Mapping Prejudice in Pasadena

Mapping Prejudice in Pasadena. . Neighborhoods, public schools, jobs, restaurants, movie theaters, swimming pools: little escaped the color barrier in mid-1900s Pasadena. In response, civil rights advocates used the legal system to push Pasadena toward equity for all citizens. , In 1947 a decades-long battle finally allowed for the opening of Brookside Plunge, the city's public swimming pool, to everyone. In 1969 Pasadena became the first city outside the Deep South mandated by the US government to end segregation in public schools. Despite the Supreme Court's 1948 ruling against restrictive housing covenants, housing discrimination has continued through unfair lending practices, entrenched segregation, and lack of affordable housing. , “This tract is exclusive and restrictive.” , Sunkist Gardens in southeast Los Angeles, 1950 , Published in the California Eagle, a Los Angeles-based African American newspaper, this photo documented a suburb designed to exclude Black veterans. Even though the GI Bill guaranteed low-interest mortgages to all veterans, the VA didn't actually administer the loans. Consequently, Back veterans were systematically denied access to affordable housing through unfair pricing systems and lending practices. , California Eagle Photograph Collection, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research , Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) map of Pasadena, 1939 , Derived from maps created by HOLC, a federal agency, the term redlining describes discriminatory lending practices and housing policies. The redlined areas on this 1939 map of Pasadena were deemed “hazardous” for banks and other mortgage lenders to consider making investments there. These red areas correspond with the neighborhoods then occupied mostly by African Americans, Japanese Americans and Mexican Americans. , National Archives, courtesy Mapping Inequality, University of Richmond , “International Day” at Brookside Plunge, about 1928 , Within days of the city-owned pool opening on a segregated basis in 1914, Black Pasadenans protested: “It is not right … a municipal swimming pool is open only one afternoon and evening a week [so-called International Day], whereas for whites it is open at all times.” After many decades, multiple petitions, and a lawsuit filed by the NAACP of Pasadena, the pool finally opened to all residents in 1947. , Courtesy of the Archives, Pasadena Museum of History Photo Album Collection, Volume 59-p3c