Exploring Pasadena's Past

Exploring Pasadena's Past. . ,

“Well, the first thing to hit me [after returning to Pasadena in the early 1970s] was physical. I didn't know that you had freeways bisecting the city. Of course, you know, I have feelings about that. I know that freeways always follow the path of least resistance and that would mean through the homes and backyards and the property of poor people. It has to follow the line of least resistance.”– Reverend Wilbur Johnson

, The Heart of Pasadena's Communities of Color , Pasadena's Black population grew from just 75 people in 1890 to 24,000 in 1990. Most of these families arrived during the Great Migration (1915-1970), when millions of Black people left the South to escape the rise of Jim Crow laws. But in Pasadena and elsewhere, racist policies and practices continued to dictate where people of color lived, worked, and went to school. , This map illustrates Pasadena's central corridor – sandwiched between Orange Grove's mansions on the west and Fair Oak's businesses on the east – that was the heart of a multiracial, working-class community for most of the 1900s. As residents were forced out of central Pasadena, most moved to northwest Pasadena or west Altadena as the only welcoming neighborhoods. , Bird's-eye view of Pasadena, 1903 , Pasadena's economic geography is already visible in this early view. Large estates line Orange Grove Boulevard – “Millionaire's Row.” Working-class neighborhoods – for the cooks, chauffeurs, gardeners, and housekeepers who ran the big estates – are concentrated on Vernon Avenue, parallel to the railroad tracks. Easements for these tracks justified taking the “path of least resistance” through this neighborhood when it came time to build freeways. Library of Congress