The Black Heritage of Los Angeles : Informal Network of Historians Saving Early Books

“Let me tell you a story,” Cecil Ferguson said, settling back on the living room couch in his Fairfax District home. “The library was doing an exhibit at the new Arco Towers about the founding of Los Angeles up to World War II but the only representation was Europeans.

“The black and Latino communities jumped on the library and Arco since the founding fathers of Los Angeles were black and Latino. The library asked me to put together a visual exhibition on blacks in Los Angeles.

“After I got off work, I’d go through microfilms and other sources trying to find information about blacks in Los Angeles . . . none. After two weeks, I did find a special article on black mansions in Pasadena the Los Angeles Times published on Lincoln’s Birthday in 1912.”

Twenty years later, the early history of black Los Angeles largely remains unpublished. The most valuable research has often been conducted by an informal network of historians whose work is unavailable to the general public.

Several local authorities advanced different reasons for the paucity of published histories: the poverty and racism leading to political impotence, the oral rather than written tradition in the black community, a bias against Western subject matter among East Coast publishers, and the relative youthfulness of the black community itself.

“You have an important black community here through the ‘20s and ‘30s but, in terms of sheer numbers, you really don’t have a sizable one until the post-World War II migration,” said Lonnie Bunch, senior curator of the Museum of Afro-American History. “I think that’s one reason why Los Angeles hasn’t been thought of when scholars are wrestling with areas to research and write about.”

Another problem for orthodox historians may be fitting much of that history into strict academic disciplines. The style and night life that made Central Avenue the heart and soul of the community during the ‘30s and ‘40s might escape a formal history.

“Most historians are usually not into cultural history and it’s not really an anthropologist’s thing unless it’s a case study,” explained Beverly Robinson, professor of Theater and Folklore Studies at UCLA. “As a folk life and cultural specialist, I found it more important to start pulling the documentation from people before they all died out.

“The real wealth of Central Avenue is housed in the minds, bodies and spirits of blacks that are all over 70 years of age. It’s kept in pockets and if you don’t know who’s wearing the pants and dresses with these pockets, you’re not liable to come up with the cultural fabric that’s been woven here.”

Tying the cultural fabric together has largely been the province of people like Cecil Ferguson, a recently retired curator at the County Museum of Art. He first became fascinated with history as a teen-age museum custodian standing on his broom listening to the lectures of visiting professors. It wasn’t until the mid-’60s that he began serious research into the local community.

“I started doing things on my own because someone needed to do it,” he said, and was irritated that no history of blacks and their contributions to the city had ever been written. “I started making oral tapes of pioneer citizens who were 65 or older. If you talk to someone who’s 70, it’s possible you’ll get 140 years of history because they will tell you stories their folks told them.”

One recently published book, “City of Watts: 1907-1926” by MaryEllen Bell Ray (Rising Publishing), also evolved from oral history projects Ray undertook duiring her graduate work at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Like most of the few local histories that have been published, the book wound up on a small press with a first run of 1,000 copies.

But one place to find it and similar volumes is the Western States Black Research Center. Founded by Mayme Clayton, the Research Center has expanded from its inital collection of 3,000 to over 25,000 books dating from the late 1700s to the present.

Traditional Channels

The bulk of Clayton’s material came through traditional channels but some of her most prized finds were unearthed at such unorthodox locales as swap meets and garage sales. The Research Center’s reputation on the West Coast often brings private parties in with valuable acquisitions.

“I’ve had people come in who really don’t want to give up their books but they had to have money,” Clayton remarked. “One guy had to pay his phone bill so he sold a copy of a book by Phillis Wheatley, a famous poetess back in the 1700s who used to write poetry for George Washington.

“I had another lady that was going to join some kind of commune and she had the first and second volumes the poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar ever wrote. They cost an arm and a leg but collectors always try to get those kind of books so you have to take advantage of it.”

Clayton may have been too successful in acquiring new material. With 25,000 books and substantial collections of early black films and recordings jammed into a two-room guest house, her chief objective is finding a new permanent home for the Research Center. Clayton’s long-range goal is establishing a black cultural complex--including a performing arts theater, wax museum and art museum to complement the book collection.

“I feel that I’m here to make sure that the books and message get out to other people,” she concluded. “It’s left up to me as the custodian to make sure the younger generation will have a chance to read about the pioneers that went before them.”