A More Expansive View of Local History

Historian Alison Jefferson offered the following remarks during the Ink Well plaque unveiling ceremony Thursday, February 7.

By Alison Rose Jefferson

I am going to talk about the historical events sited on this commemorative marker, and why they are significant.

Before I get started I want to thank Jessica Cusick and Malina Moore of the Cultural Affairs Division, City Manager Lamont Ewell, and Mayor Herb Katz for honoring me with the invitation to be a part of this celebration of the City of Santa Monica’s diverse heritage.

Placing this memorial marker to honor events less familiar to many is a fabulous way to make the public more aware of the many facades of the California experience. I want to commend the citizens of Santa Monica for your groundbreaking efforts to safeguard and educate people about the City’s historic and cultural heritage.

It is important we continue to include a more expansive view of local histories other than city leader narratives of Anglo upper class male landholders, bankers, business and political leaders. These more expansive views may be inclusive of working people, everyday women and people of color with various origins.

There is still much more that we can and should do to document, interpret and celebrate overlooked groups. Installations of commemorative markers like this one we are here today to celebrate are important efforts towards recognizing the multiple layers of our heritage narrative.

The first African Americans moved to Santa Monica around the turn of the 20th century to join communities of Chinese, Japanese, old Californios and new Mexican immigrants, Anglo Americans and Jews, as well as immigrants of various other national backgrounds. Many of these new African American émigrés settled up the hill from here near Phillips Chapel CME church, the first African American church established in Santa Monica over 100 years ago.

At that time Ocean Park and Santa Monica were two separate cities, already known regionally and across the United States for amusement facilities, entertainment and beach resorts.

Just as others trekked westward to “the mythical land,” African Americans followed the railroads to move to California and Santa Monica for employment opportunities, the climate, health, beauty and freedom. The majority of these new migrants came to the Santa Monica area from American southern states. Like African Americans who moved to the northeastern part of the United States, they also were escaping the worst of Jim Crow segregation.

Abbott Kinney and other visionary entrepreneurs subdivided the area for lease and sale as modest verses estate size residential parcels and for commercial development. The many attractions these businessmen created from the 1890s to 1920 included bathhouses, a salt water pool, hotels, piers, saloons, theatres, amusement rides, dancehalls and a race track, an auditorium and a casino as well as “plenty of opportunities for people watching.” The entire coastline from Ocean Park to Venice became known as “the Coney Island of the West.”

As Anglo Americans from Southern states became more entrenched in California and the African American population increased, so too did the institutionalized restrictions and racism they experienced. As in Los Angeles, though not always stated explicitly in Santa Monica, African Americans knew from experience they were unwelcome at many hotels, restaurants, theatres, and other establishments.

For leisure activities from the 1920s to the 1950s African Americans were able to locate some places where they were relatively free from bigotry to enjoy themselves and take pleasure in the picturesque outdoor offerings of the state. At this time discrimination and restrictive real estate covenants prevented them from buying property in certain areas and from using various public or private facilities.

During the 1920s this area of the beach, sometime known as “the Ink Well,” emerged as a gathering place for African American beachgoers. Down the hill from Phillips Chapel Church and just south of the Casa del Mar, African Americans from the Santa Monica area and Los Angeles would meet for parties and to socialize at beach. Here they could enjoy the ocean breeze, swim and play games with less harassment than at other Southland beaches.

Although this site was enjoyed by African Americans, there were Anglo Americans homeowners and business people of the Ocean Park neighborhood who tried unsuccessfully “to purge” them from their enjoyment of this stretch of the beach. The Santa Monica Bay Protective League blocked the development effort of a Black investment group with plans to build a “first-class resort with beach access” near Pico Boulevard.

At this time other measures were also implemented to bar African Americans from the beach in Santa Monica. A large Anglo property owner who had recently subdivided several lots of beach frontage “placed a Caucasian restriction on their properties, barring African Americans from ownership or occupation.”

Real Estate developers R.C. Gillis, C.L. Bundy and associates urged other property owners throughout the area to follow suit with the “Caucasian clause” to prevent the leasing, occupancy or sale of any property to persons not of the Caucasian origin.
During the 1920s several “save the beach for the public” campaigns were implemented to keep African Americans from creating or maintaining beach front resorts in El Segundo, Manhattan Beach and Huntington Beach. There were some unfortunate personal assaults on individual African Americans to inhibit their freedom to use the public beaches in Santa Monica and in Manhattan Beach. Some turned violent. Legal challenges were made to these discriminatory practices. By 1927 the beach became free for all the public’s enjoyment, and racial restrictions at public beaches began to fade away.

In spite of these unpleasant events which persisted in various forms even into the 1950s, many African American Angelenos and locals walked, road the Pacific Electric trolley lines or drove their cars to this wonderful site we stand at today to enjoy the sun and surf. I have heard many a story of the fun people had while at this Jim Crow era beach site.

A Santa Monica high school student named Nick Gabaldon (1927-1951) loved the beach and the waves. He is said to have taken his first swim in the Pacific Ocean at this beach. A handsome and athletic young man, Nick taught himself to surf using the 13-foot rescue surfboard of a lifeguard he befriended.

Nick is credited by surfing experts as being California’s first documented surfer of African American and Hispanic descent. Even though he was a recreational waterman rather than a professional competitive surfer, his legacy has inspired many surfers of color to consider him as a role model.

Although Nick died in his mid-20s from a surfing accident at the Malibu Pier, his passion, discipline, love and respect for the ocean embodies the identity of quintessential California surfer.

If you are interested hearing more about this history, please join me at the Santa Monica Conservancy’s Lecture Series on Sunday, March 9th at Calvary Baptist Church. I and other speakers with offer more expansive presentations about these topics I have discussed here today and more.

In the celebration of our American, California and Santa Monica heritage, we must take a harder, and perhaps less self-satisfied, look at the complex layers of our history. Although some may not recognize it, these stories of the Ink Well and Nick Gabaldon are part of American history. All of us, no matter how recently arrived, share in these stories.

This marker we unveil today will touch many people’s lives as they come to enjoy the beach here. The stories the text tells on this plaque will be infused into the collective memory of local and national public culture. So let us embrace our layers of national, regional and local heritage, and renew our sense of community pride and identity.

Thank you.

Following is the text on the plaque:

"THE INK WELL"
A Place of Celebration and Pain

The beach near this site between Bay and Bicknell Streets, known by some as "the Ink Well," was an important gathering place for African Americans long after racial restrictions on public beaches were abandoned in 1927.

African-American groups from Santa Monica, Venice and Los Angeles, as early as the 1920s to the end of the Jim Crow era in the 1950s, preferred to enjoy the sun and surf here because they encountered less racial harassment than at other Southland beaches.

In the 1940s, Nick Gabaldon, a Santa Monica High School student and the first
documented black surfer, taught himself how to surf here.