'Denying our humanity': how Santa Monica decimated a thriving Black community

Source: The Guardian

‘Denying our humanity’: how Santa Monica decimated a thriving Black community

African Americans helped build the iconic beach town, historian Alison Rose Jefferson details as California weighs reparations

by Sam Levin in Santa Monica with photographs by Julien James
Sun 30 Jul 2023 15.00 BST
Last modified on Sun 30 Jul 2023 16.16 BST

At Shutters on the Beach, a luxury hotel in Santa Monica, guests staying in $1,500-a-night rooms can get pristine views of white-sand shores and the Pacific Ocean, hot stone massages, afternoons filled with live jazz and fresh seafood dinners.

Few visitors, however, will know that 100 years ago, the site was at the center of a painful turning point for Santa Monica’s Black community.

In 1922, Black businessmen Charles S Darden and Norman O Houston had secured an agreement to purchase the land Shutters now stands on. They were planning to develop a “first-class resort”, complete with a bathhouse, dance hall and amusement center, one they hoped would become a national tourist destination for Black Americans.

It didn’t take long for Santa Monica’s white residents to rally in opposition. The Protective League, a citizens’ group with “a membership of 1,000 Caucasians” that aimed to “eliminate all objectionable features” from the California beach town, lobbied officials to deny the men construction permits and ensure the site was zoned for residential use only. The officials complied.

Three years later, the site became a beach club for white residents.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/30/santa-monica-beach-black-community-discrimination-race-issues

Non-walled link: https://news.yahoo.com/denying-humanity-santa-monica-decimated-140010804.html