Local NAACP celebrate 100 years of progression, history
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Sunday, July 12, 2009.
By ALEXA VAUGHN
Valley Press Staff Writer
PALMDALE – Members of the Antelope Valley branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, city officials and more than 50 Valley residents celebrated the organization’s 100th year Saturday morning with music, cake and local stories of racial equality’s progression.
At the Poncitlan Square event, organized by Antelope Valley NAACP Vice President Juan Blanco, was Hank Dixon from “The Originals” singing the group’s 1969 hit “Baby I’m For Real,” a performance of the play “Slave Girl” by Palmdale High School graduate Naomi Derensbourg-Toppin and black leaders past and present from across the Valley.
Among those reflecting on the role of the NAACP in the Antelope Valley since the local chapter was founded in the 1960s, was the branch’s founding president, Lois Patton.
When Patton’s husband, an inspector who worked for Lockheed, was transferred to Palmdale, Patton said it was nearly impossible to get a house within the area’s white residential communities.
“Instead they would lead you to the outskirts, and I mean out – out in Sun Village,” Patton said. “Our house had an acre of land with it, but we didn’t want all that. We didn’t want to be farmers.
Patton’s family, which included four young children at the time, eventually found their way to a home in Palmdale near Avenue R-5. But even then, there were threats from anonymous neighbors who did not want them there. Soon after moving in, Patton said someone burned a cross into their lawn.
“They used to do something called blockbusting in those days if a black person did move into a neighborhood. Realtors would say, ‘Okay, we lost that battle’ and continue putting all the black people on that block,” Patton said. Realtors would also sometimes make white families sign contracts that they would not sell their home to a black person.
So Patton and about a dozen other black Valley residents founded a local chapter of the NAACP to fight housing discrimination. Since then, the NAACP has continued organizing initiatives to eradicate racial discrimination in the Valley, including a campaign to take down the Confederate flag emblem displayed at Quartz Hill High School until 1995, said past Antelope Valley NAACP president Lynda Thompson Taylor.
“We still need the NAACP around because things like Jena Six and the discrimination at that Pennsylvania swimming pool,” Thompson Taylor said. “As long as these things happen we need to be there to eradicate these negative acts.”
Because the Antelope Valley once was a hot spot for hate crimes, the crowd was asked by Darren Parker, chairman of the California Democratic Party’s African-American Caucus and chairman of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission, to give itself a hand for the progress the community has made.
Parker said it was an honor, especially as a past president of the local NAACP chapter, to meet Patton for the first time.
“All the things I’ve done are so insignificant compared to what she did. This entire time, I’ve been standing on that woman’s shoulders,” Parker said.
Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said he has known Patton since he became a neighbor when he moved to Palmdale in 1967.
“Patton is an important part of the community because she blazed a path for so many here at a time when there was not as much growth,” Ledford said. “And it’s always easier to change things when there’s growth because it opens doors to say these are what our community values are.”
Between speakers, volunteer sound man Joseph West played Michael Jackson songs as an homage not only to a black music legend, but someone who won the NAACP’s Image Award for breaking MTV’s music video color barrier with videos for songs such as “Thriller” and “Billie Jean.”
Blanco organized the event for Saturday because the NAACP is celebrating its 100th year with a national convention July 11 to 16 in New York.
Blanco said the organization does not carry the same prominence with young people today that it did 50 years ago, and he wants to change that. He also wants people to know the NAACP is an organization for all people.
“See this woman? Mary White Ovington – she was one of the NAACP’s founding members and a white woman from New York,” Blanco said. “She was a very bold woman to do what she did in that age.”
Blanco said the Antelope Valley Branch of the NAACP meets on the second Saturday of every month. For details about the Antelope Valley NAACP call (661) 223-7376 or visit www.avnaacp.org.
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