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Daily gate city press2/18/2024 Single-unit residential zones referred to today as R1 did not permit additional units on site to bring in income to support the property, ensuring that only the wealthiest could move in and for the same reason, commercial uses of any kind were barred from residential districts. Public meetings reported in Santa Monica papers in the 1920s presented how zoning could ensure that white wealthy and middle-class residents could keep people of color out of their neighborhoods without violating United States Constitutional provisions for equal rights by rationalizing exclusionary provisions in the name of safety and protection of property value. In 1922, Santa Monica created its first zoning ordinance, and rushed its adoption before it could be completed for the purpose of denying building permits to a group of wealthy African Americans who wished to establish a bathhouse on a Santa Monica Beach and further weaponized the new ordinance to close down a popular Black-owned jazz club in the Belmar Triangle. Due to racism and de facto segregation, African Americans could only enjoy the sand and sun at Bay Street Beach, also known as “The Ink Well,” a place of celebration and pain for the Black community. Santa Monica is believed to have been the first African American settlement in any seaside community in the region. Santa Monica’s first African American residents settled near the railroad tracks on the edge of Santa Monica’s original townsite, which is adjacent to the freeway in downtown today, and established their own church in Santa Monica at Fourth and Bay Streets in 1908, leading to a migration south as far as Strand Street and including the area known as the Belmar Triangle, where the Santa Monica Civic Center and parts of Santa Monica High School are today. The City of Santa Monica acknowledges over a century of racial injustice and discrimination against African Americans that have resulted in systemically racist policies that continue to exclude and discriminate against African Americans:īeginning in the 1880s, African Americans migrated from the southern United States to Santa Monica to escape Jim Crow racial restrictions lured by advertisements promoting the benefits of Southern California, which included employment, good climate, health, beautiful landscapes, and a more liberated lifestyle. Statement apologizing to Santa Monica’s African American residents and their descendants (adopted December 2022) The Committee for Racial Justice, Black Santa Monica Advocates, Universal Human Rights Initiative We demand of the City Council – REPAIR THE DAMAGE. To conclude, we can therefore only hope that reason, and a sense of honor to one’s commitment(s) be taken more seriously. It was never imagined that the apology would be a collection of words, with no action attached to them.Ī number of community residents feel that there is an insensitivity to, or an apathy towards, or a lack of leadership concerning the needs of the Black American community, and the harms done specifically to us.įurthermore, in times where hatred, intolerance, and bigotry are on the rise in this nation, the good citizens of this city not only deserve better, but should feel aggrieved because people who we entrust to positions of representation not only lack careful planning skills, but also a commitment to things promised. One year ago this month, Santa Monica’s Mayor Sue Himmelrich, along with the entire City Council, issued a formal apology to its Black American residents for past injustices caused by the City.Īfter a year’s time there has been nothing either in furtherance of, a follow up to, or even a communication about the above said apology in terms of actions to be taken.
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