ANTI-RACISM ALLIES

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In response to the racial justice protests of summer 2020, and the City of Glendale’s subsequent Sundown Town Resolution, many individuals and organizations are taking action to overturn structural racism and create an anti-racist community. Ending structural racism requires that institutions, policies and laws that uphold white supremacy change, and that means the community needs to change too. Many Glendalians and their institutions are engaging in the work of inclusion, diversity, equity and anti-racism, and this section highlights that work throughout our community.

HISTORY TALK 1

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In this history talk video, scholars, historians and activists Tara Peterson, Tanita Harris-Ligons and Dr. Christopher West address how change has occurred and how Glendale can become a more anti-racist city.

Part 1 of 2

Dr. Christopher West is on the faculty of Pasadena City College. A graduate of UC Berkeley and USC, Dr. West was the first African American man to earn a PhD in History from USC. An expert in Humanities, Dr. West previously worked as curator of history for the California African American Museum in Los Angeles where he originated and designed exhibitions that traveled nationally.

Tara Peterson is the CEO and Executive Director of the YWCA Glendale. She has championed local women and girls by expanding programs at the YWCA to eliminate racism, empower women and drive conversation around domestic violence in Glendale and surrounding communities. She is a recognized expert in the field of Violence Against Women, encompassing the intersection of domestic violence and communities of color.

Tanita Harris-Ligons is a community organizer and activist and co-founder of Black in Glendale (BIG). BIG's mission is to promote awareness of the creativity and contributions of Black people and build community among Glendale neighbors and friends.

HISTORY TALK 2

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IIn this history talk video, scholars and activists Tara Peterson, Tanita Harris-Ligons and Tasha Jenkins Morgan address how change has occurred and how Glendale can become a more anti-racist city.

Part 2 of 2

Tasha Jenkins Morgan is a community activist and co-founder of Black in Glendale (BIG). BIG's mission is to promote awareness and respect for Black culture through events that honor the heritage, creativity and contributions of Black people and builds community among Glendale neighbors and friends.

CONVERSATION ON RACISM

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Racism: Past and Present

A virtual panel discussion presented by the City of Glendale

On Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.

Panelists

Steven Nelson (moderator), Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Steven is also Professor Emeritus of African and African American art history at UCLA and, until recently, the director of the UCLA African Studies Center. He is the author of two forthcoming books: On the Underground Railroad and Structural Adjustment: Mapping, Geography, and the Visual Cultures of Blackness.

Safiya Umoja Noble, Associate Professor of Information Studies at UCLA where she also serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism.

Hannibal B. Johnson, Esq., Harvard Law School graduate, is a member of the federal 400 Years of African American History Commission. He is expert on Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District and the Tulsa Race Massacre. His books cover those topics, together with others on race and racism in Oklahoma and beyond. Mr. Johnson has held teaching positions at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Tulsa College of Law. His book Black Wall Street 100 will be out in 2020.

Gary Keyes, Southern California native and a retired professor, having taught at Glendale Community College (GCC), Pasadena City College, and Crescenta Valley High School for over 40 years. His Race and Differential Application of Justice lecture at GCC proved very popular. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Los Angeles, he is the co-author of two books: Wicked Crescenta Valley and Murder & Mayhem in the Crescenta Valley.

BE THE CHANGE

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The Be The Change series is focused on: Inclusion – Diversity – Equity – Antiracism. Be The Change events build collective understanding of systemic racism, elevate the voices and stories of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), and inspire our community to be the change. The series is led by Glendale Library, Arts & Culture in partnership with the Southern California Library Cooperative and Outlook Newspapers. The series is generously sponsored by the City of Glendale Arts and Culture Commission, with funding from the City of Glendale Urban Art Fund.

COLONIAL SWAG

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Artist and educator April Bey will bring issues of racsim to a larger audience through a commissioned city-wide art installation. Bey’s interdisciplinary artwork is an introspective and social critique of American and Bahamian culture, contemporary pop culture, feminism, generational theory, social media, AfroFuturism, AfroSurrealism, post-colonialism, and constructs of race within supremacist systems.

Bey’s public art installation will be deployed in traditional advertisement spaces in the public sphere. She appropriates and recontextualizes archival material from Episode 1: All-American City. Her work will appear on Metro shelters and on light pole banners in Spring 2021.

SUNDOWN TOWN RESOLUTION

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The author and historian James Loewen maintains a database of possible sundown towns on his website that expands on his 2005 book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism; he estimates that there were over 100 in California. On September 15, 2020, Glendale became the first city in California and the third in the country (following La Crosse, Wisconsin and Goshen, Indiana) to pass a resolution apologizing for its history as a sundown town. In December 2020, Burbank, CA joined Glendale by passing their own sundown town resolution.

Glendale’s Sundown Town Resolution is an acknowledgement of a past history of discrimination, an apology for that history, and a promise to commit to an anti-racist future. Because Glendale was a long-standing sundown town, there is considerable work to be done to create a more inclusive, diverse, equitable and anti-racist city, and we hope you join us.

BE THE CHANGE

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Alongside a global pandemic, the summer of 2020 saw the rise of social justice movements with the intent of finally remedying historic racial inequities in housing, healthcare, protections for LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, economics, and justice. The months-long Black Lives Matter protests sparked by multiple unjust killings of Black people by police reignited the national dialogue on racism generally, and police reform specifically. Many communities and states passed laws in response including banning chokeholds and other restraints, cutting police department budgets, requiring the use of body cameras, and banning “no knock” search warrants. As of March 3, 2021, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which, if passed, will make it easier to hold police officers accountable for misconduct and Constitutional violations resulting from racial bias.

On July 21, 2020, Glendale’s City Council approved membership in the local and regional Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE) a network of governments working together for racial equity and to advance opportunities for all. Together with the Coalition for an Anti-Racist Glendale, a collective advocating for systemic change, City staff drafted a report revealing Glendale’s history as a “sundown town.” On September 15, 2020, the City Council approved a historic resolution that publicly acknowledged Glendale’s history of discrimination, condemned racism, and committed to an anti-racist mission and programming. The passing of the Sundown Town Resolution is historic for Glendale, the first city in California to pass such a resolution, and only the third in the country. The impact of the Sundown Town resolution has rippled throughout Glendale, moving multiple organizations and individuals to engage with the issues of inclusion, diversity, equity and anti-racism.

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We invite you to join us and discover Glendale’s historic “Sundown Town” Resolution and explore the work being done by organizations throughout the community. Click on any of the icons in the interactive image or use the menu bar along the bottom to see documents, website and print resources, and history talks.

This section of the exhibition focuses on hate groups which engaged in racist violence in Glendale; the content and historical imagery may be upsetting to some viewers. 

There are absences in the Library’s collection due to implicit and explicit bias against people of color, which has created an incomplete history of our community. This is true of the vast majority of archival collections in the US. We urge you to use this exhibition as a starting point for your own exploration of racial inequality in Glendale and the United States. 

The image used in this episode is taken at Glendale Civic Center Courtyard, the site of the Black Lives Mater protests in 2020.