Picturesque and charming, tucked away in the foothills, Altadena seemed like a secret beyond the reach of Los Angeles.
“It felt like home — peaceful and calm and a little secluded,” said Shirley Taylor, who grew up in North Carolina and arrived in 1979.
The city also offered a striking element: a flourishing community of middle-class black families. Mrs. Taylor, the administrator of the Social Security Administration, knew she and her two sons would fit in well.
She bought a three-bedroom Craftsman on Las Flores Drive for about $75,000 that offered mountain views from the master bedroom.
“Oh, it was wonderful,” she said. “I called it ‘my little country home.'”
The community thrived around them. Everyone was an aunt or uncle or cousin. Neighborhood barbecues were lively events. Children played in the streets and hurried home when someone rang the bell at sunset. A network of artists, county officials, workers and retirees flourished.
Now the future of what was historically a black enclave within Altadena is in jeopardy, after Ms. Taylor and many other residents lost their homes in the massive Eaton fire. Entire neighborhoods in the city of about 42,000 inhabitants have become deserts of ash. The loss of homes is incredible. Loss of a unique haven, shocking.
Nearly 21 percent of the residents directly affected by the Eaton fire are black — a high proportion, given that blacks make up only 8 percent of Los Angeles County’s total population. Some of those who lost their homes did not have fire insurance.
“It’s very painful, because it feels like people’s families have been destroyed, and I don’t know if that family will be reunited, because property in California is just as expensive,” Ms Taylor, 75, said.
Neighbors were horrified when they learned the names of the dead.
Rodney Nickerson, 82, a retired aerospace engineer who loved to fish. Victor Shaw, 66, a former courier whose body was found in his backyard with a garden hose in hand. Dalyce Curry, 95, former actress known for an old blue Cadillac she’s long vowed to restore. Erliene Kelley, 83, a retired pharmacy technician who adored her grandchildren.
They, along with other black victims of the fire, lived west of Lake Avenue, where many first-time homeowners of color were pushed out by redlining — discriminatory bank lending practices that effectively prevented them from buying in white neighborhoods. Even after redlining was banned, the practice continued informally through the management of estate agents.
The west side of Altadena has become racially diverse, home to a small number of Asian Americans, a significant portion of the Hispanic population as well as blacks. It had cheaper, more modest houses on smaller lots than on the other side of town, east of Lake Avenue, the main street that cuts through the community and runs from the San Gabriel Mountains south to the 210 Freeway.
In the 1950s, at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, Altadena was predominantly white. When black residents slowly began to appear, they were not accepted.
Wanda Williams, 74, recalled that her father, who worked for the Union Pacific Railroad, was not allowed to buy a house in Los Angeles because of the redline. When the family settled in Altadena around 1953, they were one of only two black families in the entire neighborhood. Ms. Williams recalled an older white woman spraying her with a garden hose while riding her bicycle.
Around that time, a neighborhood watch group known as SENCH, where each letter stands for a street name, was started by a black resident in part to resolve a strained relationship with the sheriff’s department.
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act outlawed racial discrimination against home buyers and renters and helped change the racial makeup of Altadena. Black families pushed out of urban housing in neighboring Pasadena moved in, and the area became sought after by southern families.
About a decade later, the black share of Altadena’s population peaked at nearly 43 percent, according to census data. With the wave came additional government surveillance, as well as white flight, according to Michele Zack, a local historian who wrote a book about Altadena, an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County that does not have its own city council or mayor.
“Real estate agents actually scared a lot of white homeowners, especially those west of Lake Avenue, and said, ‘We can’t be responsible for your property going down in value, so get out now,'” Ms. Zack said.
“They would force white owners in low-income areas to sell their houses cheaply and then bring in blacks and sell them at higher prices,” she said. “So there was a lot of country that was exchanged in panic mode.”
A significant number of first home buyers from that period stayed in Altadena forever. These days, about a quarter of Altadena’s black residents are 65 or older.
Many black families in Altadena passed their houses down from parent to child and hoped that they would be the foundation of generational wealth.
All of this created a community where if you didn’t know someone directly, you probably knew someone related to them. Entire blocks acted as extended families anyway.
“My neighbor on one side taught me how to cheer, and then an older lady, Mrs. Cheatham, would babysit us,” said Regina Major. “But if you were in trouble, you would tell your parents. Throughout that community, you looked out for each other.”
Mrs Major, 62, was just a child when her parents bought a house in the area. Her father was a minister who also ran a printing house; her mother was a jury supervisor for the Los Angeles County Superior Court and worked as a hairdresser on the side.
“There’d always be someone here – she’d be in the kitchen ironing and curling their hair,” Ms Major said. “She also baked a lot, so she made a cake for everyone who had a birthday.”
Mrs. Major moved into the house around the corner from her father, who is now 101 years old. His home didn’t burn down, but hers did.
The camaraderie between neighbors meant that no matter who lost what in the fire, the destruction was shared. The group chats never ended with messages of support and resources.
“Sometimes someone suffers a tragedy and we all come together to support that person,” said Felita Kealing, 61. “But in this case, it’s not about one or two, it’s about thousands of people.
“You see Candace lose her house or Cushon lose her house and you know those people. You have been in their homes, you remember their furniture, you remember how they welcomed you.”
Mrs. Kealing has lived in Altadena for three decades. She and her husband were known for hosting a Christmas breakfast where anyone could stop by for quiche, banana bread and waffles. The couple and their two sons were involved with Altadena Baptist Church, which hosted an annual black history celebration. Their house and church were also destroyed.
More than half of black households in Altadena make more than $100,000 a year, a tidy sum in many places but firmly middle class in Southern California.
“When you lose a middle-class black community, it’s a loss of culture, but it’s also a loss for the next generation,” said Wilberta Richardson, president of the Altadena chapter of the NAACP, which began in 1984.
Ms. Richardson, who is 75 and has lived in the city for nearly four decades, noted that black children growing up in Altadena had the privilege of accessible role models.
But many residents worry the fires will displace neighbors and accelerate gentrification. The black share of Altadena’s population dropped to about 18 percent. Altadena is now considered affluent, with a median household income of $190,000.
The median home sale price in Altadena is now nearly $1.3 million, a figure few longtime residents can afford. Long before the fire, many black homeowners capitalized on their newfound equity by selling and moving away.
Many of those who stayed planned to stay forever.
“Even though we were kind of walled off, we made the most of it and there’s a real sense of true community that we particularly enjoy,” said Jervey Tervalon, a novelist who was born in New Orleans and has lived in Altadena for 20 years. His own home burned down, and he and his family stayed in a nearby hotel.
“The fear of having something to lose is real.”
Ken Bensinger, Robert Gebeloff and Christina Morales contributed reporting.
Audio produced Adrienne Hurst.
