Santa Ana : Black History Parade Scheduled for Saturday

The sixth annual Black History Parade, sponsored by the Orange County Black Historical Commission, will be held Saturday in Santa Ana to commemorate Black History month.

The parade will begin at 11 a.m. at Center Street and Monta Vista Avenue. It will move west on Monta Vista, turn north to Sullivan Street, then east onto Willits Street and south on Raitt Street to McFadden Avenue, said Helen Shipp, the parade organizer.

More than 1,000 spectators turn out annually to see the parade, but commission members are hoping this year to break the 1983 record of 1,300, Shipp said.

Grand marshal of the parade will be Santa Ana native Garry Templeton, shortstop for the San Diego Padres.

Marching bands and drill teams from Los Angeles and Orange counties will participate, including the Santa Ana Winds, the official Ambassadors of Music for Orange County, Shipp said. The parade will also include clowns, antique cars and floats.

Orange County has the smallest black population of any major metropolitan area in the United States, according to the 1980 U.S. Census. Although the number of blacks in the county doubled in the last decade, they still account for only 1.3% or about 25,000 of the county’s 2 million residents.

Many of the first blacks in the county settled in Santa Ana, said Lenny Wiggs, community services supervisor for the City of Santa Ana. But in the 1950s and 1960s, blacks began migrating to Fullerton, Irvine, Garden Grove and other cities.

Other Orange County activities scheduled in commemoration of Black History Month are:

Feb. 7: Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) will lecture on blacks in politics at UC Irvine’s University Center Heritage Room at 8 p.m.; tickets are on sale for $5 at the UCI box office, Teletron and Ticketron.

Feb. 10: Santa Ana College will hold a program honoring the oldest generation of blacks in Orange County.

Feb. 16: The Orange County Inter-Cultural Committee for the Performing Arts will present a performance of “Movin’ On,” a musical that traces the history of black entertainment, at the City Hall Annex at 8 p.m.

Feb. 22: Television station KOCE (Channel 50) will air a documentary titled “Orange County Blacks: Their Contributions and Their Spirit” at 8:30 p.m.

Feb. 23: The Black Cultural Council of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana will hold an all-day cultural fair with dancing, food, music and traditional storytelling by Jackie Torrance.

Monthlong: All branches of the Orange County Public Library will have black history displays. In addition, the Tustin branch has a collection of books on black history and by black authors.