts need to know of her battles on Watts’ behalf. This is a book that those who are disenfranchised might enjoy, and a book that those who are privileged might learn from. Her book needs to be in libraries, and she should be interviewed on TV.
“To Protect and Serve: The Volunteer World of Ozie Bell Gonzaque” is available on Amazon.
