1st Trial Helped Unify Ventura Area Blacks : Activism: King episode was a political awakening for county’s tiny minority of African-Americans.

In the aftermath of the first Rodney G. King beating trial in Simi Valley last spring, the Rev. John Baylor launched a series of forums on racism so frustrated Ventura County residents could vent their feelings and work together for racial unity.

In Oxnard, African-American political activists responded with an unprecedented voter registration drive that some say helped propel the second African-American in county history into a city council seat.

And throughout the year in Simi Valley, black groups helped organize rallies against white supremacists seeking to recruit members.

Since a Ventura County jury’s verdicts last spring sparked widespread rioting in Los Angeles and elsewhere and soiled Ventura County’s image, its traditionally low-key black community has become increasingly active.

Now, as a second jury deliberates the King case in Los Angeles, many Ventura County blacks have begun to see the King episode as a turning point in what amounts to the political awakening of a tiny minority in a mostly white county.

“Before, we didn’t have the kind of awareness, the level of communication, the kind of networking that you see now,” said Andrew Rucker, vice president of the African-American Chamber of Commerce in Oxnard. “The riots forced us to become closer.”

And though the gains have been modest, last year’s anger has brought greater unity to a community of less than 15,000--a little more than 2% of the county’s population scattered among 10 cities--with few common institutions and little history of activism.

African-American churches in Ventura and Oxnard were among the first to respond.

“Some of the pastors got together after the verdicts and decided that as a group we hadn’t been vocal enough on a number of issues, including racism in the county,” said Baylor, pastor of Olivet Baptist Church in Ventura.

Meanwhile, the Ventura County branch of the Black American Political Assn. of California began planning a voter registration drive last spring among Oxnard’s African-Americans and Latinos to send school board member Bedford Pinkard to the City Council and elect others who had a rapport with the city’s black community.

The outcome was 600 additional voters, a factor--if even a small one--in a victory for Pinkard as well as the first election of a Latino mayor.

Pinkard said: “African-Americans in Ventura County have never been active in politics, but we’re hoping this will be a door-opener for them.”

Nonetheless, some African-American leaders in Ventura County say there has been no significant change in their community. They say that the new activism has been minimal and not very effective.

“You’ve got all these things happening and no one gets upset,” said Louis Bryant, a longtime civil rights activist in Ventura, who last winter formed the student group Youth Against Racism to open up lines of communication. “African-Americans in Ventura County are too laid-back.”

Although racism is often linked to class bias, African-American leaders say it exists in Ventura County despite racial demographics that show that the county’s black population is relatively prosperous.

Ventura County’s African-Americans have larger average household incomes than national averages for all races, and higher education levels than the county average for all races, according to the 1990 census.

Although their household income of $39,983 lags about $7,000 behind their white counterparts in the county, Ventura County’s black households earn more than the statewide and national median for all races. Their income was also about $14,000 higher than California’s average for black households and almost twice the national average for black families.

“There is a certain mentality here,” said Gary Windom, a senior public defender and one of the few prominent African-Americans in the county’s criminal justice system. “It’s a very conservative area, so you have to show people their expectations about minorities are not true. It’s a shame in the 1990s that you still have to do that, but that’s exactly what you do.”

But many residents say that in addition to battling racism, the county’s African-Americans must guard against complacency.

“Most people who live here did not grow up in inner-city neighborhoods, and the ones that did came here to have quiet lives,” said Peggy Onakomaiya, publisher of an African-American newspaper in Oxnard. “That’s why the few you see here are focused on getting ahead and making that dollar.”

But Simi Valley resident Debra Gibson, who attended school in South-Central Los Angeles, said the trials of the past year have made it impossible for either her or her adopted city to turn back.

“It gives Simi Valley a chance to finally deal with racism,” she said. “Before, the topic of racism was hush-hush, even in the family. But my kids are forcing me to deal with it. And we’re doing it together. “