Pasadena Black History Month Magazine - February 2023 | Pages 33 & 34
PROMINENT BLACK PASADENA RESIDENTS TALK ABOUT PEOPLE, MOMENTS AND MOVEMENTS IN BLACK HISTORY THAT SHAPED THEM
BY ANDRÉ COLEMAN, MANAGING EDITOR
Two NAACP presidents, current and past, also shared their personal inspirations.
Allen Edson listed Dr. Edna Griffin, the first female doctor in Pasadena and the first at Huntington Hospital.
"Dr. Griffin was the first woman President of the Pasadena Branch of the NAACP. She was instrumental in the lawsuit to desegregate the Brookside Plunge.'
The Pasadena Plunge opened in Pasadena on Independence Day in 1914. Only white people were allowed to swim in the pool. Black people were allowed entry on Wednesday- the day before the pod was cleaned, and then only in the afternoon and evening.
After a group black taxpayers group challenged the City, officials barred all nonwhites from the pool seven days a week.
In 1929, nonwhites were allowed access again one day a week and the pool was immediately drained and refilled for white swimmers.
Griffin, Ruby McKnight Williams and other activists soon took up the battle in the courts as Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston monkored the legal battles with the city of Pasadena, according to the Pasadena Journal. Six African American men tried going to the poolon one of the restricted days in 1939 and after they were barred from entering, The Los Angeles NAACP filed a successful lawsuit. The City promptly shut down the pool, but the NAACP got an injunction, forcing the City to reopen it on July 7, 1947, with no racial restrictions.
"SHE WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN THE LAWSUIT DESEGREGATE BROOKSIDE PLUNGE.
That type of activism also inspired former NAACP President Joe Brown.
"Rosa Park the activist was the most influential person who peeked my interest in quiet activism," Brown told Pasadena Now. "Her refusal to get up from her 'paid seat on the bus' in Montgomery, Alabama took courage, guts and not being afraid of the system's outcome. She caused America to rethink how 'everyone gets tired of standing and wants to sit down for a moment.'
Brown cited three things that he learned from Parks' activism that he continues to promote: organized protest and boycott with a planned objective will achieve a positive outcome, cursing, shouting and name calling is best left to those with a small vocabulary, and is a waste of energy that leads to no achievement.
Brown said he modeled his ideology around the philosophy that sometimes quiet diplomacy produces a greater impact for years to come. Brown was further inspired by the six college students in Greensboro, NC that sat at a "whites only' lunch counter and refused to leave until they were served.
The moment sparked similar incidents throughout the country. Other people mentioned famous quotes and movements as inspirational moments that have helped shape them.
Gerald Feeny mentioned quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King and Booker T. Washington, respectively.
We are not makers of history, We are made by history, and "success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome."
City Council member Justin Jones said he has always been inspired by the Harlem Renaissance.
"It produced art that I think represents the African.American experience in America and led to a renewed call for our civil rights. A lot of the themes in the Harlem Renaissance highlighted racial identity, equality and the broader idea that no defeat or victory is permanent?
Jones mentioned Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, which was written during the eta and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, which is based on the Harlem Renaissance as two of his favorite novels.
"Both novels highlight the broader concept of emerging from any situation. The main character in Song of Solomon always wanted to fly and at the end of the novel, without spoiling it, he flies for better or worse? Jones said. -However, Invisible Man contains one line that has had an immense impact on me throughout my adult life. The line is located on the final page of the book "I must come out, I must emerge? For me. This line represents the beauty and perseverance of the African American experience in the United States of America. Somehow out of every situation — we emerge."
"I MUST COME OUT, I MUST EMERGE.