Residents Battle Over Community’s Identity : Antelope Valley: Blacks who live in an area once widely known as Sun Village say Littlerock High School’s name should be changed to reflect its heritage.

The years have not been kind to the desert town of Sun Village, the original black settlement in the Antelope Valley that emerged in the 1940s when blacks weren’t allowed to buy property in some mostly white neighborhoods of the region.

Never populated by more than a few thousand people, Sun Village is even smaller now. Over the past two decades, the 15-square-mile area has declined as younger blacks have moved away to seek opportunity elsewhere and businesses have disappeared.

Meanwhile in the mid-’80s, developers building homes for an influx of mostly white residents, started calling the area Littlerock, after the larger, mostly white community next door.

Today, many whites consider the area part of Littlerock and some do not even know of Sun Village’s history. But black residents have begun a tenacious fight to preserve both the name and heritage of their community.

They are fighting to change the name of Littlerock High School--located within the disputed turf--to Sun Village High School or something that reflects the area’s black history. The issue has led to a nasty and racially tinged dispute.

Black residents believe that the relatively new $30-million high school, because of its name of Littlerock, is an affront to their community. But to white residents, the name simply reflects the demise of one town and the rise of another.

“At this point, the issue is tearing the whole community apart,” said Sharen Nielsen, a Littlerock accountant.

The dispute surfaced last week when a small group of black residents asked the Antelope Valley Union High School District to rename the campus. School board members refused after a group of mostly white parents and students from the high school adamantly opposed the change.

“Actually there is no such thing as Sun Village. Nobody knows about it,” said Melissa Davison, a 16-year-old senior, after speaking for the group. Davison, who lives near the school and considers the area Littlerock, complained that a change would strip the students of their identity.

But the leader of the black residents disagreed, contending that the district made a mistake in its name selection and ought to correct it. “The name Littlerock High School does things to our community. It brings about dismay, confusion, put down, ignorance,” said Lundia Washington.

The district chose Littlerock as the school’s name in early 1989, when the campus opened as a collection of bungalows. The permanent campus opened this past school year, and students and parents say now is too late for a name change.

Washington and her supporters admit Sun Village has declined. But they said they want to preserve the town’s heritage and need the school’s identity to build for the future. “We have to explain continuously this is not Littlerock, this is Sun Village,” she said.

The two rural communities about six miles east of Palmdale have no legal borders and are on unincorporated county land. The high school site near 110th Street East and Avenue R is about two miles southeast of the historic heart of Sun Village, but more than three miles north of the traditional heart of Littlerock.

The informally elected Littlerock Town Council, which has no governmental authority, and Washington’s group, which hopes to form a Sun Village Town Council, both claim the area as their own. The territory is bounded north to south by Avenues Q and T, and from 80th to 130th Streets East from east to west.

Within that area is the high school site and the corner of 90th Street East and Palmdale Boulevard, the historic center of Sun Village. Now, however, the intersection is little more than a desert stop with a mortuary, corner market and closed gas station.

Part of what angers Washington and her supporters about the name of the school is that the area they call Sun Village has no other markers to establish its identity, other than a small billboard in front of the solitary Sun Village Chamber of Commerce office on Palmdale Boulevard.

“Our main focus is to establish and identify Sun Village as a town of its own. It has a rich past and we hope a rich future,” said Washington, a teacher in the nearby Palmdale School District. “We want to keep the history of the community, not destroy it.”

But Littlerock supporters argue Sun Village is already dead. And while most say they would support some designation to honor the area’s history, they insist most people there consider themselves Littlerock residents.

In rejecting the name change, board members in the financially troubled high school district cited the cost--estimated at several hundred thousand dollars--of changing the campus’ engraved concrete sign and the sports uniforms, stationery and other items bearing the current name.

In addition, school board member Steve Landaker and Littlerock supporters said Sun Village residents should have made their case four years ago, before the school board’s original decision. But Washington said area leaders at the time were not kept informed of the process.

For the students, a name change would make obsolete many thousands of dollars more in lettermen’s jackets, class rings, T-shirts, and other items they and their families have purchased, not to mention breaking the emotional bond with their new school, they say.

For them, it is not so much the significance of the name Littlerock as it is their affinity for the school they have known for three years. In fact, many of the students there don’t even live in anyone’s definition of Littlerock, coming instead from another nearby area, Lake Los Angeles.

But the school’s students also appear to have little sense of the cultural place or meaning of Sun Village, thus little reason to care for it. When a group of more than a half-dozen non-black students was asked, only one student--Davison--knew the area’s black history.

The dispute has spilled over into local politics, drawing accusations and retorts from the warring sides in the community. For instance, some Littlerock supporters accuse Washington and her followers, who have not stood in any election, of not actually representing their community.

But Washington and her group accused the Littlerock leaders of disrupting an organizing meeting for the Sun Village Town Council last week, when they showed up bearing several hundred signatures on a petition aimed at keeping the area as Littlerock.

And Littlerock Town Council leaders, with their second election set for November, say they plan to include an advisory measure asking voters throughout the area whether they want it known as Littlerock or Sun Village. The Sun Village group also plans to hold its first town council election then.

In the meantime, Littlerock High School is set to begin the new school year Sept. 14. Washington vowed her group’s efforts to rename the school will continue. But she refused to say what direction that campaign might take.

Her group has not said the specific name they want for the school, although she said Sun Village-Littlerock High School would be acceptable.

“We’re trying to be level-headed about this,” Washington said. “But we don’t want the school to say something it’s not. It works against us that way.”