By Blair Clarkson
Staff Writer

Feb. 10 -- Each of us has one somewhere. An old shoebox or battered suitcase filled with faded papers, ticket stubs, love letters, yellowed photographs and other ancient memories stashed away and long forgotten in the back of our closet, under our bed or up in a dark corner of the attic.

Some are too painful to open. Some are too well hidden to find. But some are just waiting to be rediscovered. And once laid out and organized, the contents of these old boxes could tell the story of our life.

Native Santa Monica resident Marty Payne, who five years ago found an old timeworn chest his parents had kept in their Virginia Avenue home, discovered not only an account of his own family's narrative amid the childhood photos, correspondences and assorted documents, but also the stories of other black families in Santa Monica and some of the history of the city itself.

Payne poses with pages from two of Santa Monica's black newspapers published in the early 1940s. (Photo by Frank Gruber)

On Sunday, to help celebrate Black History Month, Payne presented his "Treasures from the Chest" collection and photo scrapbook of Santa Monica's past to some fifty members of the public at the Historical Society Museum.

"We grew up with this chest as children," said Payne's sister Delores, her hand on a rusted corner of the old black case. "My mother saved all the pictures and important papers. As children we used to just play with it, but we didn't pay any attention to the documents."

For the eager and diverse audience gathered at the museum, Payne used many of these overlooked documents to illustrate a wide range of topics -- the city’s early African American pioneers; the impact of the 10 Freeway on the Pico Neighborhood; the city’s social structures, job opportunities and school system and his own positive experiences as a black child growing up in Santa Monica in the turbulent 1950s.

"(The City) was a very protected environment for me," said Payne, who grew up in Ocean Park. "It allowed me an opportunity to grow and be nurtured without a lot of the distractions and suffering" that affected much of America at the time.

Standing in front of yearbook photos and slides of himself as a child, Payne -- a member of the band, the Caribbean All-stars -- recounted his progress through the various City schools he attended from kindergarten at Kansas Avenue (now Edison) through John Muir, John Adams, SAMOHI and finally Santa Monica College.

"Citizen" Payne, as he is known in music circles, attributes his love of music to the "enthusiastic" teachers who made special efforts to cultivate his gift and provided him with instruments in the third grade.

When compared to other areas of the country, Payne said, there was a relatively low level of racial tension between black and white students on Santa Monica campuses in the 50s and 60s.

"We didn't have the stringent racial segregation, because we only had one high school. We went to school with everyone. They were our friends.

"Santa Monica was a perfect place for me to understand exactly where I came from and where I could go, because there were no limits put on me in this school system," he added.

The "very organized social network" of African American families was instrumental in the development of the city’s the black community, said Payne, who displayed numerous photographs of social club gatherings, fraternal organizations and events at La Monica Ballroom.

"The extended family organization set the foundation for a strong African American community," he said.

That community, however, was dealt a severe blow when the Santa Monica Freeway plowed through the heart of the Pico Neighborhood. Many families were displaced by the construction and forced to move to Los Angeles, Culver City and Venice, because "there was no place else to move in Santa Monica," Payne said.

Yet many displaced residents still returned to the City for social events, community meetings and church services, he said.

Also included in the presentation was a brief review of the City's early history from land disputes arising from westward U.S. expansion and the granting of titles to pioneer families to the Civil War and the official end of slavery.

Highlighting other vital dates in the City's history, Payne discussed the establishment of the Post Office in 1938, which provided numerous jobs for African Americans starving for work, and the rise of Douglas Aircraft, which became a major contractor for the Air Force during World War II.

"It opened up many more opportunities for blacks," Payne said, showing images of his father's paychecks from Douglas, as well as war rations books, pictures of his father at an air base in Italy, letters he wrote to his mother and other wartime mementos.

By finding and organizing the vast array of memories in his parents' old chest, Marty "Citizen" Payne found he could offer more than just a scrapbook of his own family's life. He discovered he could also give the community a glimpse into his beloved city's past.

As his sister Delores noted, perhaps many of us could do the same.

"We all have these treasures," she said.

The Santa Monica Historical Society Museum is located at 1539 Euclid Street. For information on its collection and exhibits call 395-2290.