January 20, 2005

The Hidden History of San Pedro’s Black Family Story
By Terelle Jerricks, Editor

     In the early morning of summer, the wind blows cool through the trees of Peck Park, sending the scent of barbequed chicken, beef and pork ribs to trigger taste glands to salivate. The sound of children laughing and playing in this place seems timeless. This park was once the crown jewel of the Spanish land grants, and at least since the 1920’s, this ground has been used as a meeting place for picnicking families, a walk-through for school age friends, and a safe space tucked away from busy streets to learn horseback-riding and milking cows.
     Joe Gatlin, the secretary of the San Pedro Committee (SPC) that organized this Juneteenth celebration, pointed to the shopping center next to the park on Western Avenue, saying “that’s where Channel Heights use to be.” Organizers were still setting up the picnicking area, arriving in caravans loaded down with prepared foods and drinks, tablecloths and chairs. Driving into San Pedro by way of the 110 Freeway, traveling down Pacific, Gaffey, or Western, you’d be lucky to see one black face. So, to see over a hundred at this gathering, this celebration in honor of the last slaves to be emancipated after the Civil War, was something special.
     Every so often, a conversation could be heard that began with, “Don’t I know you? The response wouldn’t be enough to jog memories, so the conversation continues, “Where did you live?” And the response would often be, “I lived in Banning Homes,” or “I lived in Channel Heights or Western Terraces.” Occasionally someone would claim Rancho San Pedro as his former residence. Sometimes, even the place of residence wouldn’t be enough, so the next question would be, “What year did you graduate from San Pedro High?” And then, almost like magic, a friendship that lay dormant for 40 years is rekindled, as if there were no interruption at all.
     Every year for the last 25, black families that once lived in these World War II era housing projects, get together in a kind of family reunion. This family reunion has since been rolled up into Juneteenth, a celebration that dates back to June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas when the last slaves received news that they were free– two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation!
     This picnic is extraordinary in that it emphasizes the extendedness of the family unit while recovering and documenting their almost forgotten history in San Pedro. This is essentially what the period between Kwanzaa and the end of Black History month aims to do– affirming familial bonds, cultural heritage and passing it on to the next generation. Many of the people at this picnic were former neighbors and classmates, best friends and colleagues whose families stayed connected through marriage or friendship.
     As Joe points at the old site of Channel Heights, now occupied by a large shopping center, Claudette Garnichard-Bowie, the president of the SPC, explains that at that time, much of Western Avenue was still just dirt trails and grass.
     The SPC is working to make the Juneteenth celebration a bigger and better event this year. They’re even working towards bringing fireworks to the annual event. Joe hopes to work with the Harry Bridges institute to collect oral histories from the oldest black residents in town and document the history of black families in San Pedro. Perhaps one of his more ambitious projects is the creation of family trees for these families with roots in Pedro.
     Most of the families at the picnic had arrived in the early 1940s from such Southern states as Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas to escape southern fried racism and take advantage of the many new jobs opening up during WWII. As early as the First World War, there were a handful of families living in San Pedro. At the turn of the 20th century, black folks, like other immigrants, were already well fed on the image of California being warmer in climate and attitude in race relations, considering the prevalence of lynching in the South and the cold overcrowded conditions in the North. The opportunities on the docks, the naval shipyard, the canneries, steel mills and petroleum-processing plants made San Pedro a logical destination.
     Ask anyone of these baby-boomer San Pedrans about his/her experience growing up in Pedro, and they will answer that it was a great place to live, without hesitation. People like Walter Clemens, deacon of Mount Sinai Baptist Church who moved to San Pedro in 1943, have a similar, though measured view. Clemens noted that, “We knew our place.” People knew where they could and could not go in town.
     San Pedrans like 67 year-old Claudette didn’t experience the kind of racial animosity she witnessed in the South on her television screen. Hers is one of the few families that settled in San Pedro before World War II. However, she wasn’t yet born when the Ku Klux Klan marched down 12th Street past her family’s house on their way to Wobblie Hall (Industrial Workers of the World) on 12th and Centre streets. At that time, the Klan counted as their own, many police officers, a city councilman, and business leaders in their ranks.
     Claudette is a retired schoolteacher who has been piecing together her family history to beyond their arrival to San Pedro. She received a great a deal of her information from her father, Joseph Garnichaud. The fact that she knows as much as she does is a feat in of itself, considering that her father is a man of few words.
     “When we go out to brunch, he would drop a little information. I know what I know just from talking to him over the years—which is a heck of a lot of considering how old I am.”
     Joseph, with his older brother, August, came to San Pedro by way of Chicago when he was nine years old to live with his Great Aunt, Uncle Charles and Castella Warren, who were already established in San Pedro by 1920. When Charles arrived, he was befriended by James Gaddis, who worked as a porter at a train yard. According to Claudette, James got Charles the janitorial job in an office building at 6th and Palos Verdes streets.
     Claudette explained that the Warrens bought a house on Knoll Hill and later moved it to a plot of land they brought on 12th between Palos Verdes and Centre Street. With some digging at the San Pedro Bay Historical Society archives, this reporter confirmed the presence of the Warrens in the 1920s in the San Pedro Directory as living on 1st and Beacon streets, and their move in 1924, to 12th Street.
     Black folks coming to San Pedro, before, during, and after WWII worked with an eye toward business and home ownership. Perhaps taking heed of Booker T. Washington’s advice of acquiring property and wealth to somewhat insulate themselves from racism.
     Many at the picnic were able to recall some of the black-owned businesses they patronized in San Pedro, including Daniels Auto Indy, owned by Roosevelt Daniels. Daniels was listed as a collier (a person who carries coal, particularly on steam ships) in the San Pedro Directory in 1928. By 1931, Daniels was listed as owner of his own service station. Even Claudette’s father, Joseph turned his uncle’s job of cleaning an office building into a business that had contracts to clean offices from Western to Beacon Street.
     Many of the men seated at the domino table were card-carrying longshoremen, from Casual to A-list. Gentry Montgomery worked as a casual for nearly twenty years before he was initiated into the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in 1978. Gentry recalled, “There weren’t that many black longshoremen and no black clerks”, at the port during his time— at least not until the Gatlin and Goldin cases ended the practice of sponsorship in the ILWU.
     To understand San Pedro’s temperament and culture is to understand the origins of the ILWU. The Pacific Coast District of the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), the precursor to the ILWU, went on strike in 1934 to get a better deal than the ILA had acquired. While the ILA was able to secure wage increases and preferential hiring, it wrote off control of the hiring process to the employers. In addition to these problems, the undemocratic top down leadership style of the ILA and its lack of a grievance system made it ripe for a split.
     Within the week of the strike, seaman and other maritime workers joined the Pacific Coast Longshoremen. Teamsters refused to handle scab cargo, and in July, a bloody confrontation between the police and union workers triggered a general strike of more than 100,000 workers in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. With the leadership of Harry Bridges and the discipline of the rank and file, shut down the entire West Coast winning the strikers virtual control of the hiring process and the six-hour day (In practice, they worked an eight-hour day with the last two hours counted as overtime).
     The ILWU was formed when the striking longshoreman voted to leave the ILA to become an independent union affiliated with the CIO. The ILWU had established an anti-racist stance, but this principle clashed with their cherished principles of local autonomy, rank and file democracy, seniority, and preferential hiring of sons , nephews and brothers. Essentially, a worker had to have roots in the community in order to work on the docks.
     During the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century, blacks had often been used as strike breakers. The AFL didn’t want them in their ranks and when the CIO was formed, they expected blacks to pay the same dues without equal representation. During a 1916 strike in Seattle, 1400 scabs were used to break the strike— 400 of them were black. A number of them were pulled off of train cars and beaten or killed.
     San Pedro is a town of contrast—both reactionary and progressive, both bigoted and liberal. The rank and file of the ILWU launched work stoppages in protest of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Japanese aggression on China, and Mussolini and his Hitler supported forces assault on Spain’s democratically elected communist government. Yet some of the San Pedrans at this picnic can recall a time where they couldn’t buy a home south of 7th Street.
     It took a multi-racial effort to change the conditions at the port and the habits of real estate agents in this town. There are a number of unsung heroes whose stories have yet to be told. Still waters run deep here, while submerged memories wait to surface. Listening to these folks catch up on old times, snacking on deviled eggs, it’s clear that San Pedro High School was fertile ground in which to plant seeds and establish deep and sturdy roots.