 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Angela Scott and I'm the library assistant here at the Billie Jean King Main Library's Miller Special Collections Room. On behalf of our senior librarian, Jade Wheeler, our Special Collections Librarian, Jeff Whalen, and all of our staff here at the Long Beach Public Library, I'd like to welcome you to our newest online event, where the Miller Rooms Local History Lecture Series. Today we are pleased to present a fascinating program delving into the history of African-Americans in Long Beach and Southern California, presented by our special guest, local author, historian, and retired LBPL librarian, Claudine Burnett. This is one of a series of programs that will be featured periodically in the Miller Room throughout the year, in addition to a variety of lecture series on architecture and historic preservation, arts and culture, the art of nature, the spoken word, as well as our Miller Room book club and short story reading group, our poetry and fiction writing workshops, art programming, musical performance programs, and much more. Please keep an eye on our LBPL calendar and website for upcoming events, and we hope you'll join us again for more of these special programs as they become available. Now, while we have you all here, we'd also like to mention some of our upcoming Miller Room programming for July. On Saturday, July 17th from 2.30 to 4 p.m., please join us for our next Miller Room book club meeting. This month we'll be discussing the 1891 classic work of philosophical and Gothic fiction, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Irish author and playwright, Oscar Wilde. The Miller Room book club reads a rotating selection of fiction and non-fiction books, as well as short stories that generally focus on the Miller Room study topics and special collections relating to the arts and performing arts, Asian culture and heritage, local and California history, libraries and archives, and much more. This book club is currently meeting online via Zoom and preregistration RSVPs are necessary. For more information or to join the Miller Room book club's email list, visit our LBPL website at www.lbpl.org and sign up via the program's Eventbrite link on our homepage or event calendar, or you can message me here in the live chat or call the main library for further details. In addition, please join us on Saturday, July 24th from 3 to 4.30 p.m. for our first artists workshop event entitled, A Collaborative Art Project and Conversation with Installation Artist Olga Law, moderated by artist educator Rebecca Gysking. Known for expansive installations, both indoor and outdoor, that utilize ordinary materials, Olga will lead attendees through an art-making project utilizing wire mesh and paint that will be brought together to create a community-made installation at an off-site exhibit location. Limited art supply kits to facilitate this art project will be available to the public and will be distributed first-come, first-serve via online registration. We also wish to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to Art Supply Warehouse in Stanton for their generous support by providing these free art kits for our program. This program will take place currently online via Zoom and registration is required to attend. If something changes with our location for the programming, we will be sure to let you know. So again, please visit our website and event calendar to sign up for this Zoom program. Advanced registration and art supply kits are available for sign-up now online. And please stay tuned for other Miller Room programs that will be rolling out in the next few months. And then finally, just a reminder that our summer reading program just began last Saturday, June 19th and will run through Saturday, August 14th. We also kicked off a year-round 50 book challenge back in January. So if you've made a resolution to read more books in 2021, these are great ways to get started. So again, check out our website at lbpl.org to learn more, sign up and have fun reading, earning prizes and checking reading goals off your list. And this program today will also earn you a merit badge for the summer reading program. So don't forget to apply for that. Now, getting back to our program for today, it is our pleasure to once again welcome and introduce our featured speaker this afternoon, Claudine Burnett. She is the former head of the literature and history department of the Long Beach Public Library until she retired in 2004 and is a member of various historical societies. She received a bachelor's degree in history from UC Irvine, a master's in library and information science from UCLA and a master's in public administration from Cal State University Long Beach. As a former librarian for LBPL, Claudine spent 25 years pouring over old microfilm newspapers in the main library's periodicals department where she created the library's Long Beach History Index which you can find on our website. Her quest for information began with researching the year 1881, when William Wilmore created the town that would eventually take the name of Long Beach and this was the year when the Los Angeles Times began publishing. While researching the LA Times, the Los Angeles Herald and all the Long Beach newspapers that eventually came into being, she kept discovering stories about wonderful people and events that helped to shape not only Long Beach but Southern California as well. Even though she indexed the articles and made selective copies for the library's files, she feared that these wonderful tales full of valuable information would remain forgotten unless she did something about it and she certainly has through the many books that she's written about Long Beach History. Claudine has won numerous awards for her books and articles about Southern California history and has also appeared on national radio and TV. She continues to write books on local history, all of which you can find in the library's collections. She writes articles for numerous local newspapers and she also writes regularly for her column for the Signal Hill Tribune as well as for her blogs and her website at ClaudineBernettBooks.com. In today's program, Claudine will delve into the history, culture and contributions of our African American community to the growth and development of Long Beach and Southern California based on extensive research called from her newest book. At the end of today's program, if there's time, we'll also have a Q&A session, which will be moderated through our chat. If you have any questions, please type them into the chat bar and you'll see a chat button at the bottom of your screen. And you can type and submit your questions there and questions will be answered as time permits. The program will officially end at 4 p.m. if you need to leave, but you're welcome to stay and continue asking questions via chat until about 4.10 if there are any questions that remain. We'll also be sending out an email in the future with a link to the archive video recording of this program so you can watch it later at your leisure. Finally, if you're having any difficulty with your audio or video during the program, please let us know in the chat so we can try to assist you remotely. So thank you again for joining us today, everyone. And without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the Miller Room is pleased to present our very special guest, local author, historian and retired LBPL librarian, Claudine Burnett. Hello, everybody. Thank you for tuning in today to hear about my latest book, African Americans in Long Beach in Southern California at History. And as Angela just mentioned, I'm a retired Long Beach Public Library librarian who spent over 25 years going through newspapers to compile the library's Long Beach History Index. And this allowed me access to largely forgotten aspects of local history, which I've used in writing my other books. And here's a picture of some of them. But little was written about the African American experience but recently digitized African American newspapers such as the California Eagle Open New Territory for Research. And I spent five arduous years going through these sources to pull up new information. Now I had meant to end the book and research where Aaron Day and Indira Hale and Seven Heritage of African Americans in Long Beach in the most part begins, which is 1940, but I uncovered much more lost information. It ends in the 1800s and continues to 1970, reaching into later years to describe what that history has led to today. And it intertwines Long Beach History with the African American experience in Southern California. And it's a long book, 429 pages, but it includes a complete bibliography, which I hope scholars in the future will appreciate. Footnotes and of course being a librarian, it had to have an index. Well, what became frustrating in doing research were the missing newspapers that would have added much to the history. And the 1932 Olympics is one example. Prior to the 1932 Olympics, the California Eagle offered to sponsor any black athlete who needed assistance. All who expected to run, jump, swim, wrestle or compete in the many divisions were invited to register with the Eagle. And the Eagle vowed to be the headquarters for black athletes from all over the world. News to get busy, register with the Eagle so the newspaper could tell the world their story. But fortunately, copies of the Eagle with the stories were not reserved. Well, copies of these missing newspapers will be found in some archive and more can be added to the history of African Americans in Long Beach and Southern California. Now, what question I get asked is why did I embark on such a task since I am not African American? Well, my response is I may not be black but I am a research librarian who loves the challenge of finding and writing about forgotten pieces of history. So let me share a little bit of what I discovered by giving you a glimpse of what you will find in the book. Now, it begins before there was a Long Beach with the Gold Rush in 1845 when there were just a handful of African Americans in California. The 1850 U.S. census showed a total population of 92,597 in the state, not including Native Americans and 962 African Americans. And of these African Americans, all but 12 were living in Northern counties. However, what white settlers and the census takers neglected to see was that the state was largely colonized by those with Afro-Dane entered the slave trade in the 15th century, African, Indigenous and European blood commingled and many of those with mixed blood were recruited into the Spanish Armed Forces and later became settlers. And though the practice of slavery in Mexican territories was abolished in 1829, their racially mixed descendants such as Pio Pico, shown here, were behind the colonization of California in the 18th century. And of the 44 original founders of the city of Los Angeles, 26 were of African and Mestizo descent. Now, in fact, the 2014 study of DNA reveals that most Mexicans today have about 5% African DNA. Now, California was admitted to the union as a free state in 1849. However, black men could not vote on property, testifying, or serving in militia. All it took was for someone to claim ownership of an African American and since blacks were forbidden to testify in court, an African American would not be allowed to state his case for freedom, which is the case of Nate Harrison, who I talk about in the book, who fled to the remote area of Mount Palomar. Okay, here he is. In the 1850s to be as far away as possible from civilization and those who would return him to slavery under the fugitive slave law. Now, many African Americans fought in the Civil War. Two who settled in Long Beach are buried in local cemeteries. And some of you may remember the story of Abraham and Amanda Klee as narrated by Zadie Cannon, shown here for the Historical Society of Long Beach's annual cemetery tour. Then there is Harry Stubblefield, who I found by looking at Civil War military history enlisted in the Union Army, but later deserted. And I wondered why he deserted. And though I could find no definite answer, I did find a few interesting details. White soldiers were paid $13 a month, which would be about $275 today, including clothing and rations. Well, black soldiers received only $10 in rations with $3 removed for clothing. And to make matters worse, because of their intense physical work duties, the clothing blacks paid for wore out more fat quicker than white soldiers. And that also cut into their pay. And ironically, as you can see on this chart, black civilian laborers were paid more than twice as much as black or white soldiers with monthly wages of $25, which included rations. Now, we all know of the Golden Spike driven into the rail line at Promontary Point, Utah, when the Pacific Coast was connected to the rest of the continent by rail in May 1869. However, the event meant little more to Southern Californians than if they had been citizens of the Hawaiian Islands. Separated by rail, by 450 miles of dirt road or open sea, all Southern Californians could do was wait for the railroad to get to them, which it finally did on September 5th, 1876. And with the arrival of the Southern Pacific, the number of African Americans in Southern California increased. And they had been pivotal in constructing the railroad and later acting as brakemen, firemen, mechanics, porters, cooks, and waiters. And railroad work was steady and it paid better than many of the other jobs opened to blacks. And as a result, many railroad men staffed middle class in the black community and provided leaders. If they saved their money, they could buy houses and real estate, help build churches and with luck, even send some of their children to college. The advent of the Pacific Electric, excuse me, the Southern Pacific into Southern California, also brought Long Beach founder, William Wilmore, back to the region. And he had been here before in 1870 and sitting on the mesa where Anaheim and Long Beach Boulevard now meet, he first conceived the idea of founding a colony. In 1880, he set out to achieve his dream. And there's much more to Wilmore's story told in the book, but I will say he was forced to leave his name's fake town, Wilmore City, when he couldn't keep up payments to the original landowner, Jotham Bixby. Now let's just give you a glimpse of what Long Beach looked like in the 1880s. So new investors took over the town and they renamed it Long Beach. And they realized they needed a first-class hotel to lure tourists to the new town and they built the luxurious Long Beach hotel. Now, if you look at this photo, you'll also see that it shows what was the infamous get out and push railroad, which Long Beach was famous for. And it was the main way to get to Long Beach and the Southern Pacific had a direct line to Wilmington and from there, people had to get on this real mind to get to Long Beach. The problem was the hills and some were too steep for the horses to make it with passengers. So the passengers had to get out and push. And a few years later, I'm happy to say the Southern Pacific built a line directly into Long Beach. Now, the first mention I found of African-Americans in Long Beach was from an 1884 article in the Los Angeles Tarot. And we don't know the names of the African-Americans or where they came from. Just a brief mention in the article that there were colored waiters employed at the Long Beach Hotel. Now, times were good for the hotel and for Long Beach. In 1887, the Atchison, Tepeka and Santa Fe Railroad with the help of its African-American workforce reached Southern California. And immediately Southern California was swept into a war between the two competing rail lines. And previously, the passenger rate from Missouri to Southern California had been approximately $125, which would be $3,370 today, not cheap. But the rate probably dropped $100 when the Santa Fe entered Southern California. And prices continued to fall as each line undercut the other. On March 6th, 1887, the Southern Pacific meant the Santa Fe rate of $12. In a matter of hours, the rate dropped to $8 and then to $6, then $4. And by noon on March 6th, the Santa Fe was advertising a rate of $1 per passenger. Well, the Eastern States were flooded with publicity on local climate and the Exodus to Southern California began. And Long Beach and all Southern California prospered with this great boom brought on by the railroad price war. And visitors seeing for themselves the agricultural prospects for the region began to purchase property. And real estate sales escalated at an unbelievable pace. Between January 1st, 1887 and July 1889, over 60 new towns embracing 80,000 acres were laid out in Southern California. However, the laborers needed to build these new towns was diminished with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And African-Americans were recruited to fill the void. They were told of the wonderful opportunities awaiting them in Southern California. And one circular distributed in the South quoted an African-American who had relocated from North Carolina to California. And he stated, jobs were plentiful and fabulous wages were being offered. He claimed 25,000 men and women were needed because the Chinese were being run out of the state by the Chinese Exclusion Law, which also prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers. And the circular declared servants were in demand. A male cook could make $75, 2167 today. Female house servants, 25, hotel waiters, 75, farmhands, 25, wood choppers, $2 per cord, carpenters, $5 per day, brick mason's $4.50. So did the ads work? All we know is that there were 188 African-Americans in Los Angeles County in 1880. Now at this time, Los Angeles County also included Orange County, which didn't become a separate county until 1889. And the numbers increased, as you can see from this chart, with a big jump in 1944. And I'll be talking more about this later. However, tough times were ahead. 1888 marked the peak of the California land rush. And after that, the boom proceeded to skid downwards at that promoter stride to ignore. And nevertheless, Long Beach still boasted of having one of the major hotels in California, the Long Beach Hotel, which you saw earlier, but this is from a different angle. And soon things were to change when a fire broke out in the early morning of November 8th, 1888, which destroyed the Elegant Hotel. And somehow, Long Beach managed to survive. The turn of the century saw 21 African-Americans living in Long Beach, which then had a population of 2,252. And the professions of these early black settlers included seamstress, cook, housekeeper, dairyman, shoe shiner, painter, and nurse. The majority, however, were employed as farm laborers, working in citrus groves and the sugar beet fields. In 1906, a group of Baptist African-Americans led by the Reverend Jason Lee brought a dozen families from the overcrowded districts of St. Louis to Southern California. Now Lee purchased land at Alamedos in Anaheim for a new African-American community. And later, in 1912, the Second Baptist Church of Long Beach moved to this area. Now, there's a lot more in the book about the church and their ministers. And some of you may remember the blog I posted last week on the Reverend Thurston Lomax, who accomplished so much for the community before he died of tuberculosis at the young age of 28. Now, this area became known as the Negro District, which I've outlined here, which is now Central Long Beach. And it stretched from Tenth to Hill and from Linden to Cherry. And it would not become part of Long Beach until 1923 with another section to the north here added in 1924. In 1910, Long Beach was promoted as the fastest growing city in the United States. All of this development taking place because of the Pacific Electric and the development of the harbor. And this growth also brought financing for a new luxury hotel, something only to do without since the Long Beach hotel was destroyed in 1885 and six floors of the center wing of the new hotel identified as D.I. White, who still trembling, climbed into the smoking debris. White himself had fallen five stories and was dug out of the wreckage almost unharmed. And he took charge and worked for hours before he collapsed of exhaustion. All in all, 10 workmen died and 10 more were seriously injured. And that hotel Bixby was renamed the Hotel Virginia. And well, another local factor that changed the city was the 1920s and 30s America. And in the decade, 1920 to 1930, over two million people moved to California. 72% of whom settled in Southern California. In 1920, for example, the population of Long Beach was 55,593. And by 1923, it had 26,833 as thousands rushed to the area seeking employment in the new oil industry. Now, this period from 1940, from 1920 to 1940, though some say it begins earlier in 1950, 15 is called the first great migration by those studying African-American history. And it was a time when some 1.6 million rural Southern African-Americans moved to urban areas of the country seeking better economic opportunities and fleeing harsh segregationist laws. You can see this on the chart as they headed north. And they largely bypassed Southern California until the second great migration in 1940, as this map shows. And cities like Detroit, New York, and Chicago saw a tremendous increase in the black pop in the place of many white-skilled cities who headed west to seek a new future of their own. A pun society happening, such as this one from Eleanor Ramsey Washington in the California Eagle. And Mrs. Washington was perfect for the jerk in a central Long Beach area store and customers love to linger and tell her the latest happenings that were going on. Well, as the migration to Southern California increased, more and more areas became inhospitable to blacks. And it all started after the film, Earth of the Nation. Which came out in 1915. And it portrayed black men as an intelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women. It also presented the Klu Klux Klan as a heroic force against a barbaric black race. Now it was amazing to me to learn that in the early 1920s, many in the local African-American community believed the Klan was doing them no harm. They were just trying to get blacks back to their homeland in Africa. And to achieve this, the Klan sent agents among the black community, telling them of the vital climate and the rich soil in Africa. Their African homeland was a place where all kinds of wild fruit grew, where there were no white men to rape their women and lynch their men, where they could make their own laws and where freedom would be, and I quote, unlimited as the sunshine. All people of African descent were chased out of the minister speaking in Long Beach in 1922, thanks. He claimed no organization ever set up in America was as good a friend of blacks as the KKK. The group attempted to protect African-Americans from labor unions and against efforts to make them Catholic. The Klan simply stated would guarantee African-Americans a second place in American society with no fear of competition from Jews, Catholics, or immigrants. And this was the country the Klan was going to curate and the rule blacks would have if they chose to remain in America. Now there's much in the book about the Klan in Long Beach and here's a picture of them actually gathering on a single previously been stationed and the hundred Navy officers and their family now lived in Long Beach, a larger number than any other city in the nation. And families of thousands of sailors in the fleet also resided here. In that same year, the Navy lifted its racial segregation policy, which had been listened all together from 1919 to 1932, though they were only allowed to be stewards, cooks, and as attendants. Hey, Claudine, just a quick little comment. We're having a little trouble with the audio. I mean, we can hear you, it's just you're going in and out a little bit. So if you could just talk a little bit louder, that might help for the folks who can't hear. Okay, thank you. I hope it's better now. Okay. Okay, with the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939, the United States began strengthening its defenses and preparing itself for possible entry into what was quickly becoming a worldwide conflict. Defense production skyrocketed locally as workers from all over the country headed west, including many Southern blacks. This and the reinstitution of the US draft in 1940 brought more and more African-Americans to Long Beach, either as servicemen or war workers. And this period in time came to be known as the second great migration. That encompassed the period of 1940 up to 1970. And the green arrow on the left, on this chart you saw earlier, shows that migration. However, there were few areas in which these new African-Americans could live outside the segregated Navy housing in West Long Beach. Or Central Long Beach, known as the Negro District back then. And the two areas are shown on this map. You can see the west side and the area shown earlier, known as Central Long Beach. Now, can you imagine having an African-American population of 610 in 1940, increasing to 6,000 by 1944, forced to live in these two grand areas? Well, things hadn't changed by the 1950s when the census reported 8,566 blacks living in Long Beach. However, only a few blacks lived outside the Central District and West Long Beach. One white west side resident in the early 1960s told reporters the real estate agents came to people's homes, introduced themselves and did everything to incite panic selling. Homeowners were told whether they liked it or not, the west side would be totally black and it would be a good idea to sell. And realtors pointed out that the west side of Long Beach cut off from the rest of Long Beach by the Los Angeles River would be ideal for a predominantly black community because there were only three or four entrances which could easily be sealed off to prevent a riot spreading to the rest of Long Beach. African-American buyers wanting to move out of the Negro District were told there was nothing in their price range outside west Long Beach and were referred to real estate offices close to the west side. And it would not be until the Civil Rights Act of 1968, past four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. that real changes in real estate practices would take place. Well, in researching the book, one discovery led to another. Dr. Kate Regal led me to papers at the University of Missouri on USO activities in Long Beach during World War II. And I was able to use much of this research in writing about the African-American USO located on the northwest corner of Lewis and Anaheim streets. The way the papers also mentioned two American Army chemical unit station in Long Beach which I had never heard of. And this set me on a long quest to find out more. And when researchers at the Army Research Library and National Archives found nothing, I turned to a little-known history source called the History Hub. And it's a wonderful site where you can post a question and anyone with an answer gets back to you. And a Hub researcher led me to several obscure mentions of the unit in military texts. And thanks to the Hub, I was able to piece together a history of the 400 African-American troops stationed in Long Beach to protect that this aircraft by camouflaging the area with smoke during possible enemy attacks. And though camouflaging the area with smoke during the war was uncommon, camouflage itself was as shown here of camouflage at the Lockheed plant. But Douglas wanted to take extra precautions after the Japanese allegedly attacked Southern California in February 1942. And I won't go into detail because you'll find all of the information in the book. But I want to say I was proud to share my findings with others on the Hub, leading to a better understanding of an overlooked, mostly forgotten African-American World War II Army unit. Now I've already shared some of the stories of Long Beach African-Americans in the book. But there are not those as well known as Ernest McBride, Senior, Priscilla Gray, Harry Lindsay, and Willie White. There was George Hawkins, shown here in the Czech suit, being made fun of by the White Press. And Hawkins owned a ranch in the Los Cerritos area and was prominent in California African-American politics in the early years of the 20th century. And he led a campaign to do away with the law, making it illegal for whites and blacks to marry and another to prohibit lynchings. I'm sorry to say he was unsuccessful. The law banning interracial marriage remained until 1948 when it was voided by the California Supreme Court. Though it remained forbidden in 31 other states until 1967. And lynching would not be banned until 2018 after 200 failed attempts to do so. Elisha Lane led the fight against a game on the pike known as drowning the N word, which consisted of dunking or participating African-American into a tank of water by hitting a target with a baseball. And Lane was told by Long Beach authorities that there was no legal method of prohibiting the game. Unless it was shown the sport encouraged rheumatism, in which case the humane society might have power to order the sport discontinued. Well, Charlie and Ethel Haynes were among those who helped form the National Association of Real Estate Brokers when the White National Association of Real Estate Brokers refused to admit black members. They were prohibited from using the term realtor and instead coined it the term real tits. Now I could go on and on, but it would take an entire program just to talk about the many African-Americans discussed in the book. I also don't have time to touch on a role of religion and the importance of the Second Baptist and Grant AME Church in Long Beach or the search for places allowing African-Americans recreational opportunities such as beaches. Now there's been much in the press recently about Bruce's Beach, which I also write about, but not so much has been written about this club in Huntington Beach, which was burned to the ground days before it was scheduled to open. There were places African-Americans were allowed such as Val Verde, Lake Elsinore, Murray's Dude Ranch. And here in Long Beach, there was the Congo Club, Colored Elks Club and the Wave Cafe. Also, there's no time to discuss the music and sports scene, police brutality, riots, unrest at Polly High School where students were searched for weapons before entering school. Also, lengthened discrimination in housing, employment, restaurants and racism found even in Long Beach is famed Miss Universe Pageant with Miss Mark Neek, Jeanette, Zidalees Montez shown on the left the first black contestant. Then there's the conclusion of the book which discusses African-Americans of the past and what they fought for and what their efforts have led to today, such as the rise in black education, the decrease in poverty, which as you can see from this chart is still highest among African-Americans and the increase in home ownership. And we must not forget Michelle Obama, born in 1964 in the midst of the civil rights movement who has learned success isn't about how much money you make, it's about the difference you make in people's lives. And with that, I conclude my program and I am open to any questions. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you, Claudia. It's just been wonderful. So we're going to turn to the Q and A portion of our program. If anyone wants to submit questions in the chat that they'd like to have answered, please do so now by clicking on the chat button and type your question in the chat bar if you haven't done so already. We're gonna answer questions in first come, first served order. So just a few quick questions to start with. First of all, for anyone who's interested in getting a copy of this book, we do have it available at each of our library locations here in the Long Beach Public Library system. But Claudine, if folks wanna get their own copy or maybe a signed copy, how can they go about doing that? Well, since COVID virus is just being lifted, it's hard to get the people to get a signed copy. But the Historical Society of Long Beach is one source for them to go to. And also you can get copies from Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble website. And it is available too as an e-book. And hopefully this year Historical Society of Long Beach last year was put on virtually and it was a marvelous presentation. So it's going to be held I believe on October 30th and I should be there if you do buy copies and you want to bring the book on in to have it sold. And I'm sure the Historical Society will also be sending it as well as other publications on Long Beach history. Thank you so much. We just wanna thank you Claudine because we know that you donate all your copies to the library to make them available and accessible to our reading public. So thank you for your generosity as well for donating all of those copies to us so people can read all about these important topics in our local history. And thank you to Charlotte for your question about that. So William has a question. Was Long Beach mentioned in the green book? Yes, it was. There were very few places in Long Beach outside of the Negro district that they could stay but there were a few boarding houses. I've heard that Long Beach was mentioned though I've not actually seen it in print. I have not seen a copy of the green book. And for those folks who don't know what the green book is can you just explain what that is? Yes, it was a book that was published that African-Americans would use if they were traveling anywhere across the United States city to city that showed those areas and where that welcomed blacks where they could eat and where they could perhaps find accommodations. Wow. Okay, so thank you. We do have a question from Christina saying did you say lynching was made illegal not until 2018 or did she misunderstand that? No, no, 2018, isn't that amazing? There were over 200 attempts to do so. Yes, unbelievable, but true. That is insane. Some of the laws that are still on the books or not laws that aren't on the books I guess too. Yes, amazing. I also found it amazing that it took so long for African-Americans and whites to be able to be married legally. California was ahead of its time allowing it in 1948 but not until the Supreme Court of the United States deemed it allowable was it deemed accessible in the other states of the union in 1971. Okay, well, well, Christina had a follow-up question. Was that federal or state law regarding lynching being illegal? It was a federal law. Okay, and then Teresa wanted to know is the lynching law of 2018 in California or the US? So I guess that would be federally, it's everywhere now. Yes, yes, you can find more about it if you just go to the internet. It will give you the whole history of the law of lynching. The many courses that went through. Oh my goodness. Okay, we have comments. Also, just thanks, expressed by Yvette. Thank you for this wonderfully informative presentation. Kay Briegel, thank you, Claudine. This is a wonderful contribution to our knowledge about Long Beach history. And she looks forward to seeing you at this year's cemetery tour. Well, Kay was a great help in helping me write the book. Yes, oh, wonderful, oh, wonderful. Thank you, Kay, for joining us today for all of your assistance. Okay, so we have another question. Will the Historical Society of Long Beach be including stories of African-Americans in their annual cemetery tour this year? You did touch upon it a little bit. I think they will. There's the very interesting story of Reverend Hardy from the Second Baptist Church who actually killed one of his parishioners and was sentenced to San Quentin. And I won't go into details. You can either go to the cemetery tour to learn more about that or read about it in the book. Oh boy, that's a good thing to follow up on there. I've got my copy right here, so I'm jumping in. You'll find him in the index. Okay, wonderful. Let's see, why would people... This was a question I had. It was a number of slides back in your presentation, but you mentioned the different pay rates for African-Americans working as soldiers. And then also, I think the other option was laborers. Yes, isn't that amazing? Why would anyone want to enlist as a soldier if you could sign up as a laborer and make more money and not get shot at? Like that just befuddles me. Did you learn anything more? I guess patriotism and wanting to free the slaves would be the reason behind that. Definitely, it was not money. Yes, sounds like it. Okay, also you mentioned something about the real estate industry, and I had actually heard from a real estate agent who'd been in her late seven dishes and working for over 50 years, but she was saying she found it absolutely shocking and astonishing that when she found out as a realtor that she wasn't allowed to sell homes to blacks for a while, and can you elaborate anymore on that? No, probably not. They just weren't allowed because once people felt that once a black person moved into the area, real estate prices would go down. And that was just the way things were. And still continues to be that way today among different ethnic groups that would move into an area saying that it would drive out the white owners to go ahead and flee. I wonder how many real estate agents would be dissuaded, though, by the commission they could get off the sale. So let's hope that's true. Well, they would get more if more houses went on the market because of, quote, an ethnic minority they didn't approve of moving into the area. Okay, so we have more questions from William who's asking or stating that there's more information about the Green Book on the internet, which is very interesting. Yes. Okay, and Kay wanted to mention that Historical Society of Long Beach hopes that Zady Cannon, whose photo you showed, will be back to present another story this year. Let's hope. And Zady is a wonderful actress actor. Theresa made a comment. The military provides room and board as well during wartime or also was that after, you know, with the military bases in the area, do you know anything more about housing on military? There's quite a bit in the book about housing of the military. Of course, those that were in the military were housed. It was their families that moved into housing in the West Long Beach area because that was closest to the Navy base. Okay. And that's why they had Navy housing and of which we still have the remnants of that today. Was it segregated in any regard? Yes, it was in the beginning. And the housing that was built for African-Americans was put up very quickly and was later deemed to be substandard. The number of African-American children came down with allergies and chest problems and whatnot because the accommodations in the African-American part of the housing were on slab floors and they couldn't get carpeting. They couldn't be moved to the other units. It's all there in the book if you wanna learn more. These are good questions from folks in our audience. Sam and Linda Draga, welcome. Were African-Americans welcomed as customers or as employees in local stores like Buffums or Walkers? No, no, that's also talked about in the book. The local branch of the NAACP had to lead a strike against some of the stores that would not hire African-Americans and they were successful. If you were hired in a department store which came later basically after the war and you were African-American, you had to go ahead and work as a clerk or something in the back where you wouldn't be seen. Another thing was they were allowed to shop sometimes in some of the white stores. But for instance, if you wanted to try on a hat in a store and you were African-Americans, you had to make sure that you put on some kind of a head covering before you put the hat on your head. Okay, so we also have another question. Oh, a statement, you mentioned Poly High with 1969 with the getting searched at the doors. I remember as a former student at Poly High when I was there later, decades later, but they were still, they still do searches at the gates. I think it's just one of those things for everybody. They're just taking their precautions, but for sure. I know, isn't it a shame what the world has come to? Yes, it is. Let's see, so what other research or writing projects are you working on now that people can look forward to learning more about? Well, in writing this book, I had to take the break every once in a while because what I was finding was a little bit intense. And I also have a tendency to put away a project for a few months and then look back upon it with new eyes. And so I'm working on a fun project with my sister-in-law who's an illustrator. And this one is called Animal Tales, Some a Little Fishy where I go ahead and look back at stories that have been told about personal pets, fish that have been discovered off our coast and all sorts of other fun things. And that's going to be coming out hopefully next year. And then some of you in the historic community may remember Polly Johnson. She was the last of basically the harness and her grandfather and grandmother came over from England in 1889 and they settled the Long Beach area. And Polly had been working on a project for a number of years, going through notes and other things that her aunt Ivy had left behind. And Ivy along the way had been wanting to write a book about what early Long Beach was like when they came here. And so Polly died unfortunately in December of last year and I had promised her way back when that I would help her with the book. So I now have two boxes and 10 notebooks full of all of her notes, which I'm putting together to hopefully give us a better idea of life in Long Beach in the early days. That's wonderful mentioning people, this journal, but how many people from the African-American community or with primary sources that you could call from how many people were you able to interface with and putting the book together? I did send it out. I think I don't know if Erin is out there, Erin Day, but he was one of the ones that I sent it out to. And he was able to comment and I did send it out to a number of others who came back with comments. That's really great to have that opportunity for peer review in the community. Charlotte wants to let you know animal tails are getting a resounding yay from her, so. Oh boy, Charlotte. Yes, a lot of good cat stories in there. Yes, and then what were some of the most, maybe some of the most rewarding things that you took away from your research on this topic or any stories in general that just really touched your heart? Well, there was just so much that I founded Lightning about the treatment of African-Americans and sort of why things are the way that they are today by going through the legislation and conditions that they had to live under. And I think the thing that I was most impressed was was what happened in the 1960s that led to a lot of increase in education and which I think is the key to everything but how things just sort of slid by for a number of years and things started to get bad again. And I'm just so happy that things are being brought to the attention again of the public and that hopefully things will continue to get better for the African-American community. Well, your research is certainly helping to uncover lots of stories from all different sides of the spectrum that pertain to this topic. So I think it's a big contribution. I wanna thank you for that and members of our audience have also said the same thing. Thank you. So right now it's actually four o'clock. So if anyone needs to leave right away, we'd like to thank you again for joining us but if you have any other questions for Claudine, if you can't stay, please leave a message in the chat with your name and email contact info and she'll follow up with you at a later time. We'll be sure to get her those questions. Otherwise, we'll hang around for a few more minutes. Anyone else has anything they'd like to comment on or inquire about? Charlotte says, thank you again. This was an amazing presentation. We can all echo. Thank you, Charlotte. You're my number one fan. And William says, thank you very much. Very informative and interesting presentation. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us. Quick question. Let's see. Yeah, again, we just wanna mention that if people have any more questions or interest in African-American history in Long Beach and Southern California or in any other topics along these lines, we do have lots of resources in our library collection, including copies of Claudine's book, African-Americans in Long Beach. There's a copy available at each of our library or locations that can be requested and sent to whichever library branch you want to pick it up from that has to go services or grab and go. Please also check out our online catalog on our website or call us if you have any other questions for more information. Teresa didn't make a comment. Education is important that all of us understand all people are equal and we really need to get safety and rights into law so that all are protected. Here, here. Yeah, good comments. Okay, so folks, if you have any other questions, please take this opportunity to type them into the chat or any final parting comments for Claudine, just as we're getting ready to head out. We'll wait around for a few more minutes just to see if anybody has anything that they're typing and submitting. But otherwise, thank you again for joining us. Debra, thank you very much, Claudine. You're very welcome. Thank you for tuning in. Yes, and do you have any other lectures coming up that you might be doing in the future now that things are starting to open up again? I'm definitely going to be getting you back to the library or on a Zoom, however you want to do it for another program in the future. I know other programs at this time. At this time, okay. I'm going to start traveling again. Oh boy, that will be fun. I know a lot of people are going to be taking that opportunity over the summer with things easing a little bit with our COVID situation. All right, I'll just take a minute or so more. And Claudine, what other organizations you mentioned, we mentioned in the bio for you that you work with other historical organizations. What organizations are you affiliated with, both professionally and then avocationally out of personal interest? Well, locally, the Historical Society of Long Beach and Long Beach Heritage. I also am involved with the State Library, National Trust for Historic Preservation. Local ones in Northern California where we have a cabin in Sutter Creek, the Sutter Creek Historical Society, the Amador County Historical Society. And that's all I can think of right now. And you have a special interest in Egyptology too if I recall. Oh, yes, yes indeed. Oh yes, I do belong to a number of societies on Egypt as well. That's great. A multi-disciplinary lady in many respects. Thank you for all of your contributions. It looks like we may be wrapping up our questions here. So we're just gonna take this, at this point we're just going to conclude our program. So I'd like to thank Claudine again for your time and for your very generous support of the educational enrichment of our Long Beach Public Library community. And I'd also like to thank all of our guests who have joined us today for this local history lecture series program. I'd also like to thank our library administration and staff, friends of the library, our LBPL Foundation and many other local contacts for helping us to promote our event today. And our sincerest thanks and appreciation to all of you. We couldn't do it without you. We're doing it for you. So thank you again for joining us and sharing your Saturday time with us today. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Have a safe and happy 4th of July. And we look forward to seeing you again soon for more upcoming programs with the Miller Room and Long Beach Public Library. Thank you again and have a good afternoon. Bye. Bye.