The Anderson Effect

A journalist trying to change the world. A curator of all things social. Living at the intersection. Member of the new normal. Echa Pa'lante!

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Less than a month ago, we kicked off this Tumblr as a way to share stories of Los Angeles, starting with Black History Month. We’re incredibly proud to share that today, our work here has spawned into full section in the print edition of the L.A. Times! A big thank you to all of our readers for following along. And if there’s anything you’d like to see from us here, ask away. 

– @anniezyu

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Eso Won Books 

Location: 4327 Degnan Blvd

In 1995, a young activist who’d just written a memoir came to Eso Won for a book signing. There wasn’t a huge crowd interested in his book, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” but the bookstore made him feel welcome. Twelve years later, the same young activist would return to Eso Won, at his own insistence, for an event around his “Audacity of Hope.” The following year, he became the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Owners James Fulgate and his partner, Thomas Hamilton, opened Eso Won Books in 1990. In the 26 years since, the store has become a staple of its Leimert Park neighborhood, hosting Bill Clinton, Spike Lee and Nikki Giovanni. With a wide selection, including coffee table books, children’s books, fiction, mystery and local authors, in addition to new releases in fiction and nonfiction, the stock has a strong, unapologetic African American focus.

@TrevellAnderson

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Melina Abdullah, activist

“If we hope to bring about change, we have to take care of our people. But ‘our people’ isn’t just a concept. They are our families and neighbors.”

For two decades, Melina Abdullah has pushed herself to live up to those words — her own.

Now a professor of Pan-African studies at Cal State L.A., she moved here to pursue a doctorate in political science at USC and wound up integrating herself into the fabric of the city. For that she credits her late mentor and professor, Michael Preston.

“He encouraged me to engage with people as human beings,” Abullah said, “connecting concepts to their experience.”

She spent five years at L.A. Youth at Work, a Chamber of Commerce initiative that prepares disadvantaged kids for the workforce. That job, she said, helped her find and understand the black Los Angeles experience.

It also helped her form relationships with the city’s politicians and community organizers.

Those connections would be called upon in July of 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin. The day the verdict was announced, Abdullah and hundreds of others met in Leimert Park to protest.

Three days later a fellow activist — Patrisse Cullors — called Abdullah and others to St. Elmo’s Village, where the group organized the first chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement. There now are 35 chapters across the globe.

“The movement has called black people to fiercely love ourselves,” Abdullah said. “We have seen black people rise up, and people have begun to take notice.”

That pride, and civic activism as a way of life, is something she is passing on to her three children.

“My children are built into the movement. They come to every meeting and they get love from lots of other people,” Abdullah said. “It allows me and other mothers to be a part of the movement in a way that does not sacrifice our lives.”

—Jerome Campbell

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That time the president came to Los Angeles…

It’s Presidents Day. And while Los Angeles – or California itself, for that matter – couldn’t be part of the travel itinerary for presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, we’ve compiled a snapshot of some of the presidents who have passed through the City of Angels over the decades.

From Obama giving the commencement speech in 2014 at UC Irvine to a dripping wet JFK emerging from the Pacific to FDR at the Hollywood Bowl and Wilson on parade through the streets of DTLA and several in between.  Below, in a shot from 1948 here in L.A., a young actor named Ronald Reagan stands beside President Harry S. Truman, with actress Lauren Bacall behind them. 

A little presidential trivia:

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, was the first sitting president to visit Los Angeles, and the Western region, in 1880, the same year the University of Southern California formally opened. 

L.A. was more of a village then, the outlying areas around the city center were transforming from ranchland to orange groves, mostly. (Ever notice the preponderance of Orange Grove streets throughout the region?) 

Los Angeles Times would begin publishing a year later, as Los Angeles Daily Times. (More on that here.)

As we’re living the electoral process now, here’s another fun fact: Hayes didn’t win the popular vote; he squeaked into office by a margin of one electoral vote.

Although some have praised his commitment to civil service reform and defense of civil rights, historians tend to rank Hayes among the bottom half of U.S. presidents. (Sorry, Mr. President.)

Who knows. Maybe by this time next year, the newly inaugurated 45th president might have already visited our fine city. 

– @mmaltaisla

Photos by Los Angeles Times

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Kendrick Lamar made history this year unseating Eminem to become the rapper with the most Grammy nominations in a single night. (Michael Jackson, with his 12 nods in 1984, holds the all-time record.) The Compton native earned 11 nominations — including two in the major races, album and song of the year. Lamar’s achievement is all the more impressive because he did so with “To Pimp a Butterfly,” an unapologetically black album so challenging and musically complex that fans and critics are still chewing on it almost a year later.

“Kendrick Lamar is one of Compton’s greatest ambassadors. We in Compton are proud of him because he is a symbol of what our city really is – a place where dreams can come true.”

– Janna Zurita, Compton councilmember

Lamar also recently received the key to the city of Compton after serving as the Grand Marshall of its annual Christmas parade.

 – @trevellanderson​

Check out 10 essential artist who helped shape “To Pimp a Butterfly.”

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Califia, Queen of California

The state of California was born in 1850. But the inspiration for “California” was born in 1510.

Also, she was black.

Califia was the Queen of the fictional island of California, which was populated by black Amazons, as written in a romance novel by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.

Apparently Califia was a big, beautiful black woman. 

“She was not petite, nor blond, nor golden-haired. She was large and black…”

– E.E. Hale wrote of Montalvo’s Califia in the Altantic Monthly in 1864

The  novel, “Las sergas de Esplandián [The Adventures of Esplandián],” describes this island called California “peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons.” 

In 1535, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés and crew landed on what’s now Baja California, which looked like an island as they came from the south. The name, apparently, stuck. 

You can spot references to Califia – sometimes Calafia – around California. A beach, a business. 

This image in the photo above, thanks to our friends at Yesterland.com, once adorned a movie theater in the San Francisco section of Disney California Adventure. In fact, Whoopi Goldberg brought the mythical queen to life in the “Golden Dreams” movie that showed there until 2008. Califia was displaced by Ariel, the Little Mermaid. 

Does Califia appear on the seal of the great state of California? 

Nope. That’s Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. The connection between California and the Roman goddess, as described on the state website: “Just as Minerva sprung full-grown from the head of Jupiter, California became a state on September 9, 1850, without having to go through a territorial stage.”

– @mmaltaisla 

[trevellanderson]

#BlackGirlMagic #BHM

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#UnapologeticallyBlack

UCLA gymnast Sophina DeJesus, from Temecula, today considers herself an Angeleno, proud to wear her Bruins blue. 

“I’ve lived in California all my life, and I’m hoping after college I stay in L.A. because I just love L.A….L.A. is a place where you can be yourself and there’s a lot of different types of people.  You can be free and open and be yourself. There’s such a big diversity.”

Sophina is a woman of color in a sport that is still predominantly white. According to a 2007 study by USA Gymnastics, of almost 19,000 gymnasts, nearly three quarters were white, and only 6.61% were black.

She’s proud of the diversity of her team, something her coach has worked to cultivate. While she is proud of her identity – black and Puerto Rican – she mostly talks about the work of pushing her body against the pull of gravity, and deciding when to set race issues aside. 

“It’s not mainly about one ethnicity doing this sport. I do embrace my ethnicities for sure, and I hope to inspire others that are my ethnicity and aren’t and everyone in general, because we are all equal.”

The Olympics are calling. Could she represent Puerto Rico? (Her paperwork is on file there.) But she might be ready to leave this world behind – perhaps for Hollywood.

When she graduates from UCLA this May, she plans to stick around in L.A., the city that surrounds her spotlight.

Find out more about her journey and her history here. 

– Joy Resmovits

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If you like punk music, you need to know about Death.

Death is a rock group formed in Detroit in 1971. They were punk before punk was punk. For a long time, they were almost completely unknown, even though their sound was so far ahead of its time.

Part of this had to do with their name, “Death” – record companies thought it was too aggressive, and didn’t want any part of it. From a 2013 profile in the LA Times on the group:

The group even attracted the attention of music mogul Clive Davis, who offered the Hackneys a deal if they’d come up with another name. But [guitarist] David Hackney, who had concocted the name after their father died tragically in 1968, was adamant about holding onto that identity.

Yeah. They refused to change their name. That’s sounds pretty punk if you ask me.

The pictures above are from a reunion show in 2013 at the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles, by the way.

Check out “Politicians In My Eyes,” a track that’s still as heavy today as it was when it was released in 1976 on Tryangle Records. 

Yes, 40 years ago.

Read more on the LA Times about them here, check out their latest album, or watch the (amazing) trailer for a documentary on the group below.

– @dexdigi 

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Before #OscarsSoWhite

Diversity in Hollywood is more than a black-and-white issue. 

“We have become a generation of diversity. We have mixed the coffee with the cream, so to speak. People have blended together. That is our truth. And our films should reflect that.”

– Sacheen Littlefeather, activist speaking about diversity in Hollywood today

Back in 1973, the Academy made actor Marlon Brando an offer he absolutely refused. He won an Oscar for his role in “The Godfather” that year. But instead of Brando walking up to accept the award, actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage on his behalf, refusing the award. In front of millions of TV viewers, she used the opportunity to make a political statement decrying the stereotyping of Native Americans in movies and TV. 

“It’s hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.”

Fast forward to 2016: Jada Pinkett Smith recently wrote to Littlefeather saying that watching a clip of the Oscars speech provided validation for her boycott of the Oscars this year.

Read more of a Q&A @dexdigi did with Littlefeather on the bold statement she made over 40 years ago.  

Photo: Associated Press

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Lunar New Year in Los Angeles

Location: Chinatown, Los Angeles

As many Angelenos settled in at Super Bowl parties across the city, there was another kind-of-a-big-deal going on: Sunday marked the eve of Lunar New Year, a.k.a. the biggest holiday of the year for many Asian cultures. 

Traditionally, families gather for a meal on the eve of Lunar New Year. This year, instead of munching on wings at a friend’s Super Bowl party, my friends and I were making dumplings at my kitchen table and cooking a whole fish – with the game streaming in the background on a tablet. 

Later, we joined the thousands of people, young and old, at the Thien Hau Temple in Chinatown to welcome the Year of the Monkey, with the Los Angeles skyline shimmering behind us. 

You can find out all about the traditions, new and old, on latimes.com.

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone.

– @anniezyu

(Photos by Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

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From the archives

Shoeshine boys work in L.A.’s Old Plaza, what is now the center of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument, circa 1930.

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Here’s a few amazing photos we found in the archives of Donna Summer. Check out the last one, of her joking with Betty Ford and former president Gerald Ford. That was taken at a “disco party benefit” show in 1979. 

Here’s an excerpt from a writeup of the party, including a description of “older guests” complaining about the loud disco music, from the Nov 5th, 1979 LA Times:

Another bit of LA and Donna Summer history: You’ve probably heard this track, “She Works Hard for the Money”, off her 1983 album of the same name:

A lot of people might know that this is one of the first videos (maybe the first?) by a black woman to receive heavy rotation on MTV.

But you might not know that the song is based on the time she saw a woman working as a bathroom attendant at Chasen’s, a legendary restaurant in Beverly Hills. 

That restaurant, by the way, was about a mile and a half away from the ballroom where the first picture in this post was taken.

Donna Summer passed away in 2012. You can read more about her life here.

- @dexdigi

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And the winner is…

The Black Oscars were the best-kept secret of black Hollywood – for decades.

“We were anointing ourselves. We were acknowledging our presence and our worth, our value and our accomplishments,” said actress and living legend Debbie Allen.

On the eve of the Academy Awards – mainstream Hollywood’s biggest night – black Hollywood held an annual gathering at one posh hotel or another to honor their contributions with a statue of ebony since they rarely received the gold.

“It began as a way to fill a void in the city and in the community,” said Gil Robertson, president of the African American Film Critics Assn. “People work hard and invest in their craft and were being ignored … so the Black Oscars became a way for them to receive acknowledgment of their talents and their craft.”

I first found out about the awards while covering this year’s #OscarsSoWhite conversation when I stumbled onto a 2007 article about the end of the Black Oscars. I learned that the private dinner, created by Washington, D.C., lawyer Albert Nellum in 1981, was black Hollywood’s way of recognizing and embracing its own talent when the broader industry didn’t.

Allen told me about the annual gathering, where she was once honored:

“It was always a celebration of what accomplishments black people had done in the film industry. Sound, music, directors, actors, whatever your participation was, you were honored.”

Its formal name, the Tree of Life Awards, is derived from the ancient African symbol of family, unity and struggle for survival, an apt representation of the lives of minorities in the entertainment industry.

The Tree of Life Awards were virtually unknown outside black Hollywood — and organizers were OK with that.

“It wasn’t something that was clandestine,” Robertson said. “But if you’re a part of the community, you knew. If you weren’t, you didn’t know.”

@trevellanderson

Photo by Debbie Allen

[richiepope-deactivated20240228]

I drew today’s Google Doogle of Frederick Douglass. Happy Black History Month! *black fist emoji*

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Bridget “Biddy” Mason

Location: 333 S. Spring St., Los Angeles

Born a slave in 1818, Biddy Mason walked to California behind her Mississippi master’s wagon. After meeting freed slaves in San Bernardino, she went to court, winning her freedom in 1856. For the next 10 years, she saved her wages from jobs as a midwife and nurse to buy property near 4th and Spring streets in downtown L.A. In the years that followed, “Biddy Mason’s Place” became known as a daycare center and orphanage and as the meeting place for the city’s first African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In the 1880s, she financed a disaster center for residents left homeless by flooding.

An 8-by-81-foot timeline wall of Los Angeles’ and Mason’s intertwined history is dedicated to the entrepreneur and philanthropist on a parking garage near where her home once stood. Nov. 16, 1989, was declared Biddy Mason Day in Los Angeles. Mason died in 1891 at 72 years old.

– @TrevellAnderson

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Lovie Yancey, Fatburger

Location: 3020 S. Western Ave.

Before Ronald, Wendy and the Burger King, there was Mr. Fatburger.

Founded by Lovie Yancey in 1947, the fast food chain Fatburger began as a three-stool stand on Western Avenue near Jefferson Boulevard in South Los Angeles. 

The establishment became known for its massive, custom burgers attracting celebrities such as Ray Charles and Redd Foxx. Others, including Pharrell, Kanye West, Montel Williams and Queen Latifah, have opened their own Fatburger franchises. Over the years, “The Last Great Hamburger Stand” was immortalized in a string of songs, movies and TV shows, including the sitcom “Sanford and Son,” the film “The Fast and the Furious” and the Ice Cube single “It Was a Good Day.” It even once made David Letterman’s Top 10 list for things he’d miss most about leaving the city. By 1985, other burger chains had begun, but Yancey remained unfazed.

“I don’t worry about McDonald’s, Burger King or Wendy’s,” she told the Wave in 1985. “They may be more popular, but a good hamburger sells itself, and I don’t think anybody makes as good a hamburger as we do.”

Yancey sold her Fatburger company to an investment group in 1990 but retained control of the original property on Western Avenue. It was sold in 2007 with the requirement that it could never be torn down. It stands today, though incorporated into a low-income housing development.

Today is the eighth anniversary of her death. Yancey, who was born in Texas, died in 2008 at 96 years old.

@TrevellAnderson

[ordoabnox]

The first African American with a Ph.D in political science from Columbia. #Morehouse