Founded by Wilmer Amina Carter & William Henry (Ratibu) Jacocks, now held at CSUSB Pfau Library
Photos on site by Henry Hooks, courtesy of San Bernardino County Museum. http://www.sbcounty.gov/museum/
We invite anyone with photos or stories about Black History in the Inland Empire to contact us. We are continuing to do oral histories on Zoom and are interested in collecting photos either online at this site or in person as soon as it is safe to do so.
Inland Empire entrepreneur Reggie Webb, founder of Webb Family Enterprises, has passed away. Known for his impact on community and economic justice, Webb's legacy includes owning 16 McDonald's restaurants and supporting early entrepreneurs. His philanthropic work was recognized with several awards.
Please join Romaine Washington, Vicki Lee and Jennifer Tilton at Ecclesia Thursday at 6 for a celebration of San Bernardino's Civil Rights history. If you missed our event at Akoma Unity Center for Juneteenth, this is a chance to learn and celebrate more San Bernardino Black history. Hope to see you all there.
Remember to join us this Sunday July 28 at St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church for a celebration of the Valley Truck Farms community -- one of San Bernardino's first Black communities, a vibrant farming community from the 1920s-1980s. Spread the word and share your memories of The Valley! Join us for the celebration and read more at https://theievoice.com/st-marks-church-valley-truck-farms/
Come join us for our celebration of the Valley Truck Farms Community this Sunday! Food, music, photos and a community reunion. Please share with family and friends who remember growing up in The Valley Also check out this preview of some of the photographs that will be on exhibit at St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church at
https://theievoice.com/st-marks-church-valley-truck-farms/
Join us Sunday July 28 to celebrate the history of the Valley Truck Farms Community at St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. A photo exhibition will celebrate this historic Black community, one of the oldest in San Bernardino. The church is still there, 95 years old, though it is on the market because, as Pastor Harper says, "it's hard to thrive in a warehouse jungle." You can come to the church service at 11 a.m. or join for the celebration and photo exhibition at 2 p.m.
A singer, composer, curator and founder of the vocal group Sweet Honey in the Rock, she provided a gospel soundtrack for the civil rights movement.
Great local IE Black history story in the Sun today. Only thing we would add is that Grace Harrison Mabra was also one of the founding members of the San Bernardino NAACP along with her husband James Mabra.
In 1887, William Harrison came to San Bernardino. He also outfitted a rented building near Third and G streets as a house for his family.
Akoma is sponsoring Voices From The Bridges That Carried Us Over! A San Bernardino civil rights showcase of film, poetry, and Black history in the Inland Empire 📖🎬
🗣️ Featuring speakers Dr. Jennifer Tilton, Romaine Washington, and Vicki Lee.
🎟️ Admission is free to the community, and will offer live captioning and wheelchair accessible seating.
RSVP for this event by scanning the QR code attached. See you Thursday, June 20th at 6pm at Anne Sherrells Park for a look into San Bernardino’s civil rights history!🌟
Akoma Unity Center
909-217-7956
[email protected]
1367 N. California St. San Bernardino, CA 92411
Come join Bridges Project at Akoma Unity Center this Thursday 6-8 p.m. for a celebration of San Bernardino's Civil Rights History in honor of Juneteenth. We will share poetry, history and family stories of local civil rights struggles in San Bernardino (probably some you don't yet know about). Hope you can join us. Please RSVP here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-bridges-that-carried-us-over-tickets-917488642227?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios
Come out to Riverside Art Museum with your photos to support this Black archiving effort. Free museum entrance - just say you’re here for the Black archives event. 1-3 PM
Join this great event celebrating an issue of The Space Zine focused on Black Archiving. Come to the Riverside Art Museum Saturday 1-3 p.m. Bring photos to share with the archive so your family and community's stories can preserved and help tell the story of Black IE History! You can RSVP or just come and let them know you are there for the Black archiving event. You will get free entrance to the Museum.
https://riversideartmuseum.org/organizer/the-space-zine-riverside-art-museum/
Join this great event celebrating an issue of The Space Zine focused on Black Archiving. Come to the Riverside Art Museum Saturday 1-3 p.m. Bring photos to share with the archive so your family and community's stories can preserved and help tell the story of Black IE History! You can RSVP or just come and let them know you are there for the Black archiving event. You will get free entrance to the Museum.
https://riversideartmuseum.org/organizer/the-space-zine-riverside-art-museum/
Join the Bridges Project, A People's History of the IE and lots of local scholars, activists and artists to celebrate the rich and diverse history of our region.
I.E. PEOPLE'S HISTORY CONFERENCE
JUNE 1, 2024 8:30am - 7 pm
California State University, San Bernardino
Center for Global Innovation
5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407
PARKING LOT N, CSUSB
Full Conference schedule in QR code and at this link - https://tinyurl.com/peopleshistoryie. You should register for free parking passes and lunch. Link at top of full conference schedule site
Calling all changemakers! Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a powerful conversation with Dolores Huerta, a true icon of activism. Let's come together to discuss Antiracist Solidarity among people of color, learning from one of the most influential voices in history. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and let's build a future of unity and equality. Save your spot now! https://bit.ly/4caIO4f
When names of people contributing to the development of San Bernardino are mentioned, well-known men tend to be brought up. But how about the women? Many of their names won’t ring a bell today, yet they played major roles in San Bernardino evolving into “The Gate City” of Southern California. Join us at Feldheym on Monday, March 25 at 6pm to discover some of these important women.
Who remembers the Checkmate Program started by the local NCNW chapter back in the early 1970s? We love this photo of Nicole Ball in the great Checkmates uniform. Both Bridges Project founder Wilmer Amina Carter and Cheryl Brown ran the program in the early days to open up job training opportunities for young women at a time when many job training opportunities targeted men. We share this photo today to invite you all to look at some of the new photos we're uploading to the Bridges Archive. These first photos we have uploaded are from Wilmer Amina Carter's collection of NCNW photos, some from Barbara Howard, Twillea Evans-Carthen and the first ones from Denise Diggs collection of her mom's photos. We have more that we will be uploading over the next few months. So look here and on the archive for more https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/bridges-photographs/ . If you recognize anyone, let us know so we can keep adding details to the photos.
Dorothy Ella Inghram (1905-2012), born in San Bernardino, became the first African American teacher in San Bernardino County and the first black school district superintendent in the state of California. Dorothy started teaching at Mill School in 1942, became a teaching principal in 1945, a full-time principal in 1951, and was appointed district superintendent of Mill School District in 1953. The San Bernardino library branch on the corner of Highland and Western Avenue is named for her.
Day #29 Have you ever heard the name Johnson Mason? The last day of Black History Month we want to celebrate this early San Bernardino entrepreneur and civil rights leader who helped found the NAACP in San Bernardino in 1918. His story symbolizes the resilience, the quest for Black freedom, and the commitment to building community that characterizes so much of Black history. Johnson Mason was born in Kentucky in the 1846, before emancipation, and when he first moved with his wife Florence to San Bernardino before 1900, he was not literate. He was one of many formerly enslaved people moving to seek greater opportunity as the south became more repressive after Reconstruction. When he arrived in San Bernardino, he first worked as a houseman and his wife as a washerwoman. Later he became the janitor for a bank, one of the few occupations open to early Black settlers. But over the next twenty years he built considerable property in San Bernardino. By 1920, he had learned to read, moved to a new home downtown that he owned. George Marion Johnson remembers that Mr. Mason was "buying two medium-sized apartment houses which he rented to white tenants,” and that his mother Ella Johnson taught him to read in their home on the westside during his childhood. He had built enough wealth that he personally loaned New Hope Baptist Church the money to buy the lot to build their new sanctuary in 1914. In 1918 she was one of the active organizers of San bernardino NAACP, and helped raise money to try to start a black grocery store on the west side. We have one great quote from the CA Eagle that captures the role he played in the local community. “If anything good comes to our city you will always find Mr. Johnson Mason there to get some of it. If we had more men like Mr. Mason, we would not have to ask for things; we could demand them.” We wish we knew more about his story, but we hope you help keep his memory and contributions to IE Black history alive.
Day #28 Today, we celebrate Norris P. Gregory, the first Black person elected to the San Bernardino City Council, serving the sixth ward (he was also the first Black elected in San Bernardino County). Norris was born on April 6, 1926, in Riley, Kansas where Norris’ parents were friends with the attorneys who led the successful school integration Supreme Court Case, Brown v. Board of Education. Norris Gregory served in the United States Army, where he saw combat duty in France and the Philippine Islands during World War II. Upon discharge in 1946, Gregory became an elementary school teacher and an announcer for the KJAY Radio Station in Topeka, Kansas.
In 1958, the Gregory family, including wife Salena and son Norris III, moved to San Bernardino, CA. Norris Gregory became among the early Black educators in the San Bernardino City School District when he was hired at Mt. Vernon Elementary School. In 1967, Norris was elected as the City’s first Black Councilman to the newly created Sixth Ward. In an interview, Norris recalled the state of the Black community in San Bernardino in the 1960s, in which “schools were segregated, and most blacks were relegated to menial jobs…Blacks had no power and no voice in government” (The Press-Enterprise, April 30, 2011). Norris served on the city council for eight years, though his term was controversial during the tumultuous civil rights protests. There was a recall attempt and even a firebombing of his home in 1970. Gregory fought for Black employment in the city and was instrumental in hiring the first African American fireman to the City’s fire department in 1971, Jimmy Jews.
During his retirement, Norris served with the San Bernardino City Redevelopment Agency, and he served as an assistant district administrator for the office of Congressman George E. Brown Jr. With a celebrated career in service to the community, Norris P. Gregory passed away on April 26, 2011, from pancreatic cancer.
If you want to learn more about Redlands Black history come out tonight to Second Baptist Church at 7 to learn.
Day # 27 Today we recognize Dell Roberts, a long-time leader in Riverside. In 1945 he moved to Riverside and grew up in the multiracial Eastside neighborhood with his family. He graduated from Riverside Poly High in 1955, where he excelled in football and earned letters in swimming, football, and track. He went on to attend Riverside City College where he was an active member in Kappa Upsilon.
In 1965 Dell dedicated himself to working with youth, serving roles with the NAACP and the Riverside Unified School District. From 1968 to 1989 he served as a special assistant to the principal at Poly High School, coached and supported the first BSUs in Riverside schools, and provided guidance to the United Black Students of California.
Dell Roberts shows his dedication to Riverside in so many ways. While working at the Parks and Rec., he had an instrumental role in Muhammed Ali visiting Riverside in 1977. In 1980, Dell Roberts brought many of the youth he worked with to San Bernardino’s Black history Parade, one of many trips he took the BSU and NAACP youth to over the years. The youth decided they wanted to have their own parade and to get started right away, so Dell Roberts pushed past resistance from the city and they held their first Black Riverside Black History Parade and Expo in 1980. Featuring Black artists and politicians and leaders, Dell Roberts explained the importance of the event, “Black people can have pride in knowing we have doctors and lawyers that nobody really knows about, you know, and that's time for them to get exposed to it.” In 2024 the City of Riverside celebrated the 44th year of the parade.
Dell Roberts loves Riverside despite his encounters with racism over the years. “I like the town. Yeah, it has racism. Yes, always had. Riverside is a good old boy town that is run by good ole boys. I made it through, you know, and I'm not anti anybody. I like people. I have some good friends who are racists, you know?”
After 38 years of service, Dell Roberts retired from the Riverside Unified School DIstrict. He, and his wife of 18 years, Carmen, are deeply involved with the Park Avenue Baptist Church and Dell Roberts continues to give his time to mentor both students and adults. In 2003 he established the Dell Roberts Endowed Scholarship, which helps local high school graduates who attend Riverside Community College.
Day #26 Today we remember Benton Clarence “P.K.” Blakely, long time Westside leader. He was born in Watts in 1923 and relocated with his parents to Colton CA to be close to his grandfather C.M. Carleton who was an early property owner on the Westside of San Bernardino. (Carleton Apartments were listed in the Green book for Black travelers in the 1930s). P.K. Blakely served in the military and retired as a major, after 23 years of service. Blakely served during World War II and the Korean War. As a part of the Army Corp of Engineers, he assisted with building roads, bridges, and dams. He was an insurance salesman for Golden State Insurance Company and in 1980 worked for a time with Operation Second Chance, where he was helping raise money to support workers displaced from Kaiser Steel. He worked on summer jobs programs for San Bernardino County in the early 1970s to increase youth employment and became a personnel manager for Santa Fe Railyard in the 1970s. In 1976, Blakely was appointed as the regional manager of personnel of the western region for Amtrak. In this capacity, Blakely was responsible for five western states, and he also assisted the vice president of personnel in San Francisco. He went back to school and graduated from University of Redlands in the 1980s.
Bobby Bivens remembered that “He had a good gift of gab and was able to present himself in a manner where he would be in the management type positions versus being the worker. But the one thing that he always did was bring along Black people, no matter where he went. One of his favorite sayings was that ‘You got to eat cheese with the white folk.’ It means that you got to be able to have relationships, that you got to be able to be presentable in the eyes of racist white folks, to be able to move forward in your endeavors.”
Share your favorite P.K. Blakely photos and memories with us!
Day #25 Who remembers the Westside youth leader Anne Shirrells who hosted the Youth NAACP Meetings and dance parties for teens? Today we honor Anne Elizabeth Shirrells, who attended San Bernardino Valley College and was an early African American graduate from the University of Redlands in 1956 with her B.A. in Home Economics. Shirrells worked to inspire youth first as a Sunday school teacher then as a cafeteria manager at a local elementary school. In the early 1950s and ‘60s Shirrells went on to create a youth program on the West Side at Johnson Hall that provided recreation, childcare, and counsel for young African Americans, including myself (Arah Parker). She was so dedicated to youth that she continued to host dance parties, even after her Baptist Church threatened to kick her out of the congregation, and ultimately did. She was a member of the Deltas, the League of Women Voters, the National Council of Negro Women, the Democratic Central Committee, and the NAACP along with many other organizations. She was actively involved in the fight for civil rights and was unyielding in her dedication to the prosperity of her community. Shirrells fought to integrate project housing on the West Side and for fair and equal treatment in employment. Shirrells’ leadership and volunteer work has been honored by several organizations including the California State Assembly and has been commemorated by the naming of the Anne E. Shirrells Park in San Bernardino. - Thanks to Arah Parker for writing this story and to Cheryl Brown for helping us remember this important leader https://youtu.be/1JmmcmFxXNU
Day #24 Valerie Pope Ludlam was San Bernardino’s first black woman elected to the city council. She was a Westside activist and the former president of the nonprofit, West Side Community Development Corporation. On top of all of her community involvement, she also owned her own hair salon, the Valerie Pope Boutique on Mount Vernon South of 16th street.
Valerie Pope Ludlam left Detroit as a Psychiatric Technician to look for a community with more racial integration. When she came to San Bernardino in 1962, she did not necessarily find that. She noticed that there were no black firemen, few police, and only 15 of the 1,300 teachers were Black. Valerie Pope Ludlam quickly got involved in the community and worked with her niece Frances Grice and Bonnie S. Johnson to create the Community League of Mothers. They demanded more Black teachers and an end to segregated schools so Black youth would get a quality education. At the height of their activism after a school board meeting Valerie and Frances Grice were chased by a car full of armed men who they believed were in the Ku Klux Klan. Her car was also firebombed. These violent incidents were traumatic, destabilizing Valerie Pope Ludlum’s career, and leading her to go on welfare for 3 years. She joined with other women to found a welfare rights organization and ultimately to create the West Side Community Development Corporation to provide economic opportunities for others in the community.
Ebony magazine crowned her with the title, “The Sun Woman,' for developing solar energy technology. She became president of the San Bernardino West Side Community Development Corporation (CDC) and was the driving force behind an effort to install solar water and space heaters in 10 of the Veterans Administration homes in San Bernardino. She was also the founder of the Minorities Organized for Renewable Energy Inc., an organization with the goal of including minority participation in new energy technology.
Valerie’s passion for her community led her to take office in 1987 as councilwoman for the 6th Ward where she served until 1996. She continued to lead redevelopment efforts and to bring more commercial developments and housing to the Westside. The San Bernardino Sun shared that she went after a lot of federal programs, “She brought a lot of money into the city of San Bernardino. I hope people will remember her for all the good things she did for this city.
Friends and Colleagues -- Join me next Wednesday in Redlands at Second Baptist Church for a celebration of Black history of Redlands and learn all about the amazing community in the early 20th century. It's a special opportunity to give this talk in the place where it all happened! 6 p.m. Reception & 7 p.m. Talk
Day #23 Today we recognize Bonnie Johnson, one of the leaders of the Community League of Mothers who fought for equal education for students in San Bernardino. Bonnie Johnson was born in 1934 and moved to San Bernardino when she was 10. She lived in the Valley Truck Farm community and attended Mills school where Dorothy Inghram was the principal, and later Sturgis and San Bernardino High.
As a mother raising her kids on the Westside, Bonnie Johnson was active in the PTA and became increasingly aware of unequal education across the city. Bonnie Johnson joined the Community League of Mothers, working with activists Frances Grice and Valarie Pope. They boycotted San Bernardino public schools and demanded desegregation. With the help of the NAACP, the league challenged the schools in court for discrimination and segregation and won in a California Supreme Court ruling. As the President of the Community League for Mothers, Bonnie spearheaded critical issues of inequality within the San Bernardino public schools.
Bonnie Johnson became the owner of Greenwood Bail Bonds in the 1970s, which she ran for 40 years. Her civil rights leadership in the fight for school desegregation was recognized by the San Bernardino School District in January 1999, and she passed away Dec 19, 2019.
https://iecn.com/bonnie-s-johnson-founder-of-community-league-of-mothers-responsible-for-desegregating-sb-school-district-dies-at-84/
Cheryl and Reggie Miller are basketball powerhouses from the Inland Empire. Both born in Riverside, they are graduates of Riverside Polytechnic High School. Cheryl was a four-time All-American at USC, where she holds career records for points, rebounds, field goals made, free throws made, games played, and steals. She led the US team to gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Younger brother Reggie graduated from UCLA and also won Olympic gold as the second leading scorer on the Dream Team in the 1996 Summer Olympics. His NBA career spanned 18 seasons, and he was named an All-Star five times. Cheryl and Reggie Miller are both in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Day # 22 We celebrate Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, who served the 47th District from 2012-2016 and has long been a community leader and publisher of Black Voice News, working alongside her husband Hardy Brown to use the power of the press to hold politicians accountable for addressing the needs of the Black community in the IE.
Raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., Cheryl and her family moved to California in the late 1950s. Cheryl attended Dorsey High School in Los Angeles and moved to San Bernardino. As a teenager, Cheryl worked at Harris Department Store in downtown San Bernardino and cleaned hotel rooms in Palm Springs, CA during a time when few jobs would hire Black workers. After graduating from San Bernardino High School (SBHS) in 1961, she attended and graduated from San Bernardino Valley College, earned her Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), and a certificate in gerontology from the University of Southern California (USC).
She married Hardy Brown in 1963 and raised their family to become leaders in San Bernardino. In 1980, Cheryl & Hardy Brown purchased the Black Voice Newspaper from Sam Martin, transforming it into a “premier community newspaper, with a focus on anti-discrimination and justice reporting.” Their daughter Paulette continues to run the paper today. (Black Voice News, July 26, 2022).
Active within the local community in San Bernardino and the Inland Empire, Cheryl has served as President of the San Bernardino chapter of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Cheryl implemented the Checkmates program, which is similar to the Candy Striper hospital volunteer program. As racism was dominant in the San Bernardino area in the 1960s-1970s, the Checkmate program was an integrated volunteer program in which volunteers visited convalescent hospitals in the San Bernardino area. As the popularity of the Checkmates program increased, Dorothy Height, President of the NCNW, incorporated the Checkmates program as a national program. Additionally, Cheryl served as the President of the San Bernardino County NAACP and served on the San Bernardino County and City Planning Commission for 17 years. She has long served as an advocate for the needs of senior citizens and caregivers.
Cheryl Brown transitioned into political leadership in 2012 when she was elected as California Assembly member for the 47th District, serving the cities of San Bernardino, Bloomington, Colton, Grand Terrace, Fontana, Muscoy, and Rialto. She served until 2016 and in 2017, she was appointed Chair of the California Commission on Aging where she continues to serve.
You can learn more about the amazing Brown Family and the history of Black Voice News this Sunday 3-5 at the San Bernardino County Museum. RSVP at https://theievoice.com/black-voice-news-50-exhibit-2/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Join+Us+for+an+engaging+and+personal+talk+with+BVN%C2%A0curators+Hardy+Brown+II+and+Paulette+Brown-Hinds&utm_campaign=Your+Daily+News+February+8%2C+2024+%28Copy%29
5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA
92407
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/bridges/, https://omeka-s.csusb.edu/s/bridges-social-media-archive/page/home
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Bridges That Carried Us Over Project: Documenting Black History in the IE posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Send a message to Bridges That Carried Us Over Project: Documenting Black History in the IE:
Join us Sunday July 28 to celebrate the history of the Valley Truck Farms Community at St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. A photo exhibition will celebrate this historic Black community, one of the oldest in San Bernardino. The church is still there, 95 years old, though it is on the market because, as Pastor Harper says, "it's hard to thrive in a warehouse jungle." You can come to the church service at 11 a.m. or join for the celebration and photo exhibition at 2 p.m.
Day #3 John McKinley Futch was a firm believer in promoting advocacy, civic engagement, and social awareness, apparent through his life's work and leadership positions. On June 15, 1950, John was born in Merced, CA, to an Air Force family. At 17, John moved to Washington D.C. to work for the FBI as a fringier print examiner. Later, John joined the D.C. Metro Police Department and worked there for four years. Relocating to California, John graduated from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and a master's degree in Social Sciences. As an administrator at CSUSB, John was instrumental in naming the student union after Assemblyman James Ramos's great grandfather, Santos Manuel, leader of the Yuhaviatam Indians in San Bernardino County. Additionally, John provided a platform for Native American educators, artists, and performers at CSUSB and brought the San Manuel’s California Native American Day Children’s Program to the university. Other roles John served include coordinator of Cross-Cultural Center, interim director of the Women’s Resource Center & Adult Re-Entry Center, and director of Cultural & Community Development. John also served as the president of the San Bernardino NAACP, trustee for the San Bernardino Community College District, and Chief of Staff to his close friend Assemblyman James Ramos. In addition, as an esteemed community leader within San Bernardino, John worked tirelessly to help historically underserved students by establishing the "Friends of John Futch Textbook Scholarship." John passed away on August 11, 2019, at 69. May his dedication to inclusivity and the community forever live on through his many accomplishments. Thank you, John, for your commitment and service to the Inland Empire. Learn more about John here: https://www.highlandnews.net/.../article_922b4208-d028... https://www.sbsun.com/.../san-bernardino-naacp-president.../ http://www.precinctreporter.com/.../community-
Lifting up IE Black Educators & Activists for Black History Month -- First Up Margaret Hill Check back tonight for more of her story
Want your museum to be the top-listed Museum?
