Allensworth: The Past and Future of a Black Agrarian Utopia
Trudi Sandmeier 00:00
Today on Save As:
Nina Weithorn 00:02
Something that’s really important to them is kind of honoring this history of Black agrarianism and resilience and leveraging resources within a community and coming together as a community.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:23
Welcome to Save As: NextGen Heritage Conservation, a podcast that glimpses the future of heritage conservation through the work of graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Trudi Sandmeier.
Cindy Olnick 00:36
And I’m Cindy Olnick. So, Trudi.,
Trudi Sandmeier 00:39
Yes, Cindy.
Cindy Olnick 00:41
We have a combo spectacular extravaganza episode today. Both you and Willa, our fab producer, tackle this extremely fascinating and important topic. It’s a place in the Central Valley called Allensworth.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:56
Allensworth is this really cool community that is really tiny, but it has this huge history associated with it. It was founded in 1908, so it’s been around for a while, over 100 years. But its really important claim to fame is that it was a place that was created by African Americans, a town where they could live free of racism. So, it’s unique in that while there were other places like it in the United States, this is the only one in the state of California. So, it hasn’t been a smooth path for Allensworth. It had kind of a peak in the 1920s. And then various issues came along like disputes about water rights, the Great Depression, and then in 1960, they found arsenic in the drinking wells. And that was sort of the moment when most of the people kind of moved out of Allensworth. But the folks that were still left there in the 60s, knew what an important place it was, and reached out to the state of California, and kind of advocated to draw attention to this interesting and important place. And so in 1974, California State Parks took the historic town center of Allensworth and turned it into Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. And that’s one aspect of what’s there. But it’s also still surrounded by a living community.
Cindy Olnick 02:26
And it’s been in the news quite a bit lately, because of the really bad storms that we’ve been having. And it is in a low-lying area so it’s gotten flooded.
Trudi Sandmeier 02:36
First, Allensworth didn’t have enough water, and now it has way too much. It’s kind of the story of California in a nutshell. Part of the reason the students got involved in the first place.
Cindy Olnick 02:47
So what is the class that focused on Allensworth this semester?
Trudi Sandmeier 02:52
Professor Alison Hirsch, who is the director of the Landscape Architecture program at USC, but is also part of our heritage conservation world, created this class, and she talks a little bit about it in the interview, so I don’t want to give too much away. Alison took a group of students to Allensworth a couple of times over the course of this semester, and they toured the State Park. They met with the stakeholders, the folks who live in the town. And they did kind of really boots-on-the-ground exploration to give themselves the background they needed to be able to help create the proposals they were creating for this class.
Cindy Olnick 03:26
Yeah. And Willa went up with the class and got some great audio talked to some folks up there and some students, and part of their trip was a tour of the State Historic Park where they heard from one of the docents.
Emmett Harden 03:40
Good afternoon. My name is Emmett Harden, a docent here at Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. Colonel Allensworth’s dream wasn’t to create a state park. His dream was to create a community. And being connected to Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Dubois, you got those two philosophies — agriculture and technology. And you had the political connection. And the colonel, Colonel Allensworth realized that he needed both. And the founders that put this town together, got together with a group of people to be able to do that. These people was well-off well-educated business people. This was supposed to be the Tuskegee of the West. Those families that lived here, this was a retirement or a recreational place for most of the families that stayed here. When people wanted to be entertained socially and intellectually, that’s where they came from — Los Angeles from Oakland, the Bay Area. This is where they came. The community of Allensworth still exists today. That’s what’s so unique about where you are now, you have not only a state park, but you have a historical park that’s representing a community.
Cindy Olnick 05:31
Willa also spoke with a current resident of Allensworth, who has quite a long history there.
Denise Kadara 05:37
I’m Denise Kadara, a resident of Allensworth and president of the Allensworth Progressive Association. It has history here. It has a personal history here for African Americans, the townsite that was founded by Blacks, financed by Blacks, and developed and prospered by educated African Americans. And once it became a State Historic Park, my mom bought property here and said she wanted to be a part of history. We didn’t understand what she meant; we didn’t even know was the state park then. But once we found that out my mom bought a house across the street. And when she moved here. She had five children, a set of twins, and all of us came to Allensworth every time she had an event, every holiday, every three-day weekend, every summer, this is where every birthday, this is where we spent all of our time. And so, once we got here, we just continued to fall in our mom’s footsteps. She would call and say I’m doing an event in the park today, I need you guys out here. And we would all just come and finally got to a point where we saw a need to do more. When you have a vision and you work at it, it can be done. And African Americans have never been given that opportunity. We’ve been stigmatized by “those people,” or “they’re not smart enough,” “they can’t do enough.” But Allensworth has been everything to us. And so, for people to realize there was a community back in 1908, it was self-governed. It had, it was equipped with everything that a community would want to have. And that was a vision that the Colonel had, and it came to pass.
Cindy Olnick 07:18
And even though the demographics have changed, and Allensworth itself seems to be a place of self-reliance. Well, let’s get to it. Here is Trudi and Willa’s interviews with a whole team of people about Allensworth.
Trudi Sandmeier 07:41
I’m here with Alison Hirsch, who is the instructor for Architecture 566.
Alison Hirsch 07:47
The official name is Cross-Cultural Topics in Landscape Architecture History. But the subtitle is Allensworth Rising: An Agrarian Utopia of Black Possibility.
Trudi Sandmeier 08:00
Okay, well, that opens up a lot of questions. I know you’ve done work in the Central Valley, as part of your own personal research agenda as a scholar. How did you come across Allensworth and what was the reason you got connected with this community?
Alison Hirsch 08:18
So, I have been researching the San Joaquin Valley for three years, give or take. And I’ve been looking specifically at rural communities, and the inequalities inscribed in that landscape, which has been reshaped by 150 years of industrial agriculture. Allensworth has always been a point of fascination as I travel, you know, north to south, I usually made a detour to go to the State Park. I did originally get invited into Allensworth and to really meet face-to- face with the Allensworth Progressive Association by a faculty member, Suzanne Lacy, who had grown up in the Tulare Lake Basin, where Allensworth is situated. And she had heard about my research around water and the transitioning of agriculture because of groundwater issues and had asked me to join the class on a couple of their field trips and just talk about the issues facing rural communities in that region.
Trudi Sandmeier 09:18
So, when you first started talking about this course, with me, it was kind of centered around this issue of the cemetery. That was part of the original settlement of Allensworth. So, what’s the story with this cemetery situation?
Alison Hirsch 09:36
I got to know different individuals in the Allensworth Progressive Association, but also their allies and familial connections like Sherry Hunter.
Sherry Hunter 09:46
My name is Sherry Hunter. I’m a resident of Allensworth. I’m also president of the board of Allensworth Community Service District, which serves the water as well as the Allensworth cemetery. This is the Allensworth Cemetery, established in 1911. Three things in Allensworth that you can’t get rid of — wind, gophers and dust. But it beats hearing sirens and tires screeching all day. Some of these holes you see in the ground, some are gopher holes, but a lot of them people herd their cattle through here, their sheep, they ride quads through here. You can see some of the tire marks. You have people that still live here that talk about they used to come out here, just running around playing would and find a skull, an arm bone, a leg bone. Back in the 70s, 80s, it was a farmer who came and plowed up a lot of this cemetery. And then he was plowing up graves. There’s a few headstones that are still standing, that we know who they are. Right now, we trying to figure out how many people actually buried here. In the 1800s there were not obituaries the way we think of them today. They were all newspaper articles. So, I’ve been researching to find out who is really buried here. Most of them were pioneers that helped start this town and doing the research, a lot of the people that are buried here were born in the 1800s. And being born in the 1800s, some of them were born into slavery — 1847, 1837, 1850. And I’ve actually found on the rolls, who they were owned by, how much they were worth. But they came here trying to make a better life.
Alison Hirsch 12:08
The Allensworth Historic Cemetery is, in a lot of ways, emblematic of a lot of Black cemeteries throughout the U.S. that are getting more visibility. You know, it is a cemetery with a lot of unmarked graves, burials that really need to be understood better. The challenges originated with the cemetery itself not being included in the State Historic Park, I did discover in the State Historic Park archives that, you know, it had been a question all along about whether the cemetery should be part of the park. But because it’s outside of the boundaries of what was designated as the historic town center, the cemetery was not protected to begin with, and has not been integrated into the interpretive elements of the park itself. So that has left it extremely vulnerable. So there really needs to be more of a survey done, there needs to be protective measures. And there needs to be some form of designation to ensure the cemetery can live on into perpetuity.
Trudi Sandmeier 13:19
So, it kind of started with the cemetery. But then the class became about a lot more than that. Tell us a little bit about how this course came together.
Alison Hirsch 13:29
So, this class brings together students from landscape architecture, architecture, and the School of Art, as well as the Price School of Urban Planning, to respond to the request of the Allensworth Progressive Association to help build out aspects of what’s called the Allensworth Community Plan. We are working through the vehicle of that community plan to really flex our landscape skills in typography and grading, green infrastructure, and how to protect this really special place. So really thinking about, you know, how do we understand the geology, the soils, the ecology, and how can we actually sort of work with the foundations of this place to ensure that it can thrive into the future. And so, the students have been visiting Allensworth on a couple of field trips and getting to know our partners from the Allensworth Progressive Association, both in person and virtually. It’s largely the governing body in Allensworth at the moment, in terms of making decisions and bringing the community together. So those areas in the community plan would be sort of delegated to different students and those areas include community design, climate resilience, green infrastructure, tourism planning, cultural arts strategies, landscape planning and TAC farm.
Trudi Sandmeier 15:08
Does TAC stand for something?
Alison Hirsch 15:11
Yes, TAC does stand for the Allensworth Corporation. TAC Farm is a model training and operating farm based on regenerative principles that is intended to be an economic catalyst and actually drive the economic development of Allensworth as a model agricultural and rural community in the San Joaquin Valley today. So, it’s intended to both be itself an income generator, but also develop a series of different job training opportunities that can then permeate the town and the larger region.
Trudi Sandmeier 16:08
As you guys have been doing this project with the community, there’ve been some interesting developments happening in the region. Why don’t you talk a little bit about what’s been going on.
Alison Hirsch 16:18
So, the massive number of atmospheric rivers that poured down on all of California since early March, has really shifted consciousness about what is the number one priority in Allensworth today and how that should impact the community plan. So, Allensworth is in the historic lakebed, or really, it had been on the southern portion of the Tulare Lake. But it is a low point in the San Joaquin Valley that is largely on soils that were part of the lakebed. And with these atmospheric rivers, they’ve been experiencing incredible flooding. So immediately, Allensworth was actually in a state of emergency; eventually it went under an evacuation order. The members of the Allensworth Progressive Association very deliberately chose to stay in Allensworth to ensure the protection of their community. They were concerned about it being neglected and let to flood and they were concerned about vandalism. And they were concerned that not enough action would be taken in order to protect the community. And so, a number of the members of the Progressive Association, the Kadara family, and a number of the community residents really banded together to strengthen levees, to move earth around, to protect homes, to sandbag homes. Eventually, CalFire and the Red Cross became sort of part of the overall landscape of Allensworth. The stress right now is that as they look towards the Sierras, is what is going to happen next. They’re thinking of it as sort of like an epic snowmelt. So, this was, you know, a historic landscape that was reemerging in a lot of ways. The Tulare Lake bed, I mean, it was the biggest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, which is shocking to acknowledge, because it doesn’t exist anymore.
Trudi Sandmeier 18:23
But it wasn’t so long ago.
Alison Hirsch 18:25
Yeah, it wasn’t so long ago exactly. And so, it had been drained about 100 years ago to facilitate industrial agriculture. But every now and again, during these flood events, it reemerged as, and it’s, you know, often referred to as the Phantom Lake. And a lot of environmentalists and people that are interested in the lake and its survival and its, you know, restoration potentially are really championing the reemergence of the lake as sort of overcoming the capitalist system that has been responsible for its demise. But obviously, it’s much more nuanced than that because there are communities that live in the lakebed now. We started the class with a relatively clear way of moving forward. And interestingly enough, what this class has taught me is how to respond and adapt to the messy realities of life.
Trudi Sandmeier 19:17
The best laid plans. Thanks, Alison. Now we’re going to turn to Willa.
Willa Seidenberg 19:34
I’m here with two students who are in the Allensworth Rising class, Luis Mota and Nina Weithorn. Luis Introduce yourself.
Luis Mota 19:44
Hi, my name is Luis Mota. I’m a final year student in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program. I’m a native Angeleno, and I did my undergrad at Penn. But coming into Allensworth I had just come back from a workshop focused on landscape histories. It’s really brought in so many topics related to landscape architecture –surrounding justice, and you know, flood risk, and sort of the historic redevelopment, as well as sort of looking at populations and some of our most precarious situations. So, it’s a very interesting site to be looking at.
Willa Seidenberg 20:22
Nina, how about you?
Nina Weithorn 20:24
Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Nina Weithorn. I’m in my second year of three in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program at USC. I’m also from Los Angeles, born and raised. I went to college at NYU for environmental science and have a background in urban agriculture. And prior to starting this program, I got really involved in a lot of urban agriculture initiatives in New York City. And then when I moved back to LA in the past couple of years, I’ve been really specifically focusing on Afro-Indigenous farming techniques, and actually had the opportunity last summer to go to Soulfire Farm, which is an Afro-Indigenous farming organization in upstate New York. And I got to be there for a week and get really immersed in that entire world. And it was really beautiful. And then, coincidentally, Alison Hirsch was teaching this class on Allensworth this semester. And so, it was really well-aligned with everything that I had been doing. So yeah, it’s been a really great experience so far. And to really get to connect with the Allensworth community at such a pivotal time.
Willa Seidenberg 21:37
Yes, such a great idea for a class. And it’s a lot of exciting work that you guys are doing. I know that Alison has divided you guys into groups so that you can focus on different parts of the project. Luis, can you tell us what your focus is?
Luis Mota 21:55
So, my focus is surrounding ecotourism and the planning of the next phase of development in Allensworth. So, looking outside Allensworth, really looking at the region and what ecological assets exist, taking inventory of those, and sort of looking to build a network of ecological understanding across the communities in the San Joaquin Valley. Beyond that, it’s really looking within the bounds of the entirety of Allensworth and looking at opportunities to both manage flood risk plan, development both for tourism, so welcoming new visitors to Allensworth to understand its history and understand its ecology, as well as sort of how those planning efforts aligned with the current communities and any future community’s efforts.
Willa Seidenberg 22:48
Has there been anything that’s really stuck out to you in your work so far?
Luis Mota 22:55
Getting to know the community of Allensworth now, and seeing the larger sort of region, it’s both about embracing what’s the current situation and understanding the risks associated and the conditions of the place, but also sort of what needs to happen and sort of how to really evaluate the urgency.
Willa Seidenberg 23:17
Okay, Nina. So, what is your role in the project?
Nina Weithorn 23:20
The group I’m working with for the Allensworth Rising class is focused on making a plan for TAC Farm, which is the regenerative farm that will exist within Allensworth. So, my group is really focused on regenerative agriculture and also green infrastructure. So, thinking about the surrounding landscaping outside of the farm itself, and for the larger community of Allensworth. So, right now, after a lot of the historic rains, we’re thinking a lot about water catchment and water diversion and things like bioswales. And like infiltrating water into the ground and restoring native vegetation, but my focus in the group is really on the development of the farm itself, just because my background is in agriculture. So, a lot of the soil in Allensworth right now is degraded in some capacity, it’s heavily alkaline, or it has certain contaminants in it, or it’s just kind of devoid of organic matter, which is really vital for agricultural production. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to revitalize that soil and how to build soil kind of from the ground up using organic materials that we can find on-site and, and also thinking about which agricultural crops are viable and livestock and, and all those sorts of things.
Willa Seidenberg 24:42
So, I know that over the course of the semester as you guys had been working at Allensworth and planning strategies for both the park and the town, we’ve had these massive rains. How do you feel like that changed the scope of the project and what you were doing?
Nina Weithorn 25:04
Yeah, I mean, I think it shifted it pretty significantly. I think that when the class began even, we were thinking about the landscape as very arid and dry. And as water being something that was very scarce and an issue that was constantly thought about. And it’s interesting, because there’s been such a shift from water as a thing of scarcity to having way too much of it, and in such an unprecedented way. And it just has become really clear that there’s not infrastructure set up in Allensworth right now to handle the amount of water that’s actually coming in from the rains. But also, there’s kind of this slow, impending disaster on the horizon, because of the snow melt, that will inevitably happen this summer. And so I think it’s mobilized the community to really try and find a solution to avoid Allensworth being underwater, or at least that was the general sentiment when we went up there a couple of weeks ago, they were very much in like disaster preparing mode.
26:12
I think in terms of how the flood conditions have really, you know, altered the trajectory, I think it allowed our planning efforts to really think about the larger history of the site, oh, these rains feel unprecedented. There is a long, long history of these floods sort of occurring in the Valley. So, you know, ultimately, I think that this needs to sort of be brought to an acknowledged state and sort of as an ingrained part of the ecosystem and the geomorphology of the site. So really thinking of that, and how it relates to, you know, any new building and how to consider the entirety of the ecology, both as a learning opportunity, but also as a way of thinking of developing.
Willa Seidenberg 27:04
And Luis, you talked about the ecotourism aspect, what does that look like?
Luis Mota 27:09
When thinking of visitors coming to the site, you know, you got to look at the San Joaquin Valley and, you know, the coastal cities of L.A. and S.F., are, you know, vital visitor sort of hubs. But the more immediate region, you know, is predominantly Latino and Hispanic. So, thinking of the communities that would be coming to here and sort of what those needs are, both in terms of thinking and access to educational materials, and sort of what are the infrastructural elements necessary to attract people and make them feel comfortable in public lands that, you know, they may have felt excluded from previously. So, it’s a messaging, as well as sort of, you know, the site components.
Willa Seidenberg 27:19
Part of what makes Allensworth unique is the people. Can you talk at all about, you know, some of the people that you’ve met?
Nina Weithorn 28:08
Yeah, it’s been really amazing to get to know the community. The first time I went up to Allensworth was in September of 2022. And we went for an event called Allensworth Rising, and it was to celebrate the funding that they had got from the [Department of] State Parks to revitalize the community and start the development of the farm. And I got to meet a ton of people that day from the community. One person that, you know, this happens sometimes where you’ll see someone and you’ll start talking and you just like, immediately connect with them. There is a woman there named Sonya. And she and I had a very similar background. And then, just a couple of weeks ago, when we went back up to Allensworth, she had gotten more involved in the development of the farm and in the educational programming. And we have been communicating a lot since. There’s going to be an interim community garden before TAC Farm is fully able to be utilized as an agricultural space. I’ve been working with her to design this interim community garden space. And she’s really amazing.
Willa Seidenberg 29:19
That’s great.
Nina Weithorn 29:20
There’s a lot of overlapping ideas about what the community space should look like and what the farm should look like. But everyone feels very aligned about the fact that the farm itself and the development of this agricultural community is really going to be kind of like the lifeblood of this community and the economic engine to support the residents of Allensworth. So, they have a lot of plans in place, but it’s been really great to be up there and hear everyone just kind of like, brainstorming about all of these different visions for what the community can be.
Luis Mota 29:58
It’s easy to sort of look past Allensworth and sort of think, you know, it’s just going to be zoomed by, but I think ingraining it in the local community is really sort of the way through. Across the Central Valley, you see a lot of communities very much like this sort of throughout. So I think it brings a vibrancy to the local community, sort of surrounded by industrial agriculture to really sort of hone in on what a community can be and sort of offer.
Nina Weithorn 30:29
Thinking about the community and their intentions and their goals, I think that something that’s really important to them is kind of honoring this history of Black agrarianism and resilience and leveraging resources within a community and coming together as a community. And also, just acknowledging the varied histories that are enmeshed in this land from like indigenous history to the movement of Black people into this land and the attempt to like, create this utopia that was somewhat insulated from, you know, Jim Crow era discrimination and racism. And then, you know, the influx of the Latinx community and other communities and really acknowledging the diversity that exists in Allensworth now, and trying to bridge these gaps and bridge these histories and create something really cohesive and really beautiful.
Willa Seidenberg 31:30
Well said. Well, thank you both for joining Save As and sharing your work in this class. Thank you.
Nina Weithorn 31:37
Thank you.
Luis Mota 31:38
Thank you.
Trudi Sandmeier 31:40
So after we did these interviews, the class finished their project and presented their plans and findings to some of the community. Alison was really excited about the outcome and she wanted to tell us a little bit about how it went.
Alison Hirsch 31:53
Well, we had our final share-out with the Allensworth Progressive Association team last week, and the students did a tremendous job putting together their contributions to the community plan, which is a document that will ultimately serve as a road map for Allensworth’s near future as a culturally resilient community that is a model of climate resilience in the San Joaquin Valley. It was such an amazing opportunity to work with the Allensworth Progressive Association. We are so grateful to have had the chance and hope to continue working with this deeply special place in the future.
Trudi Sandmeier 32:25
Thanks so much Alison for sharing this. Great to hear how things come out.
Cindy Olnick 32:34
Wow. So, Trudi and Willa, thank you so much for capturing a small but important part of this very big and important story. This story is such a powerful example of how heritage conservation connects to so many pressing issues, you know, Black history, climate change, rural communities, agriculture, working landscapes, like these farms, and how all of this integrates together and is such an important part of people’s lives every day. If any of you listeners want to learn more, see it for yourself, you can go to a Juneteenth Celebration at the Allensworth State Historic Park on June 10. And we’ll have a link to the State Park website on our episode page at SaveAs.place. And we’ll have a photo on our website of that gramophone you heard earlier.
Trudi Sandmeier 33:25
So, we’re almost at the end of our season. Next episode is our season finale.
Cindy Olnick 33:31
I’m just getting warmed up.
Trudi Sandmeier 33:32
So, you’re just gonna have to tune in to hear how we end season three. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Save As. For photos and shownotes visit our website at SaveAs.place. And please subscribe, maybe give us a review. Tell a friend.
Cindy Olnick 33:56
This episode was produced by Willa Seidenberg and Trudi Sandmeier Our original theme music is by Steven Conley. Additional music for this episode is by Tom Davies. Save As is a production of the Heritage Conservation program in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California.
