Surf, Sand, and Self-Determination: Jim Crow-Era Leisure for Black Angelenos

We said “so long” to summer with a trip to the Santa Monica beach with historian Alison Rose Jefferson, whose work at USC launched a deep dive into African American recreation areas in the Golden State. Her master’s thesis on Lake Elsinore led to her widely acclaimed book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites in the Jim Crow Era.

Alison shares some of the struggles, successes, and legacies of Black leisure spaces in early twentieth-century SoCal. We also hear from an oral history with the late Verna (Deckard Lewis) Williams, who experienced fun in the sun—and racism from white beachgoers—firsthand.