1950S Bakersfield and The

Donato Cruz

Spring 2020

Title Page

“America’s Newest City”: 1950s Bakersfield and the

Making of the Modern Suburban Segregated Landscape

Donato Cruz, B.A.

A Thesis Submitted to the Department of History California State University Bakersfield In Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Arts in History

Spring 2020

Committee Approval

DEDICATION The development of researching and writing this thesis has been a process of self-discovery and learning about the inequalities of my own family’s history. I dedicate this thesis solely to my parents. I learned many things from them, and during the process of writing this thesis, I learned they purchased their home on contract in 1992. I never knew the long history of the home buying process, even though I had heard their stories over the years. My parents had no real access to home loans in the 1990s. After bank denials, my father’s employers offered to purchase the home they wanted and sell it to them on contract. They did not offer the alternative, a livable wage to qualify for a bank loan. After a decade of high-interest payments, my father’s employers left the restaurant business to become almond farmers, and they requested to call the remaining home loan balance. My father was able to qualify for part of the home loan, and he continued to pay his previous employers for several years. My father and my mother were able to pay off their home loan in 2019. I dedicate this thesis to my parents Concepcion and Maria Cruz, for their spoken support of my continuous enrollment in higher education. Thank you for your sacrifices.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis is a result of over two years of mentorship, advice, support, and investment. First and

foremost, I owe gratitude to Dr. Marie Stango, who approached me after class and told me that

my term paper had the potential to become a master’s thesis. Two years later, that paper and

initial conversations have now become this thesis. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Stango for her

commitment to strengthening my writing, including her valuable advice and her many efforts to

support my research, even after taking another appointment. May you continue to help students

like me at Idaho State University. I would like to thank Archivist and Director of the Historical

Research Center and Archive, Chris Livingston. He opened the doors of the Archive to me long before this project began. Thank you for your mentorship. I would also like to thank Dr. Stephen

Allen for giving me excellent writing and life advice. Also, Dean of the School of the

Humanities at CSUB, Dr. Robert Frakes, whose commitment to the financial support of graduate research allowed me to travel and research at the National Archives in San Bruno, California.

Also, Bill Greene, Archivist at San Bruno, who allowed me to view records that were in storage and not yet processed. Thank you to those who helped my professional development, Omar

Gonzalez and Jaymee Hasty, both colleagues, who have read my drafts and have heard numerous discussions about my research. Thank you for your friendship. I would like to thank Dr. Oliver

Rosales and Javier Llamas, faculty at Bakersfield College, and Ph.D. candidates Daniel Rios and

Navjyot Gill, who graciously invited me to present my research on a panel at the Western

History Association (2019). Lastly, I would like to thank Dean of the Walter Stiern Library Curt

Asher, for finding the budget and financially supporting my presentation at the Western History

Association during my employment at the library. This project serves as a testament to your support to higher learning and my personal growth. Thank you all.

Abstract

“‘America’s Newest City”: 1950s Bakersfield and the Making of the Modern Suburban

Segregated Landscape” examines post-war Bakersfield, California, which witnessed many changes through the development of new neighborhoods, homes, and city centers, which were

accompanied by changes in urban planning, politics, and race relations from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Focusing on the Mayflower Tract, a minority-dense tract, the thesis argues

that segregation and racial discrimination changed over time. Segregation was an artificial

construction, led by local real estate agents, public officials, and residents. These policy changes

were exacerbated in the postwar era and were not unique to Bakersfield. But for Bakersfield, the

turning point was the 1952 earthquake, as the post-earthquake changes shaped housing and urban

development in urban infrastructure. The changes that impacted housing and urban development

was the development of urban infrastructure. The thesis argues that the modernization of

the Mayflower neighborhood was unequal to the modernizing process in the rest of the city due

to public policy and resistance to racial equality. Within the transformations of a 20-year

period, the thesis argues that de facto segregation was more of a construct and argument, rather

than reality. Segregation in the West was similar to the inequalities of the urban North and

similar to the South, where segregation was classified as de jure.

Table of Contents Copyright ...... 2 Title Page ...... 3 Committee Approval ...... 4 DEDICATION ...... 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 6 Abstract ...... 7 Introduction ...... 9 Chapter One: “The Introduction to Mayflower Housing” ...... 46 Chapter Two: “The Politics of NIMBYism: How Ideas and Practices of Inequality Govern,” ...... 86 Chapter Three: “The Rising Phoenix and the Shadow it Casts: Urban Development, Urban Renewal, and Inequalities in Bakersfield Post-Earthquake” ...... 129 Epilogue: “Resistance to Change” ...... 173 Bibliography ...... 204

Introduction George H.W. Bush Sr. moved his young family to Bakersfield in the summer of 1949.

The Bush family stayed in Bakersfield, California, for only a few months, June through

September. While his stay was not significant to local or even national history, George H.W.

Bush later became president of the United States (1989-1993). His son, who was there as an

infant, George W. Bush, also became president (2001-2009).

George and Barbara Bush moved into a small wood-sided home at 2101 Monterey Street

in East Bakersfield. 1 At the time, the neighborhood was new, about a decade old and flourishing.

The homes were moderate, and Bush was an oil field equipment salesman for Dresser Industries, a company later bought by Haliburton in 1998. The Bush family moved out of Bakersfield in

September 1949, having stayed temporarily for about three months. The stay was short and most

likely insignificant to the political career of both Bush presidents; however, their neighborhood

choices were more significant to neighborhood race relations. While the Bush family only

rented, Mark Abernathy, a right-wing conservative political consultant, bought the home in 2000

with the plans convert the home into a museum.2 The home remains the property of the

Abernathy family; however, it has yet to become anything significant for the public to celebrate

its “history.”

The home was located on Lot 13 on Tract no. 1071, otherwise known as the Mt. Vernon

Tract. The subdivision included legal limitations. These restrictions included the expectations of

people who could live there. In May of 1938, developer Fred Wyant established the tract and

submitted a notarized restrictive covenant in July. All covenants, or legal agreements on the

1 “George H.W. Bush was once a Bakersfield resident,” Bakersfield Californian November 30, 2018, https://www.bakersfield.com/news/breaking/george-h-w-bush-was-once-a-bakersfield-resident/article_6d41ed24- f528-11e8-bd39-db6928908b37.html 2 Ibid

conditions of buying, owning, building, or selling homes were racially exclusive. These

“agreements” were conditions of collective owning in neighborhoods. The conditions and

restrictions created limited geographic access to renters and homebuyers. The limitations created

uniform behaviors, and they were made to encourage homogeneity by having visual similarities, usage, square footage, yard setback, and financial value. Modern homes can also have constraints, but in the past, covenants like the one on the Bush family’s home could ban certain races.

The covenant had additional limitations, as the Tract’s restrictive agreements had multiple sections and specific bans contained within them. Ideas of desirability influenced the first nine sections of the legal agreement. Besides race, the rest were all economic limitations.

For example, restrictions included limits on home use, where no trade work or noxious buildings were allowed on the property lot. Additionally, only single-family homes were allowed with neighborhood committee approval and valued at more than $2,500 for 800 square feet and

$3,500 for 1,200 square feet lots.3 These were the requirements to build a home. The categories

allowed for future owners and sellers to advertise to the race and the socio-economic class they approved. These restrictions had a profound impact on neighborhood demographics by limiting purchases to white middle-class families.

The restrictive covenant was not colorblind. Section 5 of the covenant stated, “Said premises shall not be used or occupied by any persons not of the white or Caucasian race, except as are employed as servants by the owners or tenants of said property.”4 Race and economic

restrictions allowed for full control of future and long-term demographic development. The Bush

3 Fred Wyant, “Mt. Vernon Tract No. 1072.” Kern County Hall of Records, July 27, 1938, pp 71 4 Ibid, 71

family had moved into a racially exclusive neighborhood in East Bakersfield. With the legal constraints, the Bush family would have found themselves near others of the same race and income. The Mount Vernon Tract covenant guaranteed that the home buyers would be white, while also restricting future sales to only white buyers. The Bush’s short stay in Bakersfield served as an example of segregated white America.

Legal race restrictions reserved the neighborhood for white homogenous investment, a common practice in the United States. When restrictive covenants became unenforceable after

1948, other race prohibitions remained, such as sundown towns. Loewen’s Sundown Towns: A

Hidden Dimension of American Racism, studies the prevalence of American cities that have no, or very small minority populations. A sundown town would typically have a very public sign that said: “(racially explicit word) Don’t let the sun go down on you in (town’s name).” The phrase was very well known, and even today, towns debate the existence of such public messages. The absence of racially explicit signs also meant that these restrictions were real and enforced but not always documented. Sociologist James Loewen writes that the Republican Party of the late

1960s carried popularity and almost unanimous support in “sundown towns.” These towns became prominent during the rise of modern right-wing conservative politics of the 1960s and

1970s. George Wallace, the Alabama Governor who ran his presidential platform on segregation, found considerable national support in sundown towns.5 Sundown towns had an existing

relationship with politics. George W. Bush and Richard Chaney both lived in Highland Park,

Texas, a known sundown town. Highland Park recently desegregated in 2003 when the census

recorded African American households.6 This was the first time African Americans were

5 James Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, (New York, NY: The New Press, 2005) 373 6 Ibid, 403

recorded living in the neighborhood. The contemporary desegregation was significant. Bush’s neighborhood choices were not unique; his father had rented in a restricted neighborhood during his childhood, and little had changed in a generation. The history of suburban development is the history of segregation since segregation profoundly influenced suburbanization.

This thesis will focus on the modernization of housing, including public housing, and the development of Bakersfield, California, as a new urban center from 1952 to 1960. In this work, I also compare Bakersfield’s process of modernization to other postwar suburbanization and segregation efforts in Arizona and elsewhere in California. Both states were essential to suburban identities in the postwar West and are the states most studied by recent historians. Bakersfield and many Western cities expanded and also helped influence local actors in their state politics.

Many of these cities gave rise to influential politicians. Bakersfield is essential to the national historical analysis since the postwar period gave rise to more substantial inequalities.

Bakersfield’s racial boundaries were already present, but it was the financial growth and opportunity for urban development that facilitated the hardening of geographic and economic housing inequalities. Civil rights activists fought for public accountability, city incorporation, and demanded equal housing, and this was also partially achieved in the 1950s.

In the same period, counter-movements rose to deny and resist demands for equality. The

1950s became a pivotal decade that gave rise to conservative politicians, lobbying efforts, and lawsuits to resist the demands of equal housing. Bakersfield lacks written historical comparisons and analysis because of its comparatively small population, but records do exist. Bakersfield has given place and voice to many influential political figures from Earl Warren to Thomas Werdel, whom both faced off for the California Republican party presidential nomination of 1952. Earl

Warren was a New Deal Republican, and Thomas Werdel was a segregationist, and both had

12 roots in Bakersfield. Major themes explored in the Urban West written historical analysis fit into

Bakersfield’s urban transformation and resistance to the demands for equality.

This thesis’s purpose is to develop the discussion of urban history in Bakersfield in the postwar era and discuss the inequalities of urban development between the City of Bakersfield and one minority neighborhood, the Mayflower Tract. The African American neighborhood in

East Bakersfield, during the 1940s, became more segregated with the introduction of legal restrictions to home-owning, which further limited access to homes outside of the housing tract, making it more segregated. In this thesis, I argue that the growth of suburban Bakersfield and demands for equal housing shaped race relations and the postwar development of the Mayflower

Tract.

This thesis argues that the lack of fair housing opportunities in the 1950s caused a demand for adequate housing by the residents of the Mayflower Tract. While this thesis does not cover activism, it does acknowledge the fight for fair housing and the demand for the establishment of public housing for minorities. The community residents of the Mayflower Tract saw the need for safe and sanitary housing conditions that were not available through the housing markets. In response, the community supported the establishment of federally subsidized housing programs. My work here focuses on the ways that substandard conditions were created in

Bakersfield; further work needs to be done on the response of community members to these substandard conditions.

Mayflower became a majority African American community by the 1960s, a process that was primarily influenced by city and county actions, as well as exclusive real property markets and real estate agent efforts. Mayflower and an adjacent tract, Sunset, were the only tracts available for African American residents to purchase homes without restrictions or harassment.

By “open or available,” it is meant that real estate agents and sellers advertised minority neighborhood homes, real estate agents supporting purchasing contracts, and black only restrictive covenants. By the 1940s, there was an already growing minority population and increasing housing demand. Mayflower was vital as it went through the most changes in the postwar era, and it became the center of the conversation for fair housing efforts, at times excluding the mention of Sunset, especially within the conversation of public housing. “Sunset-

Mayflower,” a common term heard today to describe two of East Bakersfield’s neighborhoods, overshadows the geographic context or reference. Mayflower and Sunset were separate tracts on the maps at the time of their creation. The references suggest that in the postwar era, the

Mayflower Tract faced the most physical and demographic changes. Many changes also happened in suburban Bakersfield.

The city leaders’ unequal investment characterized Bakersfield’s suburbanization through efforts or urban renewal and urban development. In this thesis, urban renewal is defined as the city or developer's efforts to finance or encourage the demolition and/or rebuilding of older or dilapidated structures to “modernize” and support in neighborhood investment. Urban development, slightly different than urban renewal, is defined as the efforts to finance and build new modern buildings as part of new investment in businesses, housing, and public infrastructure. Inequalities were visible in public and private investment.

As the African American community lacked the opportunity to buy new homes in new neighborhoods, the nation suburbanized in the postwar era, bringing many changes into the homes of a single demographic of Americans. New homes had brought modern amenities, for example, electricity and indoor sanitary facilities. Nevertheless, these opportunities were primarily only available to white middle-class residents. During the rise of suburbanization,

14 minorities often lacked legal and financial opportunities to leave older and dilapidated neighborhoods. These older neighborhoods’ demographics often became more homogenous in terms of race, as federal home finance programs such as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) provided more opportunities for white residents (including ethnic white Americans) to leave for new neighborhoods. The same process was accurate for newer neighborhoods. In the same process, older minority neighborhoods often received less urban investment, of which, destruction or purchasing under eminent domain.

Historians have observed the beginning of “White Flight” during this era. A common practice, “White Flight,” was a process in which whites left older and sometimes blighted neighborhoods for new suburban homes. The process included real choices to leave a more diverse section of town by white families—the “choice” to leave to suburbs was heavily influence for racist reasons. “White Flight” was designed and implemented by white communities to create new white communities with no racial minorities. The word “choice” provides a passive and perhaps a misleading connotation that suggests that not everyone left, or if they did move, that reason was diverse and not racially motivated. White communities felt those race restrictions were necessary, and the new housing market allowed them to leave and seek other white communities. “White Flight” was influenced by racism and was made possible by suburbanization. The migration to new and exclusive white communities was so profound that communities left whole neighborhoods, and they became the new market for African American housing. This is what happened to Mayflower in the postwar era. The option to leave to new and distant housing was not available to minorities, and they were often left to live in older and dilapidated neighborhoods. The moving of whites to exclusive housing created new regional

identity, communities, and new inequalities, as resources were shifted and reserved for suburban

homes.

White only neighborhood communities proliferated because new homes were legally

protected. Racially restrictive covenants, legal agreements between sellers and buyers, forbade

the selling of new homes to minorities. Legal race controls, in part, helped create minority-dense

neighborhoods. These legal agreements limited opportunities for minority residents to leave

older neighborhoods and limited the geographic availability of older and dilapidated homes. The

opening of older neighborhoods resulted in more racially homogenous tracts in this geographic

space. Minority residents were often only given the option to buy in already minority-populated neighborhoods, which for the most part, did not offer the same modern sanitary facilities or modern investments. “White Flight” created housing availability and opened homes for sale.

However, these markets allowed for predatory lending and selling of dilapidated homes.

In the 1940s through the 1950s, the homes in Mayflower lacked indoor and sanitary facilities and indoor hot water. The City of Bakersfield had invested little to no urban infrastructure in the Mayflower Tract by the 1940s. The lack of urban investment influenced the call by civil rights leaders for city incorporation. They wanted home to have access to the sewer, indoor running water, and paved streets. When suburbanization peaked, real-estate agents offered these older and dilapidated homes to minorities, where the city failed to invest in modern urban amenities. In 1944, Elmer Karpe, a white real estate agent, filed the first all-black restrictive covenant for new homes he built on Block 10 of Mayflower.7 The restrictive covenant

guaranteed that African Americans were the buyers of the new homes in Mayflower. The

7 Elmer F. and Florence J. Karpe, “Block Restrictions: Mayflower Block 10,” City Hall records (14018133) July 25, 1944, 21-22

covenant more than encouraged neighborhood racial homogeneity. The restrictive covenant did

not offer white ownership and encouraged whites to leave Mayflower to newer and white-only neighborhoods while limiting African Americans to living in the new and moderate homes of

Mayflower.

Bakersfield historian and activist, Johnie Mae Parker argued that this was the start of the

“White Flight” and the demographic transformation for Mayflower.8 “White Flight” was a

national phenomenon, affecting other neighborhoods. Nationally, historians have argued that in

the pre-war era, segregation had occurred at the block or neighborhood level (and at the social

services level), rather than in large areas or entire tracts. Whites could live near African

Americans, on the same street, but a block over, never having significant or substantial distance

between neighbors. After the war, with urban development, segregation extended to entire neighborhoods, increasing inequality. Nevertheless, local myths in Bakersfield persist that these neighborhoods were always segregated and characterized by poverty. This statement may be a modern construction based on current bias and exclusion from other communities in the city.

Neighborhoods in Bakersfield, just as in the urban and rural West, became more racially homogenous (segregated) by the 1960s, in the postwar era.

Historiography

Early scholarship once focused on the urban phenomenon of the developments of cities and housing in cities from the early twentieth century. Starting in the 1940s, urban housing communities began construction in a new fashion, dubbed the modern urban and suburban model. The communities were farther away from downtowns, including older and centralized

8 Johnie Mae Parker, How Long? Not Long!: The Battle to end Poverty in Bakersfield, (Bakersfield: Johnie Mae Parker, 1987) 3

business districts. With time, these communities also created their districts to serve the needs of

these auxiliary communities, resulting in new needs and investment in distant communities.

The “new urban history” from the 1960s to the 1980s focused on the development of

culture. Historian Timothy J. Gilfoyle explains that urban history had changed since the 1960s

and 1970s. Historians wrote in narrow methodologies about the eastern United States and urban

social histories, including theories within the scope of built environments, regionalism, and

suburbanization.9 Historians traced their origins to the ideological roots of European

romanticism.10

In the 1980s, the history of suburbanization explored the construction of migrant

identities and the formation of neighborhood groups, while replacing the past analysis of

ideological roots.11 Historians began to study greater neighborhood divides between races,

writing about separate cities, self-contained communities, social discrimination, and segregation.12 Gilfoyle argued that housing was the critical linkage between African Americans

and urban history and that it also held true for other subaltern groups. Therefore, it remains

essential to discuss housing development for the still visible inequalities. He explains that

segregation characterized urban history, including poverty, urban decline, and violence.13 In

many ways, Gilfoyle continues to be correct, but he was writing in the late 1990s.

Gilfoyle wrote on the importance of including politics and urban planning, but he failed

to explain the full scope of the relationship between segregation and urban history. While

9 Timothy Gilfoyle, “White Cities, Linguistic Turns, The New Paradigms of Urban History.” Reviews in American History, vol 26 no 1, (March 1998), 176 (JSTOR) 3003087 10 Ibid, 184 11 Ibid, 177 12 Ibid, 179 13 Ibid, 181

segregation and urban history have a relationship with African American groups, Mexican

Americans and other Hispanics have less history written about their groups. Latina/o/x groups

were attributed to complex changes since they found different treatment and acceptance. The

complex nature of Latina/o/x peoples in the United States originates from ideas of nationalism,

race, colorism, ethnicity, and genealogy. Migration complicates the ideas of race relationships

due to the arrival from early Californios, migrants of the later 20th century, and more recent arrivals.14 Their complex nature is related to selective “Caucasian” racial identity and the

distancing relationship to Latina/o/x communities over time and changing of socioeconomic

status from original migration. The same is true for other ethnic whites, but not all Latina/o/x

people participated by choice or were allowed to partake in the white racial identity. This thesis

will not focus on Latina/o/x activism but mention some ways that housing policy effected them.

The limited scope of a MA thesis requires that it be more tightly focused, and thus I examine

African American housing, public housing, politics, and policy from 1950 to the 1960s, but hope

to expand my work to include Latina/o/x communities in my future studies.

Housing and public policy had a special relationship with urban development.

Urbanization and suburbanization are often defined as positive and descriptions generally avoid

references to inequality or exclusion. Urbanization and suburbanization became defined by

substantial investments with master plans. Planning was often followed by the arrival or

advertisement of these new centers and homes. When people moved into these places, they

created new urban identities that were followed by political realignments. These categories

14 The Caucasian identity can also be related to the complex racial, regional, ideological and political constructions of the Latina/o/x’s country of origin, or oral traditions that enforce these constructions even over time.

defined the transformation of cities since urbanization and suburbanization had a financial

relationship with cities.

Investment as a broad category included agriculture, heavy and light manufacturing, real

estate, and commerce defined industry investment as cities and states accommodated business.

Most urban center investments included industries and planning, yet most were in the peripheries

of most suburban and urban communities. Recreation investment held similar patterns, falling

under the industry’s urban planning. For Bakersfield, a long history includes many industries and

various phases. This thesis analyzes the investment of industry after the 1952 earthquake that

includes advertisements from the oil industry, recreation, and housing. The support of industry

accelerated the inequalities of investments outside of minority neighborhoods.

Most historians characterize the arrival of urban centers and suburban communities with

the changing of the physical space of many towns. The arrival of these centers and homes

created lots of change. The arrival was brought by extensive community development, facilitated

by advertising and marketing efforts to increase investment or to encourage population relocation

(people buying homes). Urban arrival characterized the reliable and consistent availability of

modern amenities. Amenities included modern investment in infrastructure like uniform homes,

street lighting, sewers, and septic tanks, paved roads, and regulation of buildings. This section

also includes politics, zoning, and NIMBY (not in my back yard) ideologies. This section should

also include public housing since the planning and building was related to urban renewal.

Federally subsidized housing, or public housing, also introduced modern home designs and

amenities to older and dilapidated neighborhoods. This thesis focuses on the exclusion of urban participation in Mayflower. Most of the early suburban and urban history emphasized the positive expansions. Locally produced literature often reflected theses changed, which influenced

popular memory rather than the negative and excluded sections of communities who did not

participate. Urban academic history now does talk about the creation of segregated spaces.

The scholarship also focuses on the creation of urban identities. These identities include politics and race relations, and often explores the creation of homogenous suburban communities and changing demographics. The moving of whites to new areas commonly referred to as

“White Flight,” changed neighborhood and older community demographics. Once segregated at the block level, communities became more ethnically and racially homogenous. Communities became more segregated and separated by larger spaces as whites left to newer and less minority populated areas. The demand for civil rights, equal participation, and equity in the development of modern urban and suburban communities resulted from visible inequalities and denial. The development of dense white neighborhoods also influenced public policy, politics, and ideas of race. White only communities had already existed, but the postwar suburbanization allowed whites more access to relocation and upward mobility. Commonly referred to as “sundown towns,” towns allowed minorities non-stop travel, but minority travelers could not stop or establish residency.

The last theme of the thesis is the “Urban Crisis.” As investment started the suburbanization, this developed new cultural ideologies (also reinforced by older beliefs and policies) that influenced the development of new neighborhoods while changing older communities. The changing cities accelerated the housing and urban crisis as remaining New

Deal programs, such as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), failed to provide everyone access to homes, multiplied by the failure of public housing programs to provide actual change.

The rigidity of segregation after the passing of civil rights legislation led to a period of an uprising in poverty-stricken areas. The historians often attributed African Americans and the

“urban crisis” with the rise of black civil liberty groups. Communities often described their

actions as “extreme” or “radical,” as their frustration with the lack of equality manifested to

actions. This “crisis” was never alleviated, as the “War on Poverty” programs also lacked enough

investment and understanding of the community’s needs. As historian Elizabeth Hinton argues,

there is a clear trajectory from the programs to the “War on Crime,” to mass incarceration.

Hinton explains that the expansion of the carceral state should be understood as the federal government’s response to the demographic transformation of the mid-century, those gains achieved by African Americans in the civil rights movement challenged the persistent threat of urban rebellion.15 All these themes matter since they contribute to the changing face of urban and

suburbanization of cities, which had their clear racial divide. This thesis will not include the

history of the “War on Poverty Programs” in Bakersfield, nor the rise of policing or the carceral

state.

Civil rights history is urban and suburban history. Most civil rights history includes

demands for fair housing, an essential topic of activism, and resulted in the establishment of the

last Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Act. The question to ask should be, what is the

urban and suburban history of the postwar era in the West? In many ways, it is all the themes

explained above, industry, urban arrival, culture and race, and ending in the rise of the “urban

crisis.” This historical analysis also includes theories and concepts of modernity in the postwar

era.

This thesis uses Marshall Berman’s theories on modernism to explain the concept. In his

book, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, Berman explains that

15 Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Property to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America, (Cambridge.: Harvard University Press, 2016), 11

22 modernity lacks a centralized public space. The lack of public spaces, driven by a desire for modern, resulted in substantial physical changes.16 This aspect of modernism was possible through uniform planning. As urban centers became a reality, modern infrastructure and housing transformed into access to opportunity for many people. New neighborhoods had better roads, parks, public services, and new schools. Modern became a recent memory and influenced culture, physical space, and relationships between races. This concept shaped the postwar era by redefining neighborhoods, public space, politics, and race relations. Berman also attributed the postwar modernity to the FHA and Home Owner’s Loan Corporation housing programs that allowed unprecedented expansion.

Berman also introduces the contradiction to modern changes, when modernity becomes anti-modern. He defines the paradox of change as manipulation of space that becomes defined by overt restrictions by bureaucratic institutions and power over the community; this resulted in the apex of modern, the anti-modern; in the end, modernity becomes a threat to history and tradition as it overtakes previous practices and provides visible public change.17 As visible characteristics of modern is fluid and efficient, it becomes uniform, and it becomes a shared experience. The apex of modernity is when the experience is universal and experienced within the recent and shared memory. Nevertheless, the paradox was not all that Berman argued; this was not a total eclipse of identity. The paradox should also include segregation. Segregation in terms of modernity is the shared experience of inequality, systemic, national, and regional exclusion. The segregated communities also experienced urban modernity with the building of public housing, some urban infrastructure, urban renewal legislation, and homebuilding. The stages of modern

16 Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), 7; The first edition was published in 1982. 17 Ibid, 13-16

transformations were much less rapid than the experiences whites went through. Lasting effects

of inequality and the absence of a universal and equal modern investment are still visible today.

So, what does postwar suburban housing become? In many ways, postwar modernity

starts with the New Deal programs. Postwar modern infrastructure included a mix of old ideals

and public policy that influenced the 1950s. Berman states that the American public

administration programs that helped build roads, bridges, railroads, and public recreational

spaces came from the English institution of a “public authority,” which used bonds to raise

money for public projects. These public authorities were the Federal Highway Program and

federal loan programs like the FHA and HOLC. These organizations-built highways and financed urban neighborhoods while influencing the destruction of older neighborhoods.18

Nevertheless, Berman never dedicated any space to analyze the actors, political space, or even

race, but instead focused on the changes brought by public programs for “universal access,”

since modernity was a shared experience.

Early literature focused on the New Deal programs and their success. The scholarship

concentrated on the inclusion of public administration programs because they brought mass

changes to urban infrastructure and broader access to modern housing. The advent of the Second

World War brought financial capital and largescale investment that was bringing more

significant changes. The postwar economy amplified the large-scale housing investment, having

a more profound change than when the programs started during the Great Depression. The

remaining New Deal programs subsidized some of these changes. The current historiography

18 Ibid, 307

identifies a more significant problem of segregation outside of the American South concerning

civil rights activism and urban development.

Kenneth Jackson was one of the first to focus on suburban housing development. He

included housing that did not partake in urban development. Jackson only stated that minority

communities did not partake in suburban housing because of racist policies. The policies had

visible and identifiable effects on neighborhoods. He defined the “crabgrass frontier” with four

distinguishing features: low residential density with no sharp division between neighborhoods, a

strong fondness for homeownership, a sharp socioeconomic distinction between center and periphery, and an average distance or time to work.19 Suburbanization was easy to identify; it

was visually different from older and dilapidated communities.

Jackson’s studies included a secondary analysis of segregation and the role of federal

backed housing programs, like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Homeowners

Loan Corporation (HOLC), Veteran’s Association (VA). These programs initiated during the

Great Depression, yet the war and postwar era brought the capital to change the urban landscape radically. Therefore, the postwar era is essential to analyze. Historians have credited Jackson with the (re)discovery of the HOLC Redlining maps. These “residential security maps” were created in the late 1930s for cities with a moderate population. Many cities lack these maps, yet this is not to say that the HOLC and FHA backed segregation was not active in many American cities. HOLC and FHA investment was present in Bakersfield, California, yet there was no map dictating where urban investment was ideal.

19 Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 6-10

The idea of “walking distance” eroded from earlier meanings of suburban neighborhoods and new urban features and policy became barriers to physical and financial access to suburban homes. With the development of transportation, the home was integrated with the ideas of personal space of family homes and yard space, becoming a new spatial and ideological space of modernity. Suburbanization was primarily a single demographic phenomenon. As federal housing programs, as Jackson states, these policies to express their anxieties of race relations by shaping its power and resources to control ethnic and racial minorities.20 Jackson argues that federal housing efforts were never to help the poor. Instead, strategically placed programs planned to help with the war efforts, advancing security and advancing devotion to the home.21

By this measure, government efforts did allow more access to homes.

These new ideas of home development and government-backed programs, like the FHA, had a direct relationship. Jackson argued that the FHA had the most significant impact on the

American people. After WWII, developers built their homes in order to meet FHA building requirements. Since the FHA required standards for financing, these standards became the universal language of home loaning, even if the home sellers or buyers did not use FHA.22 The

FHA’s 1939 Underwriting Manual taught lenders that overcrowded and older neighborhoods were undesirable and led to lower class tenants.23 Also, the manual included a recommendation for restrictive covenants that included race exclusions.24 Access to court use to defend restrictive covenants was struck down in 1948 with the landmark case Shelley v. Kraemer, and reinforced by the FHA in 1950 when announced they would not insure mortgages that had restrictive

20 Ibid, 191 21 Ibid, 194 22 Ibid, 205 23 Ibid, 207 24 Ibid, 208

covenants.25 However, the lasting change did not come until after the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. This is not to state that all segregation ended; the Civil Rights act just allowed legal action to protect against discrimination.

Housing contractors were now building uniform subdivisions rising from their average

yearly five homes to higher twenty-two structures.26 Accelerated home building was so

impactful that by 1955 subdivisions accounted for 75 percent of all new housing in metropolitan

areas.27 Jackson states that these suburbs were mostly white, middle-class, who left older intercity housing. The absence of white buyers of older home markets opened the housing for minorities as the suburban transformation excluded them from participation. The phenomenon commonly referred to as “White Flight,” where white residents left older neighborhoods and sometimes leaving substandard and dilapidated homes open to minority markets. Overall,

Jackson introduces the FHA, HOLC, VA, and suburban practices as exclusive and racially homogenous. However, he failed to introduce the relationship to urban decline in older neighborhoods or what this exclusion meant for racial minorities. Most historians continue to use

Jackson’s FHA, HOLC, and VA’s introduction in the role of segregation; however, newer historians provide a better depth of coverage for their states, cities, and regional occurrences.

In the same light, historian John M. Findlay does the same type of analysis for the rise of urban centers. Findlay introduces the urban phenomenon by stating the remarkable rise and change in demographics of suburban areas from 1900 to 1970. By 1970, 83 percent of individuals lived in the urban West, when the northeast held only 74 percent of its demographic

25 Ibid, 208 26 Ibid, 233 27 Ibid, 233

in urban areas.28 In his study, Findlay discusses the urban rise of industries like Disneyland,

commercial centers like Stanford Industrial Park in California, and retirement communities like

Youngtown and Sun City in Arizona and the Century 21 Exposition of 1962 in Seattle,

Washington. Like Jackson, Findlay dedicates a small portion to urban exclusion.

Sporadically, Findlay writes about the excluded “others” who did not participate in

urbanization. He explains that while the Mexican American population increased from 1940-

1960 in the American West, they remained mainly in rural areas and accounting for 79 percent of

the total population.29 Nevertheless, the urban expansion also transformed the rural landscape;

farmers sold their lands to housing developers.30 The practice of selling farmland to housing

developers significantly impacted predominantly rural, but urbanizing towns and cities. Findlay

describes the selling of farmland as a forced relationship between developers, but other historians

argue differently.31 Findlay explored the development of new spatial patterns of urban development.32 At best, Findlay briefly states that there is a relationship between minority

communities and urban development as unnatural. He dedicates some space to explain that more

impoverished districts also experienced the reordering of their cityscapes and subjected to forced

relocation and displacement. He briefly writes about Chavez Ravine, which would become

Dodger Stadium at the expense of minority housing. Chavez Ravine was initially purchased

under eminent domain to build public housing but never became housing. Instead, the Los

Angeles City Council used the acquired space to build Dodger Stadium.

28 John M. Findlay, “Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture after 1940, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 1 29 Ibid, 25 30 Ibid, 32 31 Jerry Gonzalez provides a better analysis of the transformation of farmland and auxiliary communities that were destroyed in leu of suburban housing. Gonzalez’s contributions will be explained bellow. 32 Ibid, 51

Findlay and Jackson were aware of segregation but still dabbled in the singular mythic development of white housing and cityscapes, as they failed to explore the conditions of those segregated and excluded out of these spaces. Both historians introduced the relationship between communities as minor or at the expense of minorities. In their history, there was no relationship to civil rights and suburban history. While their history is still important to read for its focused research, it lacks analysis on culture, race, politics, and regional policy’s relationship to segregation and civil rights of the postwar era.

In the early 2000s, the historical analysis shifted to merge suburbanization and race concerning civil rights. Robert O. Self includes racial minorities and the change of suburbanization with civil rights activism in California. Self begins immediately to explain that

“White Flight” and affluence drove the phenomenon of suburbanization.33 Self links the

transformation of suburban neighborhoods and the formation of the urban crisis with “ghettos” to

the social and political struggles over land, taxes, jobs, and public policy between 1945 to the

1970s.34 This history also includes the racist practices of the FHA and VA, the same programs

that heavily invested in white suburbanization.35

Moreover, unlike previous historians, Self includes public policy and urban renewal

investments of modern sanitary facilities, like the sewer. He shows that modern amenities had a

different relationship of modern infrastructure between diverse communities, a reservation, and

availability mostly for whites. Self explains that Mexican colonias (neighborhoods), also lack the

same urban investment, characterized by overcrowding, unpaved roads, and no sidewalks.36

33 Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 1 34 Ibid, 1 35 Ibid, 97 36 Ibid, 97

In a similar and related fashion, African American groups faced declining property values. Segregation forced minorities to expand into blighted and substandard housing, which resulted in the call for rehabilitation of American cities.37 Self explains that the call to action for urban renewal was the authorized destruction of many homes, which led to activism in the

1950s.38 The communities lacked equal investment, and rather than supporting the reconstruction of dilapidated neighborhoods, homes were purchased under eminent domain, public project and highway initiatives, and condemning of dilapidated homes. Activism eventually led to

California’s first fair housing act in 1963 (the Rumford Fair Housing Act), but the lobbying and passage of Proposition 14 of 1964 repealed the act. White voters had responded to keep segregation alive and supported the repeal of the act.

From the 2000s and on, most minority community inclusive history includes civil rights and the relationship to urban renewal, as federal and local policy focused on destroying the substandard and dilapidated neighborhood, without providing a viable alternative nor adequate community investment. In the 2010s, the historiography shifts and it now focuses on the role of developers and the use of public policy for segregation. Paige Glotzer discusses the development of real estate and suburban neighborhoods with the consideration of the influence of the National

Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). In “Exclusion in Arcadia: How Suburban

Developers Circulated Ideas about Discrimination, 1890-1950,” Glotzer shows how segregation in the Northern United States was similar to segregation in the West, stating that Kenneth

Jackson’s rediscovery of the HOLC and FHA redlining maps and practices were not unique in promoting racially homogenous neighborhoods.39 Instead, Glotzer argues that real estate

37 Ibid, 138 38 Ibid, 146 39 Paige Glotzer, “Exclusion in Arcadia: How Suburban Developers Circulated Ideas about Discrimination, 1890- 1950,” Journal of Urban History, vol. 41, no. 3, 480 DOI: 10.1177/0096144214566964

developers had long believed in racist ideas and segregation by the introduction of the New Deal

programs. Many realtors served as government appointees and consultants, and as a result,

brought their racist and segregationist ideologies into the national policy.40

Housing segregation was visible, especially in the implementation of racially restrictive

covenants in the 1920s. Covenants were agreements between the buyer and seller to enforce

white and Caucasian homogeneity. Glotzer explains that these bans were found from California

to Maryland and were not unique to regions or states.41 The restrictions included home use and

limitations of personal property, linking homogeneity to desirability.42 Race and cultures sometimes complicate housing studies. Some Latina/o/x communities participated in the ethnic

Caucasian culture, and some were able to move into the suburbs, mirroring other ethnic white

Americans.43

Jerry Gonzalez, who studies the transformations in Los Angeles, explains a very

complicated relationship between Hispanics and urban development. While some could blend as

ethnic Caucasians, others were not able to participate in suburbanization. Nevertheless, some

Mexican Americans were able to have greater access to postwar suburbanization than African

Americans.44 People with a “Hispanic surname,” could not easily participate in the postwar

expansion of housing. Latina/o/x people have a darker relationship with suburbanization.45

40 Ibid, 489 41 Ibid, 482 42 Ibid, 483 43 Jerry Gonzalez, In Search of Mexican Beverley Hills: Latino Suburbanization in Postwar Los Angeles, (Camden: Rutgers University Press, 2018), 3 44 Ibid, 9 45 Records are complex in nature. A Latin/o/x or Hispanic name and surname in the record does not signify the complexity of racial and ethnic participation. This thesis does not discuss the origin, nor self-identification of race. These identities do not signify if a person is Caucasian, but perhaps passing for the societal benefits, or even participating in ideology and behavior in public. This should allude to a complex nature of human social relationships that may not be reflected in the record of with a name. For this reasons, people of Hispanic ancestry, surnames, and racial distinctions are mentioned as Latina/o/x, unless stated by another scholar.

Gonzalez explains that postwar suburbs were built on top of farmland and included the

destruction of older Hispanic colonias.46 The history of eminent domain and the destruction of

dilapidated homes for suburbanization is that of Beverly Hills and Dodger Stadium.

Gonzalez explains that civil rights activism of the postwar era and the pursuit of fair

housing and first-class citizenship had a relationship.47 Suburban renewal displaced many of

those who lived and worked on farmland. The case of the Hick’s Camp in El Monte, Los

Angeles County, covers the history of workers as Latina/o/x renters who worked in the Hick farms. As they lacked real property ownership, even if the camps had little modern features, they were removed because they were substandard.48 Most minorities were victims of urbanization’s

mission to eradicate substandard housing, called “urban renewal.” This effort took the “positive”

characteristics of modernity and urban development since the opportunity to live with modern

infrastructure was not a universal experience and applied it to minority neighborhoods; this came

at the cost of minority renters and homeowners. Affordability did not always translate into equal

housing, sanitary, or modern amenities. Modernity came at the cost of many African Americans

and other racial minority housing and neighborhoods.

The historical analysis remains incomplete. Little to no history exists on the forced

changes of demographics of public policy like “Operation Wetback,” which led to multiracial

activism.49 There has been little to no history written on the changing of neighborhoods or urbanization due to Latina/o/x forced deportations of the postwar era. Equally lacking are written accounts of how suburbanization affected California multiple Native Indian populations or any

46 Ibid, 10 47 Ibid, 52 48 Ibid, 40 49 George J. Sanchez, “‘What’s Good for Boyle Heights is Good for the Jews’: Creation Multiracialism on the Eastside during the 1950s.” American Historical Quarterly, vol 56, no 3 (2004), 650 (JSTOR) 3003087

other minority communities. Arizona does have a written account of urban changes and race

relations.

Andrew Needham’s Powerlines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest

characterizes the making and strategic development of a new urban metropolis of Phoenix,

Arizona, concerning segregation of the Arizona Navajos. Before the 1940s, Arizona had been

very rural, and in the 1920s, Phoenix had been the modern highway hub of Arizona.50 Public housing had offered minority populations large housing units for war-related industries, but it remained segregated.51 The war and postwar related government contracts effectively transformed the “Valley of the Sun,” a marketing effort since the 1920s.52 Investments included aircraft production, communication industries, energy development, and military contract companies.53 Needham emphasizes how electricity intensified the structural inequalities between

Phoenix and the Navajo Reservation.54

Needham also cites the New Deal’s profound inequality; however, he focuses on the relationship between how spaces changed by politics to claim energy and lands.55 By the 1940s,

Phoenix was becoming one of the most modern cities in the West, claiming 62,000 homes in the

1960s. The twenty-year change brought more than 200,000 people into the metropolitan center.56

However, with the substantial rise in the metropolitan center of Phoenix, many saw the Navajo

Reservation as grounds for the development of energy. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) saw

the reservations as potential grounds for energy sites. The BIA saw the Colorado Plateau as

50 Bradford, Luckingham, “Urban Development in Arizona: The Rise of Phoenix,” The Journal of Arizona History, vol 22, no 2, (Summer 1981), 206 (JSTOR) 4185949 51 Ibid, 216 52 Ibid, 219 53 Ibid, 219 54 Andrew Needham, Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 17 55 Ibid, 51-52 56 Ibid, 55

grounds that were overpopulated and in urban decline during the postwar era.57 Many political

officials sought to end limited tribal sovereignty in the late 1940s through the 1950s to place

policies for forceful assimilation and incorporate Indian land into federal energy projects.58

The Four Corners and Cholla Power Plants, built in the 1960s, ran their power lines

through the Navajo Reservation. The Arizona Public Service began to draw close to half of the

state’s power from these plants. The leases of the land paid the Navajos $25,000 a year.59 The

powerplants had brought little change to the actual reservations in the 1960s. Nevertheless,

Pheonix transformed the most, having consumed the majority of the power.

The City of Bakersfield does have written history on civil rights activism. Historian

Oliver Rosales has written on the civil rights movement as related to housing. He writes about the fight for federally subsidized housing from 1950 - 1953.60 While this is important, his study

does not write about the 1952 earthquake, which dramatically transformed the city and

downtown.

Rosales’s study covers civil rights activism in Kern County and Bakersfield related to

housing. Rosales analyzes the annexation of Mayflower and the Sunset Tracts into the city of

Bakersfield and the fight for the public housing units of Oro Vista. He briefly writes about the

political battle to complete Oro Vista and the contested “Measure 4,” which was to expanded city

services into the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts.61 The housing units eventually opened in 1954.

In many ways, this thesis fills in the housing and suburban history that is missing in Bakersfield.

57 Ibid, 129-130 58 Ibid, 133-134 59 Ibid, 154 60 Oliver A. Rosales, “Civil Rights ‘beyond the Fields’” in Behnken, Brian D., ed. Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth-century United States. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2016), 46 61 Ibid, 11

Additionally, it contributes to the scholarship by discussing the history of minority housing

conditions, resistance to fair housing, the exclusion of urban investment, and the creeping

counter-movements to resist minority civil rights. While Rosales includes activism, this thesis

will not, for the most part. This thesis should be read in conjunction with the history of

activism.62

The analysis of similarities in urban development, exclusionary housing policies, and

civil rights activism shows that urbanization and suburbanization were mostly homogenous.

Many western cities did not share equal participation in suburbanization nor equal investment.

For one thing, like modernity, segregation changes, and in the same light, the urban landscape in

the West changed with increase neighborhood homogeneity. It increased dense minority centers,

driven with the advent of “White Flight.”

Federal housing programs influenced a significant transformation and available space of

the creation of homogenous national housing. Suburban neighborhoods influenced the politics of

the 1960s and 1970s. The private housing markets gave rise to national civil rights movements.

The civil rights movement was also outside of the American South and metropolitan centers of

the urban North; they also rose into the West with dramatic population shifts and the building of

suburban housing. The activist became concerned with the lack of municipal investment, political accountability, private housing markets, and the lack of safe and sanitary housing.

Civil Rights history fits into suburbanization and urbanization, as most communities saw

their homes destroyed in urban renewal programs and responded to the contradiction of denial to

equality. The contradiction was visible when white new and elite homes were expanding, and

62 Also see, Oliver Rosales, “‘Mississippi West’: Race, Politics and Civil Rights in California’s Central Valley, 1947-1984,” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012) ProQuest (3540209)

minorities were denied access to adequate homeownership and equal urban investment. Does the

question become what historians have missed by not speaking about those excluded from suburban development or changes in urban infrastructure? This thesis fills in an omission in

Bakersfield, California. The lack of suburbanization and urban history in Bakersfield does a disservice to civil rights history. In many ways, the future of urban history needs to include both sides of the city to include both the disenfranchised and the suburban middle class. Modern or suburbanization needs inclusion since it is also a history of inequality. The studies need to show how deep the inequalities were in from both sides of the community and describe the postwar transformations. Minority communities had not self-segregated but were instead coerced and excluded from equal participation. The practices became redefined as more considerable investment exacerbated the inequalities in the postwar era.

When written, the first suburban histories did not include extensive disenfranchisement or the effects of segregation, nor did they merge civil rights history and urban history. When historians did write these histories, they argued that their city of the study was the most segregated, suggesting that segregation was a regional problem and not a national phenomenon.

Nevertheless, these racial patterns and behaviors were reinforced by federal back programs, housing practices, ideas, and politics at the national level that were exercised at the regional level. Eventually, these influences produced hardened racial, national-level segregation.

After thirty years of segregation and urban studies, the consensus should be on how

segregated the American West and the urban North were, and not an exclusive problem of the

American South. Historians have been more inclusive in merging suburban and urban

infrastructure to analyze city construction. Nevertheless, we need a new analysis of modernity,

perhaps a different one that includes segregation and breaking down the boundaries of the

“shared experience” to include shared inequalities. In many ways, we need to revisit how

communities continue to change and lack investment, relabeling “White Fight” as continuous,

rather than a characteristic of a period. We also need to write about how policing and urban

development are interlinked because police are an urban feature. Studies should also include how

urban features like highways, train tracks, and large intersections become barriers to minority

movements.

Chapter Outline

Chapter One, “The Introduction to Housing,” examines housing conditions, including

sanitary facilities, selling practices, and the introduction of public housing in Mayflower from

1942 to 1950. This chapter argues that substandard housing conditions were not “natural.”

Instead, these dilapidated conditions were maintained and controlled by white real estate agents who created racially exclusive markets by prohibiting sellers from selling to African Americans.

This forced African Americans to buy in one market, Mayflower. Many homes were unequal and lacked indoor plumbing and running hot water, which led to the fight for city incorporation. The fight for city annexation started in 1949 and successfully ended in late 1950. Mayflower wanted the annexation to allow for city investment in running water, sewers, street cleaning, and garbage pickup.

These practices of selling homes to minority groups lacked secondary oversight, allowing for recorded abuses, with no accountability. Living conditions were unequal and unsanitary due to the lack of protection and city investment of necessary infrastructure. Mayflower lacked sewers and running water up until the early 1950s when residents of the tract voted and fought for city annexation. Real estate agents not only held selling power but also held influence to deny

fair housing practices. While this thesis does not explore housing practices in great detail, it

explores some aspects, including housing conditions.

Chapter Two, “Housing and NIMBYism: How Ideas and Practices of Inequality

Govern,” explores the annexation of Mayflower into the city boundaries, and the start of first

federally subsidized public housing, the community of Oro Vista. Oro Vista was the planned

minority public housing structure that began construction in the early 1950s. This chapter shows

that liberal white public officials supported the annexation of Mayflower in the late 1950s. In

many ways, the annexation delayed public housing from being built in Mayflower.63 This

chapter also discusses the first lawsuit against Oro Vista. Claude Blodget, a white real estate

agent who sold in Mayflower and founded the Mayflower Tract 1286. The Tract is east of the

original Mayflower. Blodget also sued under the California Proposition 10 of 1950, which came

into effect in 1951. The lawsuit claimed that the Prop. required a majority vote of the community

to build public housing. The lawsuit was lost after the court found that the Prop. only affected

post-1951 public housing projects and not ones that began before 1951.

The central theme of Chapter Two is to discuss the absence of housing equality. The

absence of equality was not due to lack of “progress” of minorities, but rather the actions to resist

equality by public officials and real estate agents who controlled the local markets and public

policy.64 These groups lobbied national and state officials to actively hinder the progress of

federal housing projects and deny city services to residents in Mayflower. This chapter uses the

City of Bakersfield City Council Minutes, City Council Ordinances and Resolutions database,

63 Chapter 2 will explore the legal challenges to zoning more in-depth. 64 The word “progress,” has a one vision or singular forward connotation to success, and relative to segregation and inequality studies. It suggests that if it does not fit the definition of success or forward, that there was no mobility. The word is problematic and requires a definition on the terms of the actors, rather than those watching or restricting mobility.

lawsuits against public housing, and newspapers. A major theme explored in this chapter is the

early onset of “conservatism,” white backlash, and political support to combat fair housing and

integration. This local fight was also related to the rise of the national campaign to combat equal

and federally subsidized housing. The Chapter ends right after the earthquake in 1954. Chapter

Three discusses the inequalities of the rebuilding of the city after the earthquake.

Mayflower’s housing conditions were artificial, maintained, and reserved for minority

residents starting in the 1940s, with Mayflower’s very own racially exclusive covenant that

reserved new homes for African American residents, but this only included one block. The lack

of fair housing resulted in a civil rights movement to demand fair housing by the 1950s. The

stories of Los Angeles and Oakland, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, have similar instances.

The sources used in this thesis reveal these actions to be a local symptom of a more significant problem of national systemic segregation. This thesis aims to dispel the myth of de facto segregation, which is commonly defined as a minor local community problem. De facto segregation was defined as self-segregation and the result of individual failure, rather than systemic regional, state, and national segregation.

Chapter Three introduces the August 22, 1952 earthquake.65 In August of 1952, an

earthquake struck rural South-east Bakersfield. Mayflower and Sunset were closer to the

epicenter of the earthquake, about 4.6 miles away.66 Downtown Bakersfield was 6.6 miles away from the epicenter and overtook all the reporting. The last section argues that zoning policies

65 The inequalities that result for Mayflower are explored in Chapter 3. The earthquake is introduced for its importance to the chronology of events, but the rebuilding of the City of Bakersfield will be thematically written into Chapter 3. 66 The epicenter was located on the geographic position of 35 degrees 20 minutes North Latitude, 118 degrees 55 minutes West Latitude, at the modern day (2019) intersection of Weedpatch (184) Highway, and East Wilson near East Bakersfield. (Dr. Richter, “Press Release of August 26, 1952,” California Institute of Technology, August 26, 1952)

were created by city officials and enforced by public referendum to stop the building of homes

and public housing because of racial assumptions. Two weeks after the earthquake, the city

called a public meeting to discuss the possibility of changing the zoning in Mayflower to discuss

the building of the public housing units of Oro Vista. In 1952, three city council members

allowed for the reacceptance of a cooperation agreement between the Housing Authority and the

City of Bakersfield. The cooperation agreement and zoning ordinances effectively changed the

1950-1952 zoning control over Mayflower.

The new cooperation agreement would have opened the public’s opportunity to vote in a

public referendum; however, the Housing Authority’s federal and state power to change zoning

without a public referendum, denying the public’s opinion in the matter. The politics of

“NIMBYism” or “not in my backyard” were present. The lawsuit By Gerald Lockhart and

Gordon Moore, Bakersfield real estate agents, challenged whether the city had the right to instill

a new cooperation agreement with the Housing Authority. The agreement with the Housing

Authority changed the zoning requirements without a public referendum. While the lawsuit

failed to win the appeal case in 1954, which allowed the rezoning of the neighborhood from an

R1, one-family residential to an R2, duplex, or multiple family residences, this case provides a valuable insight into how zoning prevents access to fair and equal housing, such as federally subsidized homes.

Chapter Three, “The Rising Phoenix and the Shadow it Casts: Urban Development,

Urban Renewal and the Inequalities in Bakersfield Post-Earthquake,” discusses the “Bakersfield,

America’s Newest City” marketing campaign that reimagined the city as a new and majority

white space. The campaign fostered specific new business opportunities in Downtown

Bakersfield and urban and suburban development in the late 1950s.

What followed was rapid urban development of downtown, fostering the influx of new

businesses and investment in new suburban communities Southwest of the city. This urban

development intentionally excluded Mayflower and Sunset tracts from this financial investment

and urban planning. Mayflower and Sunset instead received a city ordinance approving a

variance of minimum building standards in order to allow the influx of substandard homes sold

in the two tracts. No real investment was given, but instead a relatively small and second-class

gesture in comparison to the 64-million-dollar financing the city received. The city demolished

and built a new court, hospital, library, jail, a new location, and accelerated construction for

Bakersfield Community College, and other various community buildings. This chapter uses the

1952 earthquake and the course that follows as a case study to analyze the effects of exclusion

and trace segregation in extensive urban planning and financial investment outside of minority

tracts.

This chapter argues that the 64 million dollars Bakersfield invested in urban renewal, rebranding of tourism, investment in industry, and advertisements of elite homes excluded

Mayflower. Additionally, many in dilapidated neighborhoods also lost their homes due to unpaid

sewer bonds, new city zoning, and urban renewal ordinance building requirements. With limited

opportunity, homes destroyed left or foreclosed allowed even less chance for homeownership,

not to mention the predatory practice of selling homes on contract.

Mayflower became a predominantly African American and Latina/o/x tract by the 1960s.

The reasons for the neighborhood transformation was a result of White Fight, the white backlash

to civil rights demands, and the rise of public housing and the lack of opportunity to leave to

newer and racially exclusive neighborhoods. The transformations of the neighborhoods were

remarkable in the postwar era. Many new neighborhoods were created in the West, as people

migrated and moved into new suburban homes. These neighborhood and regional

reconfigurations effectively redefined city racial demographics. As these transformations became

more defined in the 1960s, this gives rise to more civil rights activism, but also resistance to that

same activism.67

Local actors subscribed to national literature, including racist federal lending policy, and

segregationist attitudes of homeowner’s associations. These organizations transmitted the

language to lobbying power in support of national public policy enforcing segregation and

unequal social services. The sources include the vertical files at the Jack Maguire Local History

Room at the Beale Memorial Library, and sources at the Historical Research Center at CSU,

Bakersfield.

The epilogue of the thesis, “Epilogue: Resistance to Change,” explores the rise of right-

wing conservatism in Bakersfield and the use of meritocratic language to combat racial

“progress” to achieve equal civil liberties. The direct use of meritocratic language, which was not

subtle, colorblind, nor coded, but direct, shifted the responsibility of segregation to the victims.

This language and action gave way to the rise of the de facto segregation myth, which

manifested in language written to politicians and public voices that called out their ideas of the

state of “progress,” while asking if racial minorities were deserving of civil rights protections.

This rhetoric became the language of the so-called “Silent Majority” and conservative political

writers. The epilogue uses sources from political correspondents responding to national civil

67 What is missing from the historiography is how the transformations of voting districts became more defined by race and more segregated by the 1960s. With the rise of suburbanization and “White Flight”, the current historiography suggest that the changing of predominantly white areas and newly formed African American districts became more influential in the rise of the modern Republican right-wing conservatism, and the success of such ideologies and national figures, including presidents. As these areas continue to shift, so do the voting districts, perhaps suggesting that the modern gerrymandering practices were born out of postwar era. The passing of voting rights protections for minorities, the construction of new neighborhoods allowed for continuous “White Flight” and gerrymandering to resist civil rights changes. This effectively removed minority power in elections.

rights policies, pamphlets, and publications by the local conservative right-wing figures, Federal

Bureau of Investigation files, and recent reports on public and health services in Bakersfield.

The epilogue explores the 1960s to recent history. It was the white backlash that hindered progress and created a narrative of minorities “choosing” to live in dilapidated conditions in the

1960s and solidified with the passing national civil rights legislation. The passing of the civil rights acts allowed for the language of failure of self-determination, and “bootstrapping” examples that argue or individual success and failures, removing the narrative and studies of systemic inequalities. Finally, the epilogue explores the question of why these neighborhoods continue to lack equal opportunity in housing and education. This thesis suggests that Mayflower still lacks inclusion by economic opportunity. The community suffers from adverse effects of public policy. Residents still lack financial means to fix enforced changes in building codes and subjects to penalties of zero tolerance zoning enforcement. City investment and lack of fair housing availability and protections also continue to plague the neighborhoods, resulting in gross inequalities in comparison to other geographic areas.

This thesis argues that there is a relationship of inequality between rapidly urbanizing rural spaces and urban cities. This thesis argues that there were similar characteristics with suburbanization in Arizona and large cities of California, like Los Angeles and Oakland.

Bakersfield, California, was a predominantly rural city in the 1940s, becomes a rapidly urbanizing city in the 1950s. Bakersfield is essential to discuss for the reason that urbanization created profound inequalities.

Bakersfield, for an urbanizing city, had significant inequalities. In the postwar era, many

American cities urbanized, the west had a more significant population living in suburban and urban areas, than the East Coast. For a very modern place, in the 1950s, California and other

43 western states required public housing to supplement what the private market would not and refused to change. Bakersfield had public housing to supplement housing access. The changes were not only federally subsidized housing but a public investment. Bakersfield spent 64 million dollars from 1954 to 1960 to modernize downtown. For a place with significant investment and urban transformation, it was a place of vast inequalities. Bakersfield then became a place of pride and celebration in urban transformation. The celebration and pride was not shared; there was a little relationship with minorities, who still lived in poverty because of segregation.

Bakersfield’s urbanization and postwar transformation provide an essential case study.

The 1940s economy and war boom created a vibrant economy that attracted many different people to the county and city. As the population doubled by 1950, the housing market became scarce. Housing census data revealed that housing was in a dilapidated state. The demands for equality become a community discussion about sanitary and safe home access in the 1950s. The demands for equality were also related to the new and racially exclusive communities limit home access outside of predominantly African American communities. The result was the demand for inclusion of city services by the African American community. The community hoped that the annexation would bring much-needed services, but instead brought home loss to property tax hikes. When minority public housing was projected so housing demands could be alleviated, the white community with the most home access protested and filed suit. The legal challenges resulted in four years of delays and legal changes. However, eventually, the opening of federally subsidized rental housing succeeded. In the middle of the community conversation about equality, an earthquake happened and resulted in a disproportionate distribution of public investment, on top of the existing inequalities. Suburbanization resulted in private housing markets, regardless of demands for equality.

The demands for equality were resisted and diverted to urban renewal programs of housing destruction and relocation to public housing. This thesis presents a complex transformation from the 1940s to the 1950s, ending with the epilogue. The epilogue shows that some of those ideas that resisted change in the 1950s became a national conversation by the

1960s. The ideas that developed in the 1950s become lobbying platforms to resist demands for civil rights and equality. These lobbying platforms and resistance, I argue, is what had resulted in the absence of long-term change, and why poverty is still visible in the same neighborhoods.

Chapter One: “The Introduction to Mayflower Housing” Introduction

World War II and the postwar economy brought significant change to the United States,

especially in the American West. The American West saw an increase in suburban

homebuilding. Suburban areas became a symbol of local affluence, a depiction of modern, and pride to their neighboring communities. Suburban homes were not naturally occurring phenomena, quite the opposite; they had master plans, advertising, commercial contracts, large neighborhood planning, housing uniformity, and federally backed loans. Many elite and middle- class neighborhoods were created during this time.

The crabgrass frontier seemed closer than ever with the wartime rhetoric of pluralism, tolerance, and antiracism built in response to Nazi atrocities.68 Suburbanization was more accessible to whites. The modern characteristics of suburban homes also included desirability of location, similar socioeconomic demographics, and increasingly larger distances from commercial areas. In the postwar era, homes, neighborhoods, and new commercial areas saw the most transformations countrywide. African American populations saw the least inclusion in suburbanization; their neighborhoods also transformed in the postwar. Suburbanization became a mostly white transformation and did not include minority populations. The inequalities came from long-established housing practices that included ideas of racism and segregation.

This chapter explores housing in the 1940s in Bakersfield, California, since the postwar era brought transformations to all housing and urban centers. Bakersfield was an important city to study since the 1940s also gave way to the discussion of equal and fair housing; this resulted

68 The Crabgrass Frontie will be discussed lated in this chapter. Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 183

in the demands for housing equality in 1950. This chapter’s focus is to introduce housing before

the transformations of the 1950s. The postwar era exacerbated already existing inequalities. The

housing conditions will be explored in this chapter and the transformations and inequalities in

Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.

Segregation had been a reality in Bakersfield. The City of Bakersfield held a large

commercial influence on the county and state investors. Bakersfield is also essential to study because it had a large rate of dilapidated homes in the postwar era. The County and City’s administrative services were located and administered in the City of Bakersfield, including some

of the well known elite neighborhoods that were located near or at the City’s boundaries. The

Mayflower and Sunset Tracts had little accountability from the City to provide sanitary and

municipal services before the postwar era. The Mayflower and Sunset Tracts were located on the

southeastern boundaries, where there was a larger minority population and higher rates of

poverty. The neighborhoods had both visual and auditory references to the inequalities of other

city neighborhoods.

Poverty, because of segregation and inequalities, was well known in the neighborhood.

The only report that exists of the level of vast inequalities and poverty is the 1950 Census of

Housing report Special Tabulations for Local Housing Authorities, published at the end of 1951.

The report included white and nonwhite categories of data on housing, and the compilation of the data came from self-reported housing conditions in the 1950 Census. Data from the report revealed that the nonwhite population, a fractional 6 percent of the entire population of the

County of Kern, accounting for 1,345 of the reported dilapidated homes. While the white population of Bakersfield was 213,661 individuals and they accounted for 2,868 dilapidated homes. The nonwhite six percent of the county population accounted for about almost a third of

all dilapidated housing. These numbers show the disproportionate amount of poverty, lack of

safe and sanitary housing available to Kern residents who were not white. The report statistics

are why Bakersfield and its inequalities are essential to discuss. It is essential to know how the

housing practices in Bakersfield allowed six percent of the population to own a third of all

dilapidated homes. In the postwar era, both white and nonwhite populations lived in dilapidated

homes, and yet, nonwhites were more likely to own or live in a dilapidated home in 1950. The

question of how minorities came to live in higher rates of dilapidated housing in 1950 is explored

in this chapter. Federally back homeownership programs answer some of the questions.

The practice of housing segregation became more predictable and systematic with the

introduction of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Home Owners Loan Corporation

(HOLC). Segregation became a national systemic problem with the introduction of federally

backed home loan programs. White real estate agents had long excluded minority residents from

white markets. In the pre-federal back loan programs era, segregation functioned at the local level. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Home Owners Loan Corporation

(HOLC), both New Deal programs introduced to relieve the high rates of home loan failures

during the Great Depression. In the post-New Deal lending program era, the practice of

segregation became predictable and more likely to happen in large spaces with the introduction

of the FHA and HOLC.

The programs implemented standardized expectations and the ideas of desirable home

characteristics as a primary form of home loan qualifications. Racial homogeneity was seen as a

desirable home and neighborhood trait. Both programs used maps and neighborhood descriptions

as a checklist formula for home loans. Qualified homes needed to meet the FHA and HOLC

standards, and this became so predictable that these standards became necessary even if an FHA

48 or HOLC loan was not acquired for financing. The qualifications included if homes were close to businesses, schools, public transportation, and other neighboring factors. The loan programs used

“redlining” maps that classified neighborhoods with colors signifying possible general loan approval or danger to investment. Most often, African American neighborhoods were in the red.

The FHA even included suggestions for desirability and approval. The FHA suggested restrictive covenants to encourage and enforce positive characteristics. Restrictive covenants were legal agreements between sellers and buyers. They included restrictions on housing uses, setbacks, fencing, and restrictions on race. The FHA and HOLC exacerbated the already existing inequalities, as their formulas for finance excluded the already segregated population, and the programs benefited the highly unequal housing markets. This further limited housing opportunities from the beginning of the programs.

When suburbanization became visible in postwar Bakersfield, with the expansion of new housing, minorities were still buying homes on contract. With FHA and HOLC loans out of reach, “buying on contract” was the process of “renting to own.” Minority home buyers were baited with the dream of homeownership. The reality instead resulted in attempting to purchase homes under the agreement and conditions of a real estate broker. The broker owned and loaned the property to prospective buyers who did not have access to bank loans. The broker then had all control of the process, and many times refused to submit the deed to the local Hall of

Records, resulting in little accountability. Since FHA and HOLC loans did not operate in neighborhoods with poverty and lack of adequate municipal services, “buying on contract” became the purchase method for many minorities well after the postwar period. In contrast, many white Americans lived the suburban expansion.

This chapter explores the segregation and unequal practices of “buying on contract,”

racially restrictive covenants, and housing practices through the records of Claude Blodget, a

white realtor who operated in the Mayflower Tract. This chapter also includes a discussion of

public housing, since a segregated federally subsidized housing project was constructed in the

Mayflower and Sunset neighborhood in 1942 and again in 1954. Public housing became a

critical proposed housing alternative in this period. Public housing was proposed as a solution for

what allegedly the private market could not provide. California, at its height in 1954, operated

200 projects and 65,380 units of public housing.69 In the United States, there were 309,578 units

in operation that same year.70 A project was a community, and units were single complexes where a family would live. California made up 21 percent of all public housing in 1954.

The Mayflower neighborhood is important to discuss for the housing changes that

happened between 1940 and the 1950s. The federal and state government identified the housing

conditions in the Mayflower Tract. The construction of public housing addressed dilapidated

housing conditions and shortages. Public housing, and these selling practices did not offer

adequate housing opportunities for minorities to access fair and equal housing. Nonwhite

families were denied FHA loans. The neighborhood residents demanded equal access in the City

of Bakersfield’s services like public lighting, sanitation, and street clean up. From 1940 to 1950,

the community had started with little accountability of the City, let alone real estate agents. By

the 1951, the residents of Mayflower successfully lobbied for City annexation and the promise to

access to more housing and to build a large-scale public housing structure addressing the real estate situation.

69 Modibo Coulibaly, Rodney D. Green and David M. James’, Segregation in Federal Subsidized Low-Income Housing in the United States, (Westport, Ct: Praeger Publishers, 1998), 88 70 Ibid, 128

Housing On February 25, 1943, John Wilburn purchased the four lots that became St. John’s

Missionary Baptist Church.71 The church still serves the Mayflower community at its third and

newest location. Before city annexation of the Mayflower Tract, homes, community, and

commercial centers in the tract were in the county. They required no zoning permits to establish

buildings. The record of Wilburn’s purchase only exists as a contract, with no discernible

statements that it would become a church. Wilburn’s purchase represents the overall lack of

access to bank loans, having bought the church “on contract.”

This property would have been in Claude Blodget’s area of business for the Mayflower

Tract. Claude Raymond Blodget was a real estate agent and broker working in Bakersfield from

1918 to the early 1970s.72 Blodget was remembered by the Bakersfield Californian in 1972,

when he died at age 92, as a founding member of the California Real Estate Association, a

possible founding member of the Bakersfield Board of Realtors, and someone who took issue

with public housing.73 Blodget was a Stanford graduate and a longtime resident of Bakersfield.

Blodget had considerable influence as he founded the 1286 Tract, adjacent to Mayflower in

1946.74 Tract 1286 was often referred to as the Mayflower Annex. Blodget’s establishment of

71John Wilburn, Box 4, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 72 Claude Blodget was from a Kern County family that arrived in the late 1800s. H.A Blodget was a relative of his and well known and recognizable name in early Kern County History. Blodget was a Stanford graduate, a veteran of the Spanish American War and a past president of the Kern County Real Estate Board. Blodget was also in business with his wife Viola G. Blodget. Viola Blodget, was educated at the University of California, Berkeley and the first principal of Williams Schools in Bakersfield. She also held high influence in Kern County education as she held a lifetime membership to the school’s P.T.A. See Wilson and Peterson Publishing Company Eds. Who’s Who in Kern County, (Bakersfield: Wilson and Peterson, 1939), 23 73 “Spanish American War Vet: Rites Set for Pioneer Real Estate Man,” Bakersfield Californian, October 1, 1972, p. 13 Newspaperarchive.com 74 “Inspection Report on ‘Mayflower Annex’ Tract 1286.” State of California Division of Real Estate, May 13, 1946, Box 51, Blodget Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

Tract 1286 reveals his invested financial interest in the Mayflower Tract and adjacent properties.

He sold many homes on “contract” in the Mayflower Tract.

Wilburn had indeed bought the property on “contract” to build St. Johns from Claude

Blodget. Historian Beryl Satter writes that the process of buying on “contract” was not unique to

the northern United States. Satter writes about Chicago, Illinois, and describes the process as a

consequence of the federal housing program’s discrimination and “redlining,” where the federal

loan programs denied minority applicants access to homes.75 The “redlined” federal finance maps had graded sections, and the “redlined” neighborhoods represented the highest assumed risk for home investment. The redlined areas, most of the time, had a large minority demographic. The formula created for home financing generally excluded homes in areas of poverty, having homes that were generally older, lacking modern amenities, and access to municipal services. The FHA and HOLC loan programs were not created to eradicate poverty, nor replace neighborhoods that had blight, but allow access to new homes or homes with desirable traits.

The resulting method of purchasing homes for those areas and people excluded were

“buying on contract,” a process that was almost universal across the country. As minorities lacked equal access to credit, the only option to buy homes from real estate brokers was on contract, who owned the land they sold. Their ownership of the homes allowed the agents to sell on their owned properties and allowing payments with conditions stipulated in a contract. The process usually included an agent who was selling land he already owned, which was a conflict of interest. The buyer would finance the property with the seller, with no option for outside

75 Beryl Satter, Family Properties: Race Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, (New York: Metropolitan Books Henry Hold and Company, 2009), 4

lenders and the seller “financed” the sale,” there was no federal or state regulation for

accountability. The terms and conditions were set by the agent, having sold, loaned, and written

all the legal documents. The real estate agent held all the power, with room for abuse. Satter states that these practices made agents millionaires as they baited African American buyers with the promise of homeownership, where they defrauded buyers by keeping a cycle of homeownership failure.76 Real estate agents who sold on contract sustained the condition of poverty and denied equal and fair access to sanitary and safe homes. As a rent-to-own practice,

the buyer had no right to equity and only secured ownership after full payment. Nevertheless, the

prospective buyer knew that no other outside assistance was available; they had to either comply

with the system or rent a similarly unequal home.

Wilburn bought the lots on contract for $750 at 7% on February 25, 1943.77 In many

ways, Mayflower’s home practices resemble turn-of-the-twentieth-century Detroit, Michigan, where homes were sold by the lot, about $200 each, and about $1,000 or less to build a home.78

The similarities between Detroit and Bakersfield suggests that many who sold on contract were

taught the process, or perhaps real estate agents like Blodget already knew the practice since it

had been a standard of home buying before the FHA and HOLC days. Bank loans, before the

New Deal programs, remained in reach for the elite and middle class, and those outside of

access, white or black, bought on contract in the early 20th century.

It took Wilburn a little over two years to pay off his contract. Wilburn’s deed does not

show that he wanted to build St. Johns, however, a note on the payment book has an insurance

76 Ibid, 5 77 Wilburn, 1 78 Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age, (New York: Holt and Company, 2004), 148

policy inscribed in cursive, “Policy 53768 Church… $2,000.”79 Public and municipal records do

not hold the same records as the lived experience in areas of poverty or areas of predatory

practices. Wilburn’s purchase is not available at the Kern County Hall of Records. It remains

difficult to access the rate of failure in official recorded documents in the Mayflower Tract since

Blodget only submitted some completed loans. The building of community centers before

annexation remains embedded in the community rather than official records available at the Kern

County Hall of Records. The Historical Research Center and Archives at California State

University, Bakersfield, received the Blodget Collection in 2015. The rich sources in the Blodget

Collection make available a different type of history, one that requires interactions with the

remaining descendants of the Mayflower community. What is available makes for a complicated

history of segregation and housing discrimination.

Mayflower had a segregated African American block. The block had new homes built in

the 1940s and forbade dilapidated conditions while encouraging uniform building. The

restriction was unique since the block resided in a tract that had substandard and dilapidated

homes. The individual who submitted the covenant for this block in Mayflower was a well-

known white real-estate agent, Elmer Karpe, whose family is still in the real estate business.

Karpe’s covenant meant that new homes, the small amount that were built, could exist for

minorities, but it was reserved for Mayflower. Segregation was also for those who could afford

to leave but were given no opportunity to leave. Elmer Karpe’s agency was the first to build new

homes in Mayflower Tract for nonwhite buyers, reserving the one- or two-bedroom homes for

African Americans.80 Johnie Mae Parker, a past Mayflower resident, activist, and credited the

79 Ibid, 1 80 Johnie Mae Parker, How Long? Not Long!; The Battle to end Poverty in Bakersfield, (Bakersfield: Johnie Mae Parker, 1987), 2

covenant and the Karpe agency for generating the white exodus.81 The covenant began the

“white flight” movement from the Mayflower Tract. The postwar exodus was possible because of suburbanization; the white residents were able to purchase homes outside of the tract, leaving older and dilapidated homes. These homes opened as the housing demand rose, and real-estate agents like Blodget sold exclusively to African Americans, changing the Mayflower Tract into an almost single race neighborhood.

With the rise of suburbanization, nationally, most segregated neighborhoods in the urban and rural north were consolidated. “White flight” was a common term that referred to when

whites left older and sometimes blighted neighborhoods for new suburban homes. In turn, the

older homes were sold to minorities, creating racially dense neighborhoods. Nationally, pre-

World War II, most neighborhoods were segregated at the neighborhood level, but not at the

tract level. When whites left for new areas, those homes were protected, resulting in a

concentration of minorities in older neighborhoods. Racially restrictive covenants forbade the

selling to minorities, leaving only neighborhoods already populated by minorities for sale. The

process of “white flight,” restrictive covenants, and “buying on contract” were the influences that

changed the racial demographic of Mayflower in the postwar era.

The Mayflower restrictive covenant was submitted in 1944 well after the founding of the

tract in 1911. Nevertheless, the covenant had power over the market, influencing change after the

tract’s founding. The legal restrictions stated that in Block 10 of Mayflower shall, “No portion of

said premise shall be sold or conveyed to, or occupied by in who or in part, or be demised or let

to any person, not of the Colored race… No outside or separate toilet or lavatory shall be erected,

81 Ibid, 3

maintained or permitted on said property.”82 The covenant made clear that the block was to

remain exclusively African American and included economic considerations such as an inside

toilet and a 400 square foot floor requirement. Racially restrictive covenants were not uncommon

in Bakersfield. Since the 1920s, racially restrictive covenants appeared on individual contracts,

but since 1938, the included blocks, new communities, and neighborhoods. The restrictive

covenant appeared to cater to the economically well-off in the Mayflower Tract as Elmer

Karpe’s language looked to focus on non-dilapidated standards of indoor plumbing and house size requirements. The 1950s Census revealed indoor plumbing and running hot water as a requirement of standard development housing.83 The covenant would have separated the

economically prosperous; however, it was also not open to white or interracial couples. The

restriction reveals that Karpe had no intention of letting any mixing of the same socioeconomic

class unless it was exclusively one race. It is also important to note that all covenants were

notarized, meaning they were legally enforceable. These restrictions had the purpose of holding

legal accountability and warning the public of explicit and racial prejudice. Racially restrictive

covenants warned the public of limitations. Since they were legal documents, these limitations of

homeownership were legally enforceable in court. Covenants were legal agreements for

restrictions.

82 Elmer F. and Florence J. Karpe, “Block Restrictions: Mayflower Block 10,” City Hall records (14018133) July 25, 1944, 21-22 83 Dilapidated is an absence of a structure’s ideal visual appearance and physical performance. A structure’s status is usually at the judgement of the Housing Authority (State), County or City government. A structure that is dilapidated cannot be repaired and is most likely to be demolished. Non-Dilapidated is a structure which is Substandard or is up to code. It’s visual appearance and physical performance are either satisfactory, luxury, or needs minor repair. Substandard is a structure that need repair or can be retrofitted to meet code. It’s visual appearance and physical performance can be addressed and is most likely to be legally required for repair by City, County or State government.

Segregation and restrictive covenants were racial and socioeconomic barriers created by

landowners. Karpe’s covenant provides evidence of this phenomenon. Segregation was also

unequally represented in records. The covenant only exists because they build new homes for

African Americans, but there are no covenants for the most impoverished areas. These

undocumented places were automatically reserved for racial minorities. Little documents exist on

the poor that were segregated and their living conditions. The restrictive covenant had more than

a racial restriction. The restrictions also covered house size, maintenance, and specific

requirements for bathroom facilities. The restriction had economic requirements. The covenant

was a socioeconomic determination, something that separated individuals, regardless of race.

The included racial separation, also separated from other African Americans, whose ability to

purchase homes was limited to substandard or dilapidated, as these were the most affordable.

Affordability, in this case, included malleability and freedom to make economic choices, like

building a home that would accommodate multiple families or choosing to build a smaller home.

Affordability did not also mean that buyers or renters had access to safe and sanitary homes.

Segregation, requirements, and restrictions did not allow these types of choices. The scholarship

argues that segregation was racially exclusive, but segregation had different treatments for

minorities that could leave or had more financial wealth. The treatment was unequal, but

inequalities were not all the same. Some could buy new segregated homes, others could not, but

remained segregated. Some individuals were able to buy in white-only areas but were victims of threats and terrorism.

The historians rarely define the demographics of the segregated in detail. Most history

assumes the socioeconomic status of those affected by segregationist policies and behaviors.

History requires a new in-depth analysis of the spectrum of segregation. In the Mayflower Tract,

there were two different types of racial segregation, but there were the new homeowner block

and the other homes, where many remained dilapidated into the postwar era. The Blodget

Collection contains contracts of individuals who could not afford to live in restricted new homes.

Poor African Americans could not afford to live in the new African American Housing, as it was

only reserved for wealthier residents. This chapter serves as a brief introduction to housing and

restrictions in the Mayflower Tract. The complete practice of buying on contract is outside the

scope of this work; however, it is essential to know that the practice was not part of the suburban

model.

Historian Kenneth T. Jackson defines the crabgrass frontier with four distinguishing

features: low residential density with no sharp division between neighborhoods, a strong

fondness for homeownership, a socioeconomic distinction between center and periphery, and an

average distance or time to work.84 The suburban model was a sharp contrast to the Mayflower

Tract, where minority residents had little opportunity to reach the crabgrass frontier. Buying on

contract contradicted the suburban model. The model of suburbanization did not exist in

Bakersfield for minority residents. Nevertheless, minority neighborhoods did urbanize, a much

different subset of modernization. Minority homes were forced to meet minimal home standards.

Those who could not afford to modernize their homes were destroyed by the county or city when

they were identified as unsafe and unrepairable. The closest model to suburbanization was the

African American only block in Mayflower. The block was not part of the suburban model since it did not offer a new neighborhood, commercial centers, or the promise of mass transformations.

Karpe did urbanize Block 10 of the Mayflower Tract, but minorities were given little access outside of the tract to new homes. The Crabgrass Frontier was a visible expansion to the

84 Jackson, 6-10

peripheries of city centers, not the redevelopment of older neighborhoods. Although Block 10

did have a restrictive covenant, it lacked full access and significant transformations. Mayflower

also expanded east with the founding of Tract 1286 in 1946, but it did not have a restrictive

covenant, nor did Tract 1286 provide safe and sanitary home access to the majority of

Mayflower residents. Suburban homes were modern with lawns, garages, and other amenities,

including appliances. Block 10 was the only Mayflower block to sell newly constructed homes.

Tract 1286 did not have new tract style homes; they were just dirt lots and waiting for the buyer

to build. All of the lots were sold on contract, leaving little financial access to build uniform

housing. Tract 1286 also had no restrictions, pulling away from the uniform code and

characteristics of suburban desirability.

The crabgrass frontier was largely a crabgrass barrier, with the help of federally

subsidized loans, racially restrictive housing covenants, municipal policy, white property owners,

and real estate agents enforcing housing segregation. Jackson adds that the racist traditions of the

United States allowed for racial exclusion in the Federal Housing Administration’s Underwriting

Manual. The FHA had already existed for about two decades by 1950. The FHA Underwriting

Manual established standards for financing, these standards became the universal language of home financing, even if the FHA did not provide the finance.85 These features were visible in the

larger United States, even outside of the Jim Crow South. African Americans did not share the

postwar homeownership boom. On the contrary, homeowners were moved out or to public

housing if their neighborhood was attained through eminent domain. Eminent domain allowed

cities and states to purchase homes if they were dilapidated or in the way of a future highway or

public project. Mayflower’s postwar expansion was the founding of Tract 1286 and the new

85 Ibid, 205

homes of Block 10. FHA impacted segregation through the use of home loans, and the FHA had

a part in establishing systemic housing segregation. The finance opportunities afforded more

access to white homeownership. African Americans did not have the same access to federal

home financing.

Beyond having a financial effect, many minority dense neighborhoods did not have suburban characteristics. The FHA manual recommended racially restrictive covenants to retain economic stability, stating it necessary that the same race and class occupy properties. The FHA changed the requirement in 1950.86 The administration’s response was to Shelly v. Kraemer. The adjustment did not provide a profound change in home loan access. The culture of segregation and home loan denial had already established itself in the business of homes selling and buying, even before the FHA. Notarized and public restrictive covenants continued to appear after Shelly

V. Kraemer, the case that stopped a court’s ability to enforce restrictions. As late as 1950, covenants in Bakersfield still included race, two years after the case that set a precedent.87 In

1948, Shelly V. Kraemer set the precedent of denying access to courts to enforce restrictive

covenants, citing the 14th Amendment for equal protection of property ownership under written

law.88

Racial integration remained elusive in the case of Shelley v. Kraemer.89 The case decided that restrictive covenants violated the fourteenth amendment and could not be enforced by

86 Ibid, 208 87 C.E. Houchin and Anna Lumis, “Houchin Development Corporation, Declarations of Protective Restrictions, Tract 1532,” City Hall records (150002743) January 9, 1950 88 Legal Precedent is an establishment of legal guidelines, by an Appellate Court in California, which is used in other Trial, Appellate, and Supreme Court decisions. The establishment of these guidelines allows other cases to inherit or change legal decisions. 89 Louis Kraemer and wife sued J. D. Shelley and wife to uphold enforcement of restrictive covenants against place occupancy of someone of the African American descent. The ruling reversed Snipes V. McGhee, which upheld the validity of racially exclusive covenants on the basis of “public policy” and the right to “due process” for white residents who went into a covenant agreement. The Supreme Court ruled that racially exclusive covenants violated 14th Amendment which protected civil rights to acquire, enjoy, own and dispose of property. The trial revealed that

courts. Nevertheless, the case did not grant racial minorities access to courts to fight against

locally enforced segregation. It also denied enforcers of segregation access to courts. In 1949, the

FHA announced that as of February 15, 1950, it would not insure mortgages on real property

subject to covenants.90 Covenant after 1950 stopped included race restrictions, but this did not

mean that real estate agents or sellers could become barriers to home access. The case did not do

much in Kern County to change segregation and home availability. Restrictive covenants

continued to be published with race restrictions up to 1950, when the Bakersfield City Council approved Ordinance 860, banning the use of racially restrictive signs.91

Within the FHA’s standard of finance, loan underwriters also enforced segregation. Jerry

Gonzalez argues that the FHA followed the HOLC model, demanding developers to abide by its

uniform construction codes, quality concerns, and inspections.92 Gonzalez states home loans used the FHA neighborhood grading standard, even if FHA did not finance the loan.93 FHA and

HOLC grading became the standard building and finance language. The language and building

requirements also existed in Bakersfield. The Santa Fe Homes (CAL – 4986), public housing in

Bakersfield reserved for white laborers, used the HOLC standards and grading system to inspect and guarantee the finance. The grading stated that the land was desirable, but also listed questionable characteristics that contradicted desirability. The report stated that there were

the Kraemers had no prior knowledge of the covenant, which further investigation showed that the covenant had never become final, failing to secure signatures of all property owners. The court decided that racially restrictive covenants excluded racial minorities and nothing more, and the use of residents by minorities were not actually excluded. The Supreme Court decided protecting racially exclusive covenants did not violate white property owners due process, nor was there evidence of discriminatory practices by different races. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling did not establish the access to courts for desegregation of housing, it merely stated that covenants, as a method for to sustain white homogeneity, was not legal. Shelley v. Kaemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948) Westlaw 90 Jackson, 208 91 “Ordinance 860,” Ordinacnes of the Bakersfield City Council, February 14, 1950, http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 92 Jerry Gonzalez, In Search of Mexican Beverly Hills: Latino Suburbanization in Postwar Los Angeles, (Camden: Rutgers University Press, 2017) 50 93 Ibid, 50

nearby industrial buildings.94 The report also included public transportation, schools, markets

and stores, sales of similar land, favorable and unfavorable factors, utilities, sanitation,

telephone, soil composition, public recreation, and churches.95 Finally, the report concluded that

all the desirable factors made the homes a first-class residential portion of the City, even if negative aspects did exist.96 The grading was significant, since one of the listed qualifications of the consulting appraisal company was, “Chief State Appraiser HOLC, 1933-1934.”97 The homes

were not only HOLC graded and approved, but a Chief State Appraiser also signed his approval,

adding enhancement of judgment in the property’s quality. The language of finance was no

coincidence. HOLC and FHA grading existed whenever a home loan was acquired, regardless of

an existing HOLC or redlining map. Bakersfield did not have a map since the city had a small

population.

Public Housing and Annexation In 1941 the problem in housing had been identified through a local report conducted by

the Housing Authority of Kern County.98 The City of Bakersfield and the County of Kern

provided no real solutions to open housing outside of the Mayflower, and had not provided

access to sanitary services. By 1950 a national housing crisis had developed.99 California had the most public housing with 200 low rent communities and 65,380 by 1954, accounting for 21

94 Harry E. Hake, “Appraisal, Federal Public Housing Authority, Project no. Cal 4986 Bakersfield California,” CAL- 4986 General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Record Group 196, National Archives and Records Administration- Pacific Region (San Bruno, California) 95 Ibid, 1-9 96 Ibid, 6 97 Ibid, 9 98 The report is cited by the Housing Authority. I attempted to get a copy of the report from them, but I was denied formal access to their records. The archival sources that exist in the National Archives in San Bruno do not have a copy of the report. 99 Housing Crisis in this thesis means the alarming amount of housing identified as substandard, or dilapidated. The crisis is not related to the lack of housing available. The identification of substandard housing is argued to be a result of housing practices, housing segregation, and failure of policy.

percent of all public housing in the United States. Only New York rivaled California in 1954

with sixty-nine communities and 50,381 units.100 The construction was unequaled anywhere else

in the West. The federal government, in partnership with states, formed local Housing

Authorities to provide solutions for inadequate housing. The Housing Authority of the County of

Kern was founded in an attempt to alleviate housing shortages and supply temporary housing to

individuals who relocated for temporary employment in the late 1930s. This mission remained

well into the war economy of the 1940s, focusing on labor and housing. The role of the Housing

Authority changed after the postwar period, directing its efforts on poverty eradication and

housing shortages for the public and veterans in the 1950s. Congressional legislation in 1938

established the California Housing Authority. The Housing Authority of Kern County was

established by the 1938 legislation on May 10, 1939.

The Housing Authority’s role would not be effective in distributing equal housing access.

On the contrary, the Housing Authority had an added function to keep institutional segregation.

These actions were wider characteristics, while we do not have the document that states who

segregated public housing in Bakersfield, we do know race relations and housing practices of the

administrators. The Housing Authority had a history of directors living in a suburban white-only

neighborhood and even a director who had previous membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Ferd

Snyder, who had been a secretary, researcher, and administrator for the Housing Authority in

Kern County, owned a large and spacious home in the new suburb in the developing

Southwest.101 His homeownership suggests that he had little solutions for minority housing, and possibly supported racial segregation in public housing.

100 Coulibaly, 88 101 See Figure 1; Ferd Snyder, “Ferd Snyder’s Residence 2021 Bradford Street,” Kern County Museum, June 15, 1941

Figure 1 Ferd Snyder, “Ferd Snyder’s Residence 2021 Bradford Street,” Kern County Museum, June 15, 1941; Snyder’s home was on the intersection of Bradford Street and Oleander. This was before Highway 58 divided Oleander Street into two separate streets. This was the southwest expansion of Bakersfield. Oleander-Terrace was one of the newest and elite tracts of the 1940s. Today there are still multi-million dollar homes a block away from Bradford Street, where Snyder’s former residence still stands.

Snyder built his home in the Oleander Terrace Tract in 1941.102 Snyder’s new home had a large lot and with race restrictions, which allowed no buyer outside of the Caucasian race.103

His housing arrangements would have guaranteed his neighborhood interactions would have

only been with those of the middle-class white race, the equal of the administrator. The suburban

neighborhood had setback restrictions, a square feet requirement, and the approval of a

neighborhood committee.104 These were the characteristics of desirability and uniformity. Only

102 Ferd Snyder’s old house is still on the intersection of Oleander and Bradford St, facing Southeast, Bakersfield, California. His name is spelled correctly, “Ferd.” 103 C.E. Houchin and Kathryn Houchin, “Tract Restrictions Tract no. 1113 Known as Oleander Terrace Extension,” City Hall records (13927559) November 25, 1939 104 Ibid, 2

those who had status with an expanded economic income could afford to build a home at the

approval of the neighborhood committee. Snyder took out an FHA loan in June of 1940 for that

home. The home met the requirements for finance and expectations of suburban characteristics.

Bank of America financed the six thousand dollar loan at a one percent interest.105 The

difference between an FHA bank loan was vast from “buying on contract.” Claude Blodget sold

to minority buyers at seven percent interest rates, with little to no security of equity.106 The

Housing Authority director financed at a one percent loan and to a substantial amount than most minority home buyers. These were the behaviors of housing inequalities and the predatory characteristics of buying on contract. One was a for-profit model and those who needed it the most paid the price. The six percent difference was the race tax Blodget charged African

Americans to own homes. Beyond Snyder, Stanley Abel, a subsequent director, also stands out as a prominent name in Kern County and a previous representative of Taft, California, in the

Kern County Board of Supervisors. In 1939, he had stated he was a proud Ku Klux Klan member during the 1920s.107

The previous director’s position was a conflict of interest to the minority groups that

resided in Kern County. Snyder and Abel’s position at the housing authority would have been in

line with providing more housing access and support to a large white demographic in the 1940s.

Their approach would have been minimal to solve Kern County’s housing demands for equality,

limiting access to other housing units. They had no invested interest in dismantling the systemic

segregation in housing or let alone in public housing. While the Housing Authority built an

105 Fred Snyder, “Deed Trust,” Kern County Hall of Records, June 5, 1940, 331 106 Blodget charged minorities 7% to 8% interest rates. The 7% example refers to Wilburn’s loan, which was introduced in the beginning of the chapter. 107 Alicia Rodriquez, “‘No Ku Klux Klan for Kern’: The Rise and Fall of the 1920s KKK in Kern County, California.” Southern California Quarterly, vol 99, no 1, 35, 27, DOI: 10.1525/scq.2017.99.1.5

income assisted housing rental facility for African Americans, they did not focus on eradicating poverty in the 1940s. The Housing Authority instead provided housing for working families of

wartime industries and agricultural labor. It is important to note that the majority of public

housing in the war and postwar era was built for whites. The first two directors set the tone of the

public housing’s expectations and motivations to provide alternative housing. Reports show that

federally subsidized low-income housing supported systemic segregation in the United States,

outside of the directorship of Snyder and Abel.

Segregation and ideas of races influenced public housing building locations and policies,

and race restrictions at the national level. Modibo Coulibaly, Rodney D. Green, and David M.

James argue in Segregation in Federal Subsidized Low-Income Housing in the United States that

the public assumed the purpose of the public low-income housing subsidies were a form of a

welfare program of income distribution in favor of the poor, this was not true. Instead, the

subsidized housing programs were not part of the social safety net designed to correct the

apparent failure of the private housing market; the programs failed to provide decent housing at

prices the poor could afford.”108 Public Housing’s monthly payments were very similar to buying

on contract. Figures provided by the Housing Authority state that rent was between $25 to $50

monthly.109 Payments on a contract loan were anything between $20 to $50 depending on the

amount and the down payment.110 Helping single individuals and families in need were above

108 Coulibaly, xi 109 “Presentation Board,” Housing Authority of Kern County, date unknown; The Housing Authority allowed me to photograph a presentation board with the research they had conducted in their own archives. The figures are stated on the board. The source of their figures is unknown. 110 The $20-dollar monthly payment was for a $750 dollar loan in 1946. The figure extracted from, Elie Fisher and Dorothy Fisher, “Agreement for the Sale of Real Estate,” June 24, 1946, Box 9, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield; The $50- dollar payment was for a $4,000 dollar loan in 1950. The figure was an extract from, George H Daniels and Eileen Daniels, “Deposit Receipt,” August 2, 1950, Box 56, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield; Both loans were in Mayflower between 1946 and 1950.

66 the mission’s limit. Race and family restrictions, including monthly payments, failed to provide significant change. Public housing was not designed to be an alternative to the effects of housing discrimination; on the contrary, segregationist policies also enforced the same inequalities. The general public assumed that the long-term goal was to expand housing opportunities to the poor; even whites were limited to access.111 Federally subsidized housing was more of an instrument of urban renewal than a program designed to provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing.112 White workers saw African Americans as a political and economic threat, and they sought restrictions and limits to reduce racial and social progress.113 Public housing in the Sunset Tract involved the destruction of homes to build the public and seemingly modern facilities.

The change was limited to the clearing homes of dilapidated neighborhoods and rehousing occupants in subsidized public housing; however, many of the displaced families did not receive alternative housing.114 Many municipal governments cleared dilapidated homes to build public housing. Like the case of many cities and counties, eminent domain reclassifications allowed city governments and federal funded programs to acquire homes, destroy, and build public housing, without adequate or equal replacement. Public housing did not provide an alternative or a viable gateway into equal access to safe homes or economic freedom. Instead, it removed the properties of minorities.

The removal and destruction of dilapidated homes was the urban renewal process minority neighborhoods experienced. Homes of the least desirable areas were often seen as the most expendable. The destruction of dilapidated homes and undesirable areas were often seen as

111 Ibid, xi 112 Ibid, xi 113 Ibid, 6 114 Ibid, 32

a place to build highways, new housing, or public housing. Minorities in Bakersfield experienced

urban renewal with the building of public housing in 1942 and 1954; residents were removed

from their homes to establish public housing. The same happened in 1960 when residents were

removed from their homes to build Highway 58. Urban renewal also included the building of

sewers, curbs, parks, and annexation from county to city jurisdiction by the mid-1950s.

The first African American assisted housing was in the Sunset Tract, a low-density tract

compared to Mayflower, which helped low-income families in defense-related industries. No public housing would ever be built in Mayflower, but instead in Sunset. Residents of Mayflower were housed in the public housing units built in the Sunset Tract. The first duplex unit was

Adelante Vista in 1942. 115 Families qualified if their income was less than $1,200. Each year the

Housing Authority produced reports on surveys conducted, money used, and new developments.

By 1943, most families were in defense-related labor or aiding in agriculture. 116 Urban renewal for the Housing Authority included the building of modern public housing. In the 1950s, Urban renewal also included the destruction of dilapidated structures and offered housing relocation and access to public housing.117

115 “Second Annual Report,” Housing Authority of the County of Kern, 1942, 4 116 “Third Annual report,” Housing Authority of County of Kern, 1943, 8 117See: Figure 2 and Figure 3, photographs were provided by the Housing Authority of Kern County.

Figure 2, the Sunset Tract neighborhood that was destroyed for Adelante Vista, reads, “Slum Area- Before the Construction of Adelante Vista.” “Slum Area- Before the Construction of Adelante Vista.” Housing Authority of the County of Kern, Date 1940-1941

Figure 3, Adelante Vista (Cal 8-2), during construction on April 16, 1942. Adelante Vista (Cal 8-2), Housing Authority of the County of Kern, April 16, 1942.

There were no written reports on the amount of condemned housing or how relocated people

adjusted to their situation. These photographs serve as an example of the type of urban renewal

the government favored in minority areas, the visible modern changes, but without the promise

of homeownership.

In 1942, the Second Annual Housing Report published a photograph and compared the

physical aspects of a “hand-built” home and modern model of housing with paved driveways and

streets.118 The drawn representation shows the intended comparison of a modern development

housing neighborhood, to a drastic “reality,” from a wood plank house. The house looked as if

construction material used only included scraps of wood and complemented with an old broken

down early twentieth-century truck.119 The 1942 report then showed the project home’s modernity, separate rooms, kitchen, and indoor bathroom facilities.120 All rooms were modern

with cabinets, sinks, doors, and closet space. The photographs from the Housing Authority show

that these urban renewal projects represented the physical building character of uniform and

modern design but lacked the personal space of homeownership. The postwar home design was supposed to include homeownership. Public housing was the introduction to modern design and public infrastructure to neighborhoods in poverty. Segregated neighborhoods had a form of modern design, but it remained a different experience from suburbanization.

The modernity of urban renewal became a type of urban prescription, with little choice.

Modern amenities included modern physical features, design, and housing uniformity, and it was different from the suburbanization phenomenon of the postwar era brought by government- subsidized housing programs. The modern design prescribed to minorities included the ideas of

118 Second Annual Report, 7 119 Ibid, 7 120 Ibid, 8

home use and the physical characteristics of desirability, but not the equal access to ownership.

This also excluded the access to generational wealth that home equity could establish. The

prescription was unequal to that of whites, minorities did not partake in FHA, and HOLC backed

suburbanization but faced modern changes under urban renewal movements like public housing.

While even whites in public housing had access to loans, their prescription of visible modern

design was temporary. Once whites established a dependable income, and through FHA and

HOLC financing, they opened housing choices in new suburban neighborhoods. Public housing

became an alternative to those “others,” the ones the white majority and housing program would

not accept. Public housing would never become an alternative or even a gateway to home loan

access since home loans were not available, perhaps it did send some to high-interest loans and

predatory lending of “buying on contract.” Either way, federally subsidized charged the same

rental figures, but qualifying tenants received sanitary and modern amenities. The “subsidizing”

was visible modernity, not affordability.

In 1942 Adelante Vista was the only African American public housing structure. In 1945

the Negro Handbook, a collective resource for African American housing and statistical figures,

cited Adelante Vista as a permanent public housing facility for African Americans.121

Segregation of state and federally subsidized public housing was no secret. The 1940s projects

were Cal 8-1 Rio Vista (Roberts Lane), Cal 8-2 Adelante Vista (Sunset Tract) Cal 8-3 Valle

Vista (Delano), and Cal 8-4 Monte Vista (Arvin).

In the 1943 Housing Authority report, all public housing other than Adelante Vista stated that their occupants were “mixed,” while Adelante Vista was labeled as “Colored.”122 The label

121 Florence Murray ed., The Negro Handbook 1946-1947, (NY: Current Books Inc., 1947), 200 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.6221/page/n5/mode/2up 122 Third Annual Report 1943, 5-7

of “race occupancy” on formal reports stated the clear difference between “mixed” and “colored”

occupancy, that influenced race relations of public housing in the 1950s. Oro Vista, the future

public housing units, built adjacent to Adelante Vista in 1954, remained African American.

The sites had been selected by 1950 but were pending the Public Housing Administration

approval of the proposed development programs, which came in 1951.123 These projects for the

1950s followed, Cal 8-5 Aero Vista (Oildale), Cal 8-6 Oro Vista (Sunset/Mayflower), and Cal 8-

7 Terra Vista (Shafter).124 Oro Vista was the first largescale public housing complex in the area and would house Mayflower and Sunset residents.125

Figure 4, Aerial photograph of Adelante Vista (a bottom community with round-about) and Oro Vista, (community next of Adelante Vista). “Aerial photograph of Adelante Vista” Housing Authority of Kern, 1954

123 Chapter Two will have an in-depth discussion on the establishment of Oro Vista. For this chapter, Oro Vista is dealt with in the concepts of segregation and modernity. 124 “Tenth Annual report,” Housing Authority of County of Kern, 1950, 6 125 See Figure 4, photograph provided by the Housing Authority of the County of Kern.

The public housing projects were given Spanish names, even when they were created to serve the

African American community. The Sunset structures were named Oro Vista (Gold View) and

Adelante Vista (Forward or Future View) in an attempt to label these structures as a positive or

solution to the housing discrimination and shortage, but public housing was never meant to be

permanent, nor had policies in place to protect equality. The Sunset-Mayflower public housing

projects carried heavy negative connotations, especially in the fight that followed to stop the

opening of Oro Vista from 1950-1954.126 “Public Housing” or “Projects” also carried a negative

connotation in the national conversation. The Housing Authority built Oro Vista when reports

told of the vast homes of Kern County in a dilapidated state, published in the 1950 Census of

Housing report Special Tabulations for Local Housing Authorities.127 While these housing

projects built to alleviate the well-known housing situation, the orchestrated fight that followed in 1951 and 1952 did not help provide income or wealth access to residents of Mayflower.

The statistics revealed a high rate of owners and renters that lived in dilapidated homes.

The report covered various parts of Kern County and excluded the City of Bakersfield. Statistics on dilapidated structures revealed a total of 6,264 homes, and out of the total, 4,211 were owners

and 2,053 renters. The report included a binary demographic study of white and non-white

categories. The white demographic equaled a total of 2,868 dilapidated structures, renters

reporting 1,299 buildings, and owners reporting 1,569 homes. The nonwhite demographic totaled

1,345 dilapidated structures, reporting 486 owner structures, and 859 renters. Renters lived in the

126 This will be discussed in Chapter 2. 127 The 1951 Census Report was published in January 19, 1951 and the 10th Annual Housing report was produced in December 18, 1951. 1950 Census of Housing report Special Tabulations for Local Housing Authorities, US Department of Commerce, January 19, 1951, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield

more dilapidated homes. A binary comparison shows little detail, having stated no information

on the demographics of the county.

A comparison of population numbers shows that the nonwhite demographic lived in

higher rates of dilapidated homes, compared to the majority of white homeowners. According to

the Bakersfield Californian, the study concluded that 10,941 substandard homes resided in the

county, and 52 percent of all homes were substandard.128 The same comparison to the full report

revealed that 38.5 percent of the 10,941 homes studied were dilapidated.129 The majority of the substandard homes were dilapidated. Seventy-two percent of the homes identified fell under the characteristic.

The report revealed a staggering reality of racial inequalities when compared to the overall population statistics in the 1950s. The 1950 report did not do a race and population analysis, nor did it include neighborhood maps. The general census did have the data for the whole county, the population was 213,661 and with 12,530 African Americans, and 2,118 other nonwhites.130 The Census statistics of the 1950s remain complicated, as Hispanic or Latina/o/x

categories did not exist. The release of the 1950 Census in 2022 will bring more personal details

for future historians and providing more information on neighborhood demographics. The

percentages to the population to housing analysis revealed that nonwhites lived in higher rates of

dilapidated structures. The nonwhite population made up 14,648, a small six percent of the entire

population, and accounted for 1,345 of the dilapidated homes. The white population of 213,661

128 “Half of Housing in Blighted Area of City Held Substandard,” Bakersfield California, August 27, 1950, 21 Newspaperarchive.com 129 4,213 total dilapidated structures (divided by) 10,941 total houses (equal) 38.5 percent. 130 “Kern County Statistical Summary 1957,” Kern County Board of Trade, 1957, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library; The numbers provided were based on the statistics of the 1950 Census, 12

individuals in the county accounted for only 2,868 dilapidated structures. Six percent of the

county population accounted for about a third of all dilapidated housing.

Dilapidated, as a reported category, was based on the collective findings of three factors.

According to the report, a substandard house was dilapidated, or if it did not have a “… flush

toilet and bath inside the structure for the unit’s exclusive use and running hot water.”131 This

data reveals that their formula, a combination of three factors, shows the actual numbers of non-

modern facilities were higher than actual reports in a dilapidated state. As the data shows, most

individuals in the study had reported not having an indoor toilet, nor did they have an indoor

shower.

The report included sanitary facilities showing the dilapidated and substandard indoor

physical characteristics of 1950s housing. These percentages came from the total of 10,941

homes studied. White homes had a reported twenty-five percent homes with indoor flush toilets,

and 73.1 reported homes with “other or privy.”132 Privy meant that homes had outside toilet access even if attached to the home. Nonwhite homes had a reported 25.5 percent with indoor flush toilets and 71.2 percent with “other or privy.”133 The numbers were not that different in comparison; however, the report reveals a large number of homeowners and renters had a privy

or other in 1950. There was a clear need for fair housing laws and practices in the 1950s. The

lack of indoor showers reported 71 percent for whites and 69.9 percent for nonwhite homes.134

These numbers resulted from the lack of running water in many homes.

131 Ibid, 1; The study included data on renters, due to the limited nature of this paper, I will only include data on house owners. 132 1950 Census of Housing, 6 133 Ibid, 6 134 Ibid, 7

An income statistic in the 1950 report provides evidence that the housing situation was

not the only problem. Poverty and predatory practices plagued the minority population. In 1942,

only those making $1,200 or less a year could qualify to live in public housing. That meant that a

fraction of people living in dilapidated homes could qualify before the building of Adelante

Vista. Those living in a dilapidated nonwhite household making under $999 was 20.1 percent,

and those making under $3,000 accounted for the majority, a reported 85.4 percent. The reported

median income was $3,156.135 Income, race, and housing characteristics had a strong correlation.

Bellow and up to the median income of nonwhite homeowners accounted for 85.4 percent of all the dilapidated minority housing. The income threshold was not high enough since most of the median income earners lived in dilapidated homes. This data had a direct correlation to the

minority population’s demand for annexation and various civil rights Ordinances and

Resolutions in the 1950s. California, as a whole, had similar housing problems.

Bakersfield and Oakland share common attributes. Robert Self’s American Babylon:

Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, characterizes the “white flight” and urban decline in postwar Oakland, California, from 1945-1970s. Oakland’s wealthy white property owners benefited from the subsidies of urban renewal while denying those resources to African

Americans.136 This tracing of distribution of wealth was visible in the rapid urban development

of Bakersfield before and after the 1952 earthquake. Bakersfield urbanized to a modern urban

white space in less than eight years.

Perhaps the most important section of Self’s study is his chapter on “Race, Urban

Transportation, and the Struggle Against Segregation, 1954-1966.” He argues that older

135 Ibid, 10 136 Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 3

American cities faced their greatest historical change, reshaped by changes in demographics.

Many Southern African Americans migrated to the North, Midwest, and West, while whites

moved into suburban spaces.137 During the postwar period, many neighborhoods faced an urban

decline of downtown property values. The expansion of these neighborhoods identified as slums

or blighted, produced an increase of nationwide reporting on housing, calling for the

rehabilitation of American cities.138 The special report created from the 1950s census revealed to

the federal government that a large portion of homes was in a dilapidated state in Kern County.

People of the area had already known the conditions of unequal housing. This report was not

unique; however, the figures were different: Oakland had twenty-four percent blighted homes, and Bakersfield’s rate was double that number. Perhaps this suggested that rural spaces had larger inequalities compared to urban cities.

As African Americans favored rehabilitation of neighborhoods, Self makes it clear that self-determination was a right, and blighted conditions were not a product of self- determination.139 We can see this with the movement in Sunset-Mayflower to gather enough

votes to approve the annexation. The previous housing conditions leading to the postwar era led

to the demand for accountability and equal participation in municipal and sanitary services. Self

argues how segregation was hidden and protected within the language of private rights and free

markets, which covered the patterns of racial exclusion in buying and selling, and was

exacerbated with the creation of African American only neighborhoods.140 Segregation in

Bakersfield had the same tone. Mayflower also had an African American-only restricted

neighborhood, and the argument of private rights and free markets was visible within the fight

137 Ibid, 136 138 Ibid, 138 139 Ibid, 144 140 Ibid, 114-117

against public housing. The housing conditions were created by buying on contract and exclusion

of housing access resulted in demands for city services.

Racial Politics of Annexation In early 1949 the City and the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts attempted annexation to demand accountability and equal participation from the city of Bakersfield. A series of meetings were held to discuss the process, which was successful in late 1950. The focus of the pro- annexation groups was to provide city services and access to urban amenities to these tracts, in hopes to alleviate the predatory and unequal real estate practices. The Bakersfield Californian reported that citizens from the Sunset-Mayflower districts would be invited to a mass meeting to discuss annexation by the City of Bakersfield as a solution for their need for garbage disposal, sewerage, lighting, and other urban areas.141 The urban renewal of city services would provide

the much necessary sanitary services to a dilapidated area. Sanitary and municipal service access

could reclassify much of the housing since the access to these services only defined the

dilapidated characteristic. It was reported that cost would be an estimated 2 million to connect

homes to sewer lines and the annual cost of fifteen to eighteen dollars on the property tax

increase. The tax increase would not be actual, and most properties increased their tax by about

thirty to fifty and some high as eighty dollars.142 In order to achieve annexation, residents needed

twenty-five percent approval of the voting population in the area. 143 The annexation allowed the

city to incorporate city zoning restrictions. The city had no invested interest in providing

141 “Subset-Mayflower Groups Study Annexation to City,” Bakersfield Californian, February 25, 1949, 13 Newspaperarchive.com 142 Chapter 3, will talk about the homes lost to tax sales and the yearly rates. 143 Ibid, 13

services, but they were interested in establishing zoning regulations. Zoning would limit certain

practices of home building that the city saw as undesirable.

The need for urban services like sewage, garbage, fire, and police protection was the basis for annexation, but becoming part of the City would also give Bakersfield the ability to regulate housing through zoning. Mayflower leaders from the tract stated, “We are getting nothing at the present time for the taxes we pay the county.”144 The purpose was to demand

equality for their taxes paid and demand accountability of the city. The petition cited the

advantage of annexation into the City, prospectively receiving better care of streets, alleys,

sanitation, and sewage disposal. Mayor Vanderlei thanked the group, “for the interest you are

taking in joining our City. We only wish that other adjoining areas felt the same way…”145

Vanderlei had a similar stance in 1948 when he refuted demands for equality by local NAACP

chapter,

State laws protect you people- it protects all of us. We all have civil rights, but we do not all have social rights. Has it occurred to you that some people don’t like Negroes? I might want to eat with the governor in his mansion, but he might not want to eat with me.146

From the beginning, it was clear that the Mayflower-Sunset tracts wanted urban amenities

through city services. Nevertheless, public officials stood in the way of equality. Officials argued

that it was not discrimination, nor inequalities, but individuals were choosing. The mayor

effectively ignored systemic segregation and was compliant in sustaining the existing systemic

denial of equal rights. The residents of Sunset and Mayflower were already taxpayers and

already contributing but received no benefits. The Mayor’s response was simple, and the white

majority did not want to support the annexation based on race. The group had collected the

144 “Applicants for City Rule Say Need Felt for more Protection,” Bakersfield Californian, April 10, 1949, 31 Newspaperarchive.com 145 Ibid, 31 146 “Oppose Discrimination,” Bakersfeild Califonrian, January 20, 1948, 17 Newspaperarchives.com

required two-thousand signatures from registered voters for the annexation election, but the

hearing was scheduled for a later final decision.

Race was a factor in the fight against annexation. Months after the first failure of

annexation in 1949, in the middle of the resolutions and petitions for annexation, on January 30,

1950, the City Attorney was instructed to prepare Ordinance 860. The ordinance prohibited any

place from advertising that the admission of any person would be denied because of race, color,

or creed. As a progressive ordinance, it perhaps suggested the rise of racial tensions in the City.

Signs were commonly placed in front of businesses.147 The ordinance was passed on February

14, 1950.148 The ordinance was supported by the African American community, having been

passed with the lobbying efforts of the local NAACP chapter. The special election for annexation

was not called until September of 1950.149

147 See figure 5 148 “Ordinance 860,” Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, February 14, 1950, 33 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 149 It is important to understand the chronology of events, since they are related with race and the process of annexation. The Planning commission proceeds with the annexation of the Sunset-Mayflower district on March 3, 1949 and adopts a resolution on the same day, with a petition to be circulated (Res 8-49). The approval and recommendation for annexation is given by the Planning Commission on April 11, 1949 and Resolution 10-49 is proposed and adopted on the same day.

Figure 5, Photographer Unknown, “Sign on roadside fountain Bakersfield California, July 10, 1946,” Personal Collection. This photograph was purchased from an estate online. The photograph was from a tourist that traveled to Bakersfield and other California cities in 1946. These serve as an example of the types of racially exclusive signs that were placed in front of business doors.

The conversation for annexation began again in 1950. Another annexation bid was given

for the Mayflower and Sunset residents. Proponents announced their intention to circulate

petitions against annexation from the adjacent southeastern limits of the City.150 As much as

there was support inside of the tracts, many inside the city limits opposed the annexation. A

year’s wait had not cooled the tensions. On October 23, 1950, the City Council approved the

special election, and on December 19, 1950, the votes were tallied in favor of annexation 485 yes

150 “Another Annexation Bid Seen for Sunset-Mayflower,” Bakersfield Californian, June 18, 1950, 90 Newspaperarchive.com

and 442 no.151 Mayflower residents had voted for incorporation. Regardless of the close vote, it

is important to note that Ordinance 896 approved the annexation before the election. Ordinance

896 incorporated large areas of East Bakersfield into the City, including Mayflower, on October

22, 1950. It is unclear what the agenda of the City Council was; however, the following events

show the later intent of the premeditated annexation in 1950. It was used to fight public housing

through restrictive zoning policies. The full context of the zoning restrictions are explored in

Chapter 2.

The intent must have been clear to the City Council, the annexation of the three tracts

would change their zoning laws, which were under the jurisdiction of the City Council. The

community’s support for annexation was a response to alleviate blight and introduce sanitary and modern utilities; however, it stopped public housing via zoning ordinances. Solving blight was not the City’s purpose of annexation. They had no invested interest in annexing an area with dilapidated housing and racial minorities.

By the end of 1951, Cottonwood Road, which ran from the eastern end of the new city

boundaries, was officially renamed to Lakeview, signifying a visible and auditory distinction

from the southern portion of the remaining county Cottonwood Road.152 Most city services did

not arrive in the tract until a decade after. The only immediate effect was the introduction of

paved roads and sewers.

151 “Canvass of returns of special annexation election of December 19, 1950 in Sunset-Mayflower District,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, September 25, 1950, 119 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 152 “Ordinance 927,” Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, October 22, 1951, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/

Figure 6 Pre-annexation

Figure 7 Post Annexation

Mayflower and Sunset were formally and publicly annexed at the end of 1950,

and a large public housing project was soon to follow, which was announced in the middle of the

same year.153 Adelante Vista had already been a reality but had only 50 units, and they were

reserved for war labor and, subsequently, veteran housing. Oro Vista and other county public housing projects were yet to be constructed.

Conclusion

In many ways, the home purchase of John Wilburn set the historical stage of housing in

Mayflower. His home and the church were bought on contract. With little investment from the

City or county to provide adequate street lighting, sanitary services, and street maintenance, real estate agents were allowed to prey on the poor. Even the interest rates offered to African

Americans were drastically different from those of the FHA. Agents like Claude Blodget and

Elmer Karpe, who sold in Mayflower, could sell on contract with little to no regard for safe and

sanitary housing, let alone fair housing practices. Historian Beryl Satter has shown that these

practices were predatory, and a national phenomenon. Bakersfield should not be regarded as

unique, as poverty and segregation in the Urban North have shown to be highly similar.

However, Bakersfield had a high rate of blight, more than other California cities like Oakland.

The so-called “crabgrass frontier” was widely out of reach for many minorities,

something that Kenneth Jackson has shown. Jackson argued that while some suburbanized,

others were excluded. Mayflower was a tract of exclusion. Restrictive covenants and racialized loans heavily influenced the housing market and physical transformations in the postwar era. As

HOLC and FHA financed homes in Bakersfield, HOLC-styled grading was used in Bakersfield

153 See Figure 6 and 7. Figures were provided by the City of Bakersfield Building Department.

84 even if a redlining map did not exist. Minority neighborhoods were immediately excluded from having larger rates of dilapidated homes and little access to the desirable qualities of municipal services. These national and local characteristics of poverty, racial segregation, and home buying practices led to annexation and the introduction of public housing. Public housing also failed to provide home access since it was only a subsidized rental program. The rent was also high, equal to home contract monthly payments. Annexation and public housing were supposed to alleviate the stress put on by real estate agents, federal home loans, and the lack of urban investment.

Equality was not reality by 1950. Public housing resistance is explored in Chapter 2, and the city’s failed commitment to annexation is explored in Chapter 3. What developed was resistance to equality, countering demands, and achievements but the minority community.

Chapter Two: “The Politics of NIMBYism: How Ideas and Practices of Inequality Govern,” Introduction

The City of Bakersfield annexed the Mayflower Tract when residents successfully petitioned and voted for municipal inclusion. This chapter analyzes two realtor-initiated lawsuits that fought against public housing. As the condition of the tract had improved little during the war and in the postwar era, the federal government introduced public housing to alleviate conditions of dilapidated and unsanitary homes. In many ways, this chapter is also about municipal and state politics, since public housing could be affected by state bills and lobbying.

When federally subsidized low-income housing became a reality, this led to lobbying efforts to stop public housing. The politicians include some major California names such as U.S. Senator

William Knowland and U.S. House Representative Thomas Werdel. Lawsuits followed; Claude

Blodget initiated the first legal challenge and used the passage of Proposition 10, which stated that the majority of the electorate had to approve public housing before any new construction plans after 1951. Proposition 10 meant that the local voters could hold their county and city accountable to their ideas and beliefs of public housing, rather than facts. Voters used Prop. 10 in an attempt to deny the establishment of public housing, including Oro Vista, delaying construction from 1950 to 1954.

This chapter argues that public officials supported the annexation of Mayflower in late

1950, not just to help end the blight, but in order to stop public housing from being built in

Mayflower. Zoning became a block to stop the building of public housing. The City of

Bakersfield zoned Mayflower and Sunset for a single family home after the annexation.

Changing the zoning to “duplexes,” or allowing for multiple units for multiple family

86 accommodations, would require a public referendum. The white-majority city effectively put down the attempts to change the neighborhood’s zoning. The city denied zoning approval for two years from 1950 to 1952, denying the opportunity for exceptions of zoning and thereby stalling the building of Oro Vista until 1952. The second realtor-initiated a lawsuit that started in late 1952 when Gerald Lockhart sued on the denial to have a public referendum with the zoning variances.

The main goal of this chapter is to discuss the resistance to housing equality, including the backlash to the demands for housing equality. The absence of equality was not due to a lack of “progress” of African Americans who lived in this neighborhood, but rather, the lack of equal housing was due to the actions of public officials and real estate agents who controlled the local markets in resisting equal opportunity housing. These groups lobbied national and state officials to actively hinder the progress of federal housing projects and deny city services to residents in

Mayflower.

At the time of the annexation of Mayflower and Sunset; Oro Vista was already planned adjacent to Adelante Vista. No federally subsidized housing was ever built in Mayflower;

Adelante Vista and Oro Vista were both built at the end of the Sunset Tract. The Bakersfield City

Council approved Oro Vista in January of 1951. The approval was written in the Housing

Authority, and the City Council cooperation agreement is known as Resolution No. 100, where they addressed the need of public housing, “…there exists in said City unsafe and insanitary dwellings of a number in excess of 250 occupied by families of low income…,” and the report identified the future sites, “…shall mean any area where dwellings predominate which, by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light or sanitary

facilities, or any combination of these factors, are detrimental to safety, health or morals.”154

Resolution 100 focused on providing safe housing, which otherwise caused, “… an increase in

spreading disease and crime….”155 The federally subsidized low-income housing would later

become synonymous with areas affected by blight and dilapidated housing. Resolution 100

would grant consent for the Kern County Housing Authority to operate in the City of Bakersfield

on January 22, 1951, a month after the vote for annexation.156

This chapter argues that zoning policies were created to stop the building of homes and

public housing. Two weeks after the August 1952 earthquake, city officials called for a public

meeting to discuss the possibility of changing the zoning in Mayflower for public housing.157 In

1952, three city council members allowed for the acceptance of a cooperation agreement

between the Housing Authority and the City of Bakersfield. The shift in leadership effectively

changed the 1950-1952 zoning control over Mayflower. The new cooperation agreement opened

the public’s opportunity to vote in a public referendum, however, the City Council denied the

opportunity for a public referendum due to the Housing Authority’s federal and state power to

change zoning. The lawsuit challenged whether the city had the right to instill a new cooperation

agreement, which allowed the Housing Authority to change the zoning restrictions without a

public referendum. While the lawsuit failed on an appeal case in 1954, it provided a valuable

insight into how residents and realtors used zoning to prevent access to fair and equal housing,

154 “Resolution no. 100,” Bakersfield City Council, January 1951, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 1- 2 155 Ibid, 1 156 “Adoption of Resolution granting consent for the Housing Authority of the County of Kern to operate in the City of Bakersfield,” January 22, 1951, Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, 136 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 157 The earthquake and the inequalities that come with urbanization will be discussed in Chapter 3.

such as federally subsidized rental homes. The politics of “NIMBYism” or “not in my backyard”

were present.

Claude Blodget and His Lawsuit In April 1951, months after the City of Bakersfield annexed the Mayflower, Sunset and other Eastern Tracts into the city boundary, The Crisis, the national periodical of the National

Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), reported on the living conditions in

Mayflower.158 Franklin H. Williams reported on the living conditions in Mayflower to the

NAACP in a letter to the national offices in New York.159 The contents of the letter were later

republished in The Crisis in 1951. Williams had been the West Coast Regional Director of the

NAACP.160 Williams reported, “In all of my experience as an NAACP worker throughout the

deep South I have never seen conditions as dreadful, unsanitary, and depressing as those under

which thousands of Negro migrant workers have to live on the outskirts of Bakersfield.”161

Williams reported that new minority communities had been created, but lacked sanitary facilities,

In these ‘communities’ there are hundreds of ramshackle temporary dwellings without light or sanitation in which approximately 10,000 Negroes reside. There are no sanitary facilities whatsoever, the people having to use pit toilets, whose stench is readily recognizable miles away… Though Governor Warren has had several commissions allegedly ‘investigating’ the conditions under which these workers vegetate, nothing concrete has been done to improve the situation… When the darkness falls one takes his life in his hands if he walks down the streets, for streetlights are unknown in this area except on Cottonwood Road where one finds them at every other corner and only since September 1949.162

158 Franklin H. Williams, “The Bakersfield Community,” The Crisis, vol 58, no. 4, (April, 1951), 231 159 Oliver Rosales, “’Mississippi West’: Race, Politics and Civil Rights in California’s Central Valley, 1947-1984,” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012), 6; The same quote appears in Williams’ letter to Walter White, November 17, 1950. This letter appears in the NAACP records housed in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The letter is cited in Oliver Rosales’ dissertation, as well. Rosales, 6. 160 Ibid, xxxii 161 Williams, 231 162 Williams, 232

Housing conditions were no secret in Bakersfield. Nevertheless, the conditions of housing did

not stop resistance to public housing in the City of Bakersfield.

In December of 1950, two different questions had been brought to the polls. One question

asked residents of the Sunset and Mayflower Tracts if they approved the incorporation into the

City of Bakersfield. The second question asked if public housing’s future projects required the

approval of the citizens of cities in California (Proposition 10). Claude Blodget, the real estate

agent who sold on contract, largely covered in Chapter 1, had supported Proposition 10. Prop. 10

was a ballot measure stating that no housing project be developed until qualified electors

approved future developments.163 Both the annexation and Prop. 10 were approved and officiated in January 1951. Both decisions had an impact on the community of Mayflower.

Blodget had been a member and a past president of the Bakersfield Realty Board (BRB), where his son Kirby Blodget would later serve as president. The BRB supported Prop. 10 along with other measures.164 Blodget kept a postcard with the board’s voting recommendations

printed, reminding him of his duties and affiliations to real estate agents of Bakersfield and white

property owners.165 Blodget fought to enforce and protect these ideas, and in 1951 Blodget sued

the Housing Authority based on Prop. 10, specifically Article XXXIV, which required the

electors to approve any housing development.166 Once Mayflower and Sunset were annexed,

Adelante Vista was now in city boundaries, and that meant that Oro Vista would be incorporated

too.

163 Blodget V. Housing Authority of Kern, 11 Cal. App.ed 45; 1952 Cal App. Westlaw, 1 164 Claude R. Blodget, “Voting Recommendations,” Box A-1, 1950, Blodget Buisness Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 165 The postcard was used as a note card by Claude Blodget and was preserved in his collection. 166 Blodget V. Housing Authority of Kern, 1

The building of public housing in the City of Bakersfield created an opportunity for many

political leaders and real estate agents, as well as influential property owners, to defend their

opinions in public gatherings and court. Mayor Frank Sullivan, the Bakersfield Real Estate

Board, and the other various real estate agents fought in different ways to keep public housing out of Bakersfield. These individuals were ready to take action and challenge public housing in public hearings and court. Shortly after, the Property Owner’s Association sent a letter to the

Board of Supervisors requesting that the Board secure options from the Attorney General against public housing. They were subsequently referred to the City Council of the City of Bakersfield since jurisdiction transferred with annexation.167 Supervisor Floyd L. Ming motioned to support

the correspondence.168 Ming’s support was significant since he was also a real estate developer.

Supervisor Ming had held the same invested interest in real estate; in 1947, he submitted his

racially restrictive covenant for Tract 1354.169 The Tract was located in the northeast suburban

Bakersfield. Ming was not the only public official to oppose public housing.

City Council member Frank Sullivan was rotated in as mayor in 1951, and he made

public housing one of his main objectives. He had most likely heard the call of property owners

and real estate agents. Sullivan wrote a memorandum addressing public housing that year. He

focused on describing the burden of the taxpayers. He wrote, “It should not be the obligation of

the taxpayers of the city to provide municipal services for those people now living outside of the

city by moving them into the city as tenants of the public project.” As a former councilman and

167 “In re Letter from Property Owners Assn. Inc.,” Minutes of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Kern, April 14, 1951, Board of Supervisors of the County of Kern, Kern County Records, 160 168 Lake Ming in Kern County was named in honor of Floyd L. Ming. The name is still current. 169 “Tract Restrictions, Tract 1354,” City Hall records (14700616) February 3, 1947, 249

now mayor he suggested the alternative should be FHA backed loans, with no down payment.170

The residents of Mayflower disagreed with Sullivan’s assessment. They were also taxpayers, and they paid their fair share, that had been why they had voted for annexation, they wanted to receive the benefits of their taxes and have the city install sewers, public lighting, and street clean up. The residents were also bonded into debt over the sewer. The City of Bakersfield also taxed residents of Mayflower sewer bonds each year; it was not free. On top of Sullivan’s claims,

FHA loans had not been widely available to minorities, nor were they able to purchase homes in areas that were “financeable.”

Historian Kenneth Jackson has shown how the FHA and HOLC successfully excluded people from homeownership based on race. Jackson argues that the FHA had the largest impact on the American people. After WWII, developers built their homes in order to meet FHA building requirements. Since the FHA required standards for financing, these standards became the universal language of home financing, even if the FHA was not used.171 The FHA’s 1939

Underwriting Manual taught lenders that overcrowded and older neighborhoods were

undesirable and led to lower class tenants.172 Also, it included a recommendation for restrictive

covenants that included race restriction.173

Housing contractors had been building uniform subdivisions, raising from their average five homes to a new average of twenty-two homes.174 The suburban model was so successful in

business that by 1955 subdivisions accounted for seventy-five percent of all new housing in

170 Frank E. Sullivan Article, Date undisclosed, but grouped with 1952-1953 documents, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield; Blodget’s file on public housing was used as opposition research to sue the Housing Authority. 171 Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 205 172 Ibid, 207 173 Ibid, 208 174 Ibid, 233

metropolitan areas.175 Jackson states that these suburbs were mostly white, middle-class

residents who left older inner-city housing. The suburbanization of neighborhoods created a new

deficit of white buyers in older markets, and the changing demographic opened older housing for

minorities. The process is now commonly referred to as “white flight,” where white residents left

older neighborhoods and leaving sometimes substandard and dilapidated homes. These homes

were sold to minority residents. Overall, Jackson introduces the FHA, HOLC, VA, and suburban

practices as exclusive and homogenous. Sullivan’s suggestion that African American people be

given FHA loans with no down payments was unavailable to minorities in the 1950s.

Sullivan also suggested other conditions. Sullivan referred to restrictions as he stated,

“The only condition for such a loan should be that the occupant of a slum is a citizen of

Bakersfield and is of good moral character.”176 Even Frank Sullivan understood the FHA loans

were not for people of color, African American or Mexican. FHA loans were rapidly available to

help white citizens in approved neighborhoods. Sullivan’s suggested conditions of morality and

character were based on his racial assumptions of behaviors. Even Resolution 100 stated that

dilapidated housing conditions could be detrimental to morals. The ideas of morality became a substitute for race. The substitution of ideas became embedded in “dog whistles” or terms and nonexplicit references to minorities. Ideas of race were reinforced by referencing the need for

restrictions for the “good” of individual people. Public officials did not have to state the race in

question. In the 1950s, Sullivan and Blodget could reference Mayflower, and readers already

knew the race they were referring to in terminology. Loans were supposed to be financial and

legal agreements, not based on opinions of public or private behaviors, let alone the opinions of

175 Ibid, 233 176 Ibid, 1

morality. The Mayor of Bakersfield supported the ending of public housing, as he characterized

his obligation to white taxpayers. Sullivan did not give this support as Mayor to people who did

not have access to safe, sanitary, or fair housing practices because he saw their actions

questioned his beliefs of morality. Sullivan or Blodget never defined their standards of morality,

nor did they invest time to explain that public housing could help alleviate the safe housing

shortage. At a particular time, Blodget must have known the conditions of blight he was

supplying, most of the sources against public housing come from his collection. Even if it was

opposition research, his collection shows that he saw the level of blight, sold dilapidated

condition, and even saw the county’s research on blight.

On March 13, 1951, about three months after the passing of Prop 10, Blodget sued the

Housing Authority of the County of Kern, attempting to petition for a writ of Mandamus.177 The

legal order demanded that the public official in question properly fulfill their job. Blodget hoped

that Director Fred Widmer would be found incompetent and abusive in power and forced to

correct his decision to propose public housing. The Housing Authority and Widmer did not

consult the electorate on the building of public housing; they did not have to as they secured

loans before 1951. Blodget and other real estate agents, including city and county officials,

believed that the Housing Authority had been abusing their power by establishing a public

housing unit in city boundaries, and Prop. 10 allowed them to sue and test the legal strength of

the Prop. The lawsuit was only happening because Sunset and Mayflower were part of the city.

177 Claude Blodget v. Housing Authority of the County of Kern, and Fred Widmer, Petition for Writ of Mandamus, 1951, case no 55528, Kern County Court Records, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1; A writ of mandamus is a legal order for a public official to fulfil their duties.

The lawsuit was short-lived; the courts concluded that Fred Widmer was competent and

non-abusive as director. Blodget had lost his lawsuit against the Housing Authority but appealed

the decision. Most importantly, Oro Vista was planned and approved for construction before the

passing of Prop 10, its contracts having originated in 1949 and early 1950 when loans were first

initiated. The Housing Authority had followed protocol. The plans and some of the site had

already been acquired, construction of the facility only remained. Instead, in 1952, the City

Council refocused its policy. They agreed to clear dilapidated housing and stated that the policy

was sound and non-socialistic; the objective was to clean away substandard structures in blighted areas and replace them with new buildings of permanent residence.178 Nevertheless, slum clearance sounded like a more attractive alternative, since it did not include public housing. They did not focus on creating new buildings for permanent residence.

A similar tone was present in California politics with the passage of Proposition 10 since it found wide support in the State to pass. The similarities between California cities was because

Bakersfield real estate agents were paying attention to the state politics, as they voted for Prop.

10 and lobbied California Politicians to stop public housing. Many cities fought in similar ways,

cities up and down the state were facing similar battles against urban renewal and destruction,

from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. Historian Robert Self describes the political backing of white

property owners in municipal, state, and national government in figures like Senator William F.

Knowland, who worked within the Republican Party. Knowland pushed the party right in the

1940s and dedicated his bills against union labor organizations, the welfare state, and “radical”

politics; Self argues that William Knowland and his father Joseph R. Knowland worked with

178 “City Officials Study Slum Clearance,” Bakersfield Californian, January 30, 1952, p17 Newspaperarchive.com

Oakland’s Mayor to set the tone of urban politics for many downtown property owners.179

Knowland became the guardian of those who had a financial interest to create Oakland’s

downtown as a site of capital investment.180 Their involvement was more significant than just

politics.

Senator William Knowland’s father, Joseph Russell Knowland, was also a recognizable

figure in California’s history.181 J.R. Knowland had joined the California Native Sons of the

Golden West when at the time, he was a State Representative, and he later became a Senator

until 1914.182 He later returned to Oakland and purchased the Oakland Tribune, a prominent

newspaper company in Oakland, California. In 1910, he served as the historical society’s Grand

President. He later gave control of the newspaper to William Knowland, which served him politically. By the time William Knowland had become senator, his family legacy had already

established themselves as the protectorates of white California in legislation and written history.

J. R. Knowland remained the chair of the Historical Landmarks Committee for the next fifty

years and served as the most influential figure for making historical places in California.183

When William Knowland inherited the Oakland Tribune from his father, he remained

heavily involved in the newspaper during his political career. The control of the Tribune allowed

him to become an influential figure in the 1950s. In 1951, Claude Blodget wrote to Senator

William Knowland, complimenting him on the speech he gave in Bakersfield. Blodget also took

the opportunity to advocate against public housing writing, “Can’t you help stop them through

179 Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland. Princeton, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003), 8 180 Ibid, 8 181 Senator William Knowland’s son was named after his father Joseph Russell Knowland. To Avoid confusion, William Knowland’s father will be referred to J. R. Knowland. 182 David Glassberg, “Making Places in California,” Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life. University of Massachusetts Press (2001) Project Muse muse.jhu.edu/book/4325, 179 183 Glassberg, 179

some action in the Senate?”184 Blodget also held enough invested interest to create the

Mayflower Addition in 1946 and sold homes in both the addition and the original Mayflower

Tract. Blodget’s letter to Knowland shows his political and financial influence over an African

American neighborhood.

Blodget knew his letter would not go unheard. As a majority property investor and real

estate agent, he knew California politicians were on his side. Blodget ended his letter in a very

personal and militant statement against the establishment of public housing in California. He

wrote, “… over the disapproval of the citizens as expressed in the last election (Prop 10. 1950)

and the disapproval of the patriotic citizens fighting communism. Their actions are terrible, and

we are sure being kicked in the teeth.”185 Blodget’s use of language shows that he took the

building of public housing personally; perhaps he imagined his markets disappearing in

Mayflower with federally subsidized rental housing.

In 1951, Knowland was campaigning for Governor Earl Warren, who at the time was

running for president. Warren had been seen as too liberal, supporting New Deal-style legislation, and conservative figures were already emerging in the Republican Party during the process of party realignment in the mid-twentieth century. The backlash to Warren occurred early on in California, even before his 1954 desegregation decision in Brown v Board of

Education. That same year, Blodget had also found an ally in Kern County congressman,

Thomas H. Werdel. Werdel was running an “anything but Warren” campaign in 1951.186 Werdel was Warren’s only opponent in California for the Republican delegation. His platform was

184 Claude R. Blodget to William Knowland, December 26, 1951, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 185 Ibid, 1 186 Gayle B. Montgomery, James W. Johnson, One Step from the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland, (Berkely: University of California Press, 1998), 108

focused on a “Free Republican Delegation.”187 Werdel believed that Warren had abandoned the

Republican Party for New Deal philosophy, and Werdel’s supporters spent $150,000 fighting

Warren’s campaign on the rhetoric of, “real Republicanism versus Warren’s Trumanism.”188

During that campaign, Knowland stated on December 15, 1951, to a Bakersfield audience that

Warren “doesn’t have an ounce of socialism in his makeup. He would be an excellent

president.”189 Knowland supported Warren, even if he did not really approve of his policies, and

even in closed doors spoke against him, but in the 1950s, Knowland publicly supported the

Republican Party and its members. The conflicts of the Republican Party were starting the move

towards modern conservatism. Warren failed to get enough delegate support outside of

California. Werdel represented some of the early right-wing conservatism.

On October 8, 1951, Werdel sent an information letter to Blodget. In the informational

bulletin, Werdel wrote, “The great American public knows that even through “gimme gimme” politics may put politicians in office, in the last analysis the individual is responsible for the security of his home, his wife, husband or children.”190 Werdel had been advocating against

“creeping socialism,” which he called social programs and had committed his rhetoric to the

regimentation of family life.191 He attacked the press for not giving the facts to the American

people, stating that editorial policies of left-wing labor organizations had controlled the press and

that, “They assume that the American individual and his God-fearing family are not fit to be

187 Kurt Schuparra, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of California Conservative Movement, 1945-1966, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 19 188 Ibid, 108 189 Ibid, 108 190 Thomas Werdel, “A repost from your congressman,” October 8, 1951, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 191 Ibid, 2

free.”192 Werdel rode his freedom of choice political platform, even without supporting facts. His

political point was that the liberal policymakers were controlling and totalitarian. Werdel argued

that President Truman was not for the liberty and freedom of Americans but totalitarianism and

censorship. Historian Kurt Schuparra notes that Werdel was running on a “freedom versus

tyranny” rhetoric.193 The platform found wide backing since supporters believed that policies in place were restrictive or a failure like Prop. 10. Werdel used platform slogans like, “Free your

GOP,” “No Man’s Captive,” and Vote Werdel June Three and Free the Real G.O.P.!”194 Blodget

was interested in Werdel’s rhetoric. Werdel did not make it far on his Republican presidential

nomination campaign, but this did not end his presidential vision. In 1952, Werdel ran as vice

president for Gerald L.K Smith’s Christian Nationalist Party, and in 1956, he ran with Thomas

Coleman Andrews on the segregationist States’ Rights Party.195

In August 1951, Blodget filed an appeal in his Mandamus case against the Housing

Authority. The case would have a final verdict in 1952. In March 1952, Werdel sent Blodget a

telegram stating that the Housing and Finance Agency had approved $106,860 for the application

of slum clearance and urban development.196 It was followed by a flamboyant copy of his

congressional speech of March 20, 1952. The excerpt of the Congressional Record provides a

narrative account of a conversation Werdel had with a New York resident who arrived at

California. The account lays out a conversation about public housing and the demands of an

192 Ibid, 3 193 Schuparra, 20 194 Ibid, 20 195 Ibid, 21 196 Thomas Werdel, “Western Union Telegram,” March 18, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, 1

individual. The New Yorker states he needs housing at the taxpayer’s expense.197 Werdel used this story to sponsor HR 6602, which would

…sell everything that this Government has ever built that competes with private industry except the battleship Missouri and the Panama Canal… I say, let us kill every public housing project we can now… let us definitely provide local control, where the local people can look at it and be proud of it or do away with it if they have a reason not to be proud of it.198 Those were the ideas of Blodget and Bakersfield’s white property owners. Blodget was ready to

act and bring local control at the decision of the local electorate. The rhetoric had similar traits to

Prop. 10, Bakersfield as a majority white city could easily pass a vote against public housing

using Prop. 10, but it had to be taken to court to enforce it.

During the fight against public housing, Blodget had also become a member of different

national associations against public housing and had also started to advocate against rent

control.199 Real estate agents and public officials who subscribed to the national publications and

movement had become the foot soldiers against national and local public housing. Blodget, who

became a member in 1952, found support from Californian politicians and national associations.

In 1952, Blodget was subscribing to the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB)

and specifically to their Washington Committee. The letter he received focused on public

housing. It argued instead for defense mobilization, and how public resources were being wasted

on large apartment-style buildings. The NAREB stated that the government's priority was

defense mobilization and the need to conserve resources, instead of funding housing. The

publication stated that the use of critical materials for residential construction in 1952 must be

197 Thomas Werdel, “Extract from Congressional Record, dated March 20, 1952.” March 20, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 198 Ibid, 1 199 While rent control was an important topic in the 1950s. It will not be covered in this thesis for the sake of space.

100

curtailed 40% because of material shortages; they rationalized that the development of units for

critical defense housing was more ideal than public housing.200 The organization stated that a

large amount of copper, steel, and materials were being wasted. This publication attempted to

delay the shift of public housing that would arise in 1950. Public housing of the 1950s rapidly

changed from veterans’ and wartime housing into housing for impoverished residents. The

National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) demanded that the use of resources to be

more “useful” than subsidized rental housing for ordinary individuals. The NAREB had been a

long-standing barricade against fair housing.

Historian Paige Glotzer discusses the development of real estate and suburban

neighborhoods with the consideration of the influence on real estate. Glotzer argues that real

estate developers had long believed in racist ideas and segregation by the time the New Deal

programs were introduced. Many realtors served as government appointees and consultants, and

as a result, brought their racist and segregationist ideologies into the national policy.201 The ideas

of race had before existed and continued to influence housing outside of the south. The group

idealized suburban aesthetics through enforced restrictions. The NAREB was one of the first

major groups to support restrictive covenants, starting a national trend. The FHA would inherit

the use of restrictive covenants from the NAREB. Glotzer explains that these racially restrictive covenants were found from California to Maryland and were not unique to regions or states.202

200 Realtor’s Washington Committee, NAREB, “Public Housing,” National Association of Real Estate Boards, January 30, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 2 201 Paige Glotzer, “Exclusion in Arcadia: How Suburban Developers Circulated Ideas about Discrimination, 1890- 1950,” Journal of Urban History, vol. 41, no. 3, 489 DOI: 10.1177/0096144214566964 202 Ibid, 482

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The restrictions included home use and limitations of personal property, linking homogeneity to

desirability.203

In the same light, political scientist Jessica Trounstine shows the influence of the NAREB

through racialized zoning. Trounstine shows that the NAREB had a profound influence in

neighborhood development. Between 1924-1950, the NAREB stated in their Realtor’s Code, “A

Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing neighborhood a character of property or

occupancy, member of any race or nationality, or any individual who presence will clearly be

detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.”204 The NAREB saw the introduction of

integration as a detriment to property values. Trounstine argues that race and income overlapped

when zoning was used to deny the building of multifamily homes. Zoning also denied the

occupancy of immigrants and African Americans, and who were also more likely to afford a

home with multiple incomes.205 They enforced their position by finding power in political elites who enacted zoning ordinances to generate growth while arguing that minority occupancy was harmful to public health.206

In many ways, the 1950s provided a national platform for property used to shape regional

and national politics of the 1960s. Trounstine argues that white property owners, in order to

secure property values and exclusive public goods, institutionalized inequalities through the

rhetoric of land-use policies.207 These geographic transformations became more profound in the

post-war era with suburbanization, and whole segregated sections of cities became a reality.208

203 Ibid, 483 204 Jessica Trounstine, Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 85 205 Ibid, 85 206 Ibid, 97 207 Ibid, 3 208 Ibid, 3

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This argument was true for Bakersfield, as Blodget and others argued for control of local land

use; they lobbied and influenced national housing politics while having a profound local effect.

Regardless of the national and local housing conditions, no anti-public housing publication ever cited the large rates of substandard housing in Bakersfield. The fight against public housing had to demand productivity, rather than actual help to those in need, and it slowly morphed into using the meritocratic language that was used to fight civil rights in the 1960s.209

The publications often ignored those who needed fair housing and public housing. The letter sent

by NAREB to Blodget favored private enterprise, the same enterprise that sold on contract, kept

people in poverty, and segregated. The NAREB letter to Blodget in 1952 stated,

So, in a country supported by private enterprise the government has engineered a cut of nearly 25% (24.6%) in private ownership housing… Public housing contributes to inflation while private housing helps control inflation… Public housing does not pay local taxes. This increases the tax burden of every taxpayer in a community where public housing is built. Private housing siphons off surplus earnings and pays full local taxes, thereby helping control inflation… Congress is burdened with local request for federal support of schools and other facilities in areas where public housing and other federal property is exempt from local taxes.210 The attempt to introduce federal subsidized low-income housing allowed defenders to create an

imagined strained burden on white taxpayers. In all the Housing Authority Annual Reports state

how much they paid local government to supplement taxes. The subsidized rental fees went back

into the local government. Reference to the so-called “taxpayer” was another “dog whistle” term.

The term evoked feelings of self-identification and confirmation bias. White property owners felt

their taxes were paying for public housing, but African Americans also paid their taxes.

209 Chapter Three will speak on the rise of influence of conservatism in the 1960s and the rise of meritocratic language. 210 NAREB, 2

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Nevertheless, white property owners also received better municipal services in suburban areas,

like street lighting, sewers, and better schools.

NAREB’s letter ignored the fact that those in poverty and need for fair housing also paid taxes, as even dilapidated homes were taxed annually. Frequently, opponents of public housing and social programs argued that people using the programs were dependents and tax burdens, but most importantly, supporters argued that private industry was the best kind of commerce to regulate the economy. The regulation of the economy was meritocratic; property owners were

okay with seeing improvements to poverty and dilapidated homes, but not when they believed

that they had to help. The opponents favored the same private industry that sold “on contract”

and charged higher interest rates than banks that kept African Americans poor and offered

substandard and dilapidated housing. Supporters argued that their sales, even if it was a

dilapidated home, benefited the public with tax contributions that regulated inflation.

Many were ready to protect the idea that minorities harmed real estate markets and the

condition of neighborhoods. The opening of the city to the alternative to fair housing could

threaten their control over housing and possibly open more units well inside suburban areas. It

also threatened to move a large population of renters living in dilapidated homes into public

housing. Renters had always been a steady, guaranteed income for white property owners. This

revelation could destroy the white real estate economy.

In February of 1952, Blodget ramped up his efforts to fight public housing, and his

appeal decision was coming to an end soon too. The Bakersfield Realty Board (BRB), where

Blodget was also a member, passed a Resolution on February 26, 1952. The BRB passed the

resolution to disapprove and to challege against the City of Bakersfield’s cooperation agreement

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with the Housing Authority, Resolution 100. The BRC believed that the agreement was a

contradiction to slum clearance and a project to build on vacant land at the cost to taxpayers.211

The resolution went further and stated, “Where, it has been discovered and determined by this

Board and the Citizens of Bakersfield that the occupancy of said project will not be restricted to

residents of the Sunset-Mayflower District or the City of Bakersfield, but will open to the

residents of the County of Kern or elsewhere…”212 The resolution spoke to the threat that white

property owners feared the most, neighborhood integration, but also an increased minority

residency in public housing.

Public housing was contrary to the segregation that they had fought so hard to create a

decade before. Resolution 100 also threatened the BRC’s most valuable commodity, the

distribution of public resources, and the use of taxes. The Board resolved, “… that the

Bakersfield Realty Board does hereby respectfully request the Council of the City of Bakersfield

to immediately take proper action in a form of a Resolution to terminate and cancel the

Resolution No. 100 and the Cooperation Agreement (Res. 99) heretofore passed and executed

respectfully as above stated.”213 The strong resentment against public housing was not unique in

1952 Bakersfield or Kern County. It became a national and state-wide conversation with the

passage of Proposition 10 and other national advocacy movements by NAREB in Washington.

The Property Owner’s Association sent a similar resolution to the Board of Supervisors shortly

after.214 With the support of realtors and property owners, Resolution 100 was rescinded on

211 Bakersfield Realty Board, “Resolution,” 02-26-1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Paper Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 212 Ibid, 1 213 Ibid, 1 214 “In Re. Letter, Property Owners Assn. Re. Housing Auth. Agreements,” Minutes of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Kern, March 17, 1952, Board of Supervisors of the County of Kern, Kern County Records, 251

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March 3, 1952.215 Instead, the City Council focused on slum clearance, establishing Resolution

20-52, seven days after the rescinding of Resolution 100.216 The resolution requested reservation

of capital funds for slum clearance and urban development.217 Slum clearance and urban renewal

were more attractive options because destroying dilapidated homes meant that a realtor could sell

a new home in a newly vacant lot. The City Council voted to overturn the rescinding of

Resolution 100 on April 7, 1952 but failed to do so by one vote.218

Blodget wrote to the McFarland Chamber of Commerce shortly after the Realty Board’s

resolution, advocating against public housing in the County of Kern. Blodget was responding to

W. C. Lotheridge, the Chamber’s Secretary, to clarify his position against public housing at the

Chamber’s meeting. He believed that the attendees might have seen him as a nuisance, he wrote,

“Therefore I thought it best not to start an argument along the lines of Widmer’s remarks, so I

held my tongue.”219 Widmer was the Director of the Housing Authority, the same director

Blodget was suing in court.

Blodget did not believe that the Housing Authority would finish the projects, or at least

could be stopped. Blodget wrote, “At the same time the government is begging the people to buy

bonds and pay exorbitant taxes in order to finance the Korean War. It seems very unpatriotic to

me to put on a government building project at this time.”220 Blodget questioned the Housing

215 “Resolution 19-52,” March 4, 1952, Resolutions of the Bakersfield City Council, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 216 “Resolution 20-52,” March 3, 1952, Resolutions of the Bakersfield City Council, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 217 Ibid, 1 218 “Failure of Motion to adopt Resolution 19-52, Ratifying and confirming Resolution no. 99, no. 100,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, 49 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 219 Claude R. Blodget to Mr. Lotheridge, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 220 Ibid, 1

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Authority’s patriotism and reduced their efforts to waste of resources, while also criticizing the

United States war efforts. Blodget serves as an example of how local real estate agents impacted

national and state segretaion. The agents were never alone, they had lobbying policy writers and

they took their time to gather local and national support. Blodget also serves as a case study,

because of the vast archival sources. These are unique, and it serves as a micro-history that is connected to a national effort to change housing policy and impact housing practices. These efforts had sysytemic effects, where segregation could be traced to local actors, and have predictable and trace about outcomes at the national level. Blodget’s rhetoric suggested that he preferred supporting the war in Korea, rather than support public housing. He called on his

“patriotism” or even his morality as he felt compelled to make the argument and demand the action of his reader. Blodget continued in his letter to Lotheridge, “People wanting to build new homes will not go to the neighborhood of a public housing project. They wish to be near their equals.”221 He believed that even those individuals in poverty would not support those who

qualified for subsidized housing.

Blodget frequently referred to “private enterprise,” a phrase than many people used in his

time to argue against public programs. Blodget used this term to signify equality, but this was a

code word for race. Blodget knew the trigger words, and he had borrowed language from the

publications that he received. Race was highly embedded into his rhetoric since he was suing

against public housing and fighting against the establishment of Oro Vista. Blodget most likely

acquired the language of “private enterprise” and “tax liability” from a national produced

newspaper Free Enterprise. The Blodget archive contains many copies of it.222 Most notable was

221 Ibid, 2 222 Blodget subscribed to “Headlines: Real Estate’s Newsletters,” “Free Enterprise,” “California Real Estate Association,” and “Property Owners Association of America.”

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the publication of August 12, 1952, the headline read, “Chicago Battle for Rent control.”223 The

whole paper focused on the “free enterprise,” something that was becoming the language of

resistance in the 1950s, like Thomas Werdel. “Free enterprise,” meant to supporters that

commerce had the right to set local rules, behaviors, and restrictions. The products of the

enterprise could not be regulated and should not be regulated since it was addressing local needs

and wants. The problem of “free enterprise” was that it sold and profited from substandard

homes, the same enterprise gave little financial opportunity since profit was its main objective.

The paper even includes a story to explain the idea of stolen apples feeding the farmer who grew

them, ending, “So it is with federal aid, when we believe it’s free. But were angry when we find

it comes from our own “Apple Tree.”224 Blodget was happy to sell homes in Mayflower as a free

expression of private enterprise, which meant that he could sell dilapidated homes and keep

people in cycles of poverty for his profit. However, he became angry when public housing

threatened to change his private enterprise, even more, when he believed it was at the cost of his

profit and taxes. The Mayor, Frank Sullivan, had a similar ideology.

Frank Sullivan was equally invested in ending public housing as Bakersfield’s Mayor. He

held a public meeting, most likely at the City Council to speak on public housing projected for

Oildale, a majority white township adjacent to the City of Bakersfield. Aero Vista (Cal 8-5) was

created in tandem of Oro Vista (Cal 8-6, later known as Cal 8-6a). Blodget was present, and so

were the other individuals who invested in stopping public housing.225 It was highly likely that

223 “Chicago Battle for Rent Control,” Free enterprise, August 12, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 224 “Stolen Apples,” Free enterprise, August 12, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 3 225 Frank Sullivan’s letters to the City Council and the Questions and Answer’s sheet is provided in the Blodget Collection.

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Frank Sullivan and Claude Blodget were more than close associates who met in the City Council

meetings. At some point, they must have worked together or spoke about their similar ideas,

since Sullivan’s files are in Blodget’s archival collection.

The questions Sullivan prepared for Oildale were created not to entertain the possibility

of public housing, but to provide a one-dimensional view to fight public housing. He focused on convincing the public against subsidized housing. Question five asked about Proposition 10

(1950), the same law that the Realty Board and Blodget advocated for, answering, “Before the passage of Proposition No. 10, the Board of Supervisors signed a preliminary agreement with the

Housing Authority… We have been told that two other contracts for public housing were signed, one two days before the election on Proposition No. 10 in 1950, and one seven days before the election.”226 Sullivan’s statements were not exactly true. Blodget lost his appellate decision

based on the signing of contracts before Prop. 10. The law did not allow the residents to vote

since the loans were procured before the law. Sullivan’s timeline was wrong. Blodget’s lawsuit

came to an end with the loan’s dated signature.

On May 19, 1952, Blodget’s appeal was denied as the court found that the Housing

Authority had a valid contract secured before the election of Prop. 10. Blodget had alleged that

there was no contract and argued, because of Article XXXIV of Prop. 10, Oro Vista required

voting of qualified electors to approve the development.227 Sullivan’s answer was also incorrect;

the initial contracts were signed on September 19, 1949, establishing the preliminary loan to

survey for the CAL 8-A projects.228 The CAL 8—A included Oro Vista (8-6). On January 18,

226 Frank Sullivan, “Regarding Public Housing in Oildale,” 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 227 Blodget V. Housing Authority, 1 228 Ibid, 2

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1950, commissioners of the housing authority adopted a resolution authorizing execution of a loan contract with the Public Housing Authority (PHA) to enable the housing authority to survey, plan and construct the proposed 350 units. In February and September, they procured two loans.229 Out of those two surveys, CAL 8-5 (Aero Vista, Oildale) and CAL 8-6 (Oro Vista,

Sunset) were established. The contracts were not signed days before Prop. 10. The contracts were signed in advance in 1949, and loans in earl 1950. Sullivan’s discussion of public housing also included more than just tax dollars and voting.

Bakersfield officials saw race restrictions as a necessary development. The Oildale public housing questions answered, “This [segregation] is strictly prohibited by law. The occupancy of race in Delano Project is: Mexicans most numerous, colored persons second, and Caucasians third.”230 Sullivan was suggesting that Oildale’s project might be integrated, possibly instilling ideas and fears. Segregation was an institutional feature and a guarantee in the 1950s. Public housing in the United States had been segregated. Sullivan relied on racist attitudes, stating that segregation was strictly illegal and that Oildale would open its door to African Americans, as he stated that Delano’s public housing was integrated.231 He also played on the ideology of declining property values and their relationship to race.

Sullivan argued that property values would be adversely affected. Sullivan wrote, “Past experience has shown that where ever a housing project is located it becomes a permanent block to the growth of the community in that direction… people wanting to build new homes will not go to the neighborhood of a public housing project, they wish to live with interest similar to their

229 Ibid, 2 230 Oildale, 2 231 Ibid, 2

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own.”232 Neighborhood integration ran parallel to the argument of race. White property owners

did not want to open public housing to everyone. The ideas of integration had long been

established in official publications since the start of the NAREB and later in FHA policies.

Sullivan argued that socialism was introduced to control land and housing, and responded to

influence the electorates, “History is only repreating [sic] itself in America. Those in charge of

public housing create emergencies to gain their ends… they do not hesitate to play upon the

hearts and the emotions of the American people to sugarcoat the poison of socialism.”233

Sullivan was attempting to establish that the Housing Authority and the federal government

approved subsidized housing in an attempt to control private owned land, telling them their

presumed socialist agenda was real. Sullivan stated, “If you do not approve of public housing

and your Supervisor continues to promote it, then the only thing you can do is to change

Supervisors at the next election.”234 The polls could guarantee the outcome that Sullivan needed

to win.

Blodget took these suggestions as a call to action; he wrote and supported a “Petition to

refer housing projects to the electorate to the City Council of the City of Bakersfield.”235 The

petition asked to establish any decision on public housing to the responsibility of the “…

qualified electors of the City of Bakersfield at the next election on June 3rd, 1952.”236 Blodget

had by then lost his appeal decision in May 1952 and was looking for alternatives to fight against

public housing. Resistance to public housing was strong. When Prop. 10 became law, Blodget

232 Ibid, 3 233 Ibid, 4 234 Ibid, 6 235 “Petition to refer Housing Project to the Electorate to the City Council of the City of Bakersfield,” June 3, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 236 Ibid, 1

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sought the same power through passing an ordinance. Frank Sullivan, as Mayor, had also

produced a series of statements to lobby at the City Council.

On March 7, 1952, Sullivan printed two pages with the fiscal effects of the taxes, arguing

that private investment return was higher than the payment return the Housing Authority

provided in lieu of taxes.237 The statements cited data from J.R. Copeland, the Business Manager

of Kern County, in the Union Labor Journal. In a second and similar publication, Sullivan wrote,

“The thinking people of Bakersfield is [sic] needed to help solve the problems of our city --- by

our city.”238 Blodget and Sullivan knew that lobbying at the local, state and national level were

necessary to fight public housing.

Oro Vista was still in limbo, and in August of 1952, Bakersfield was struck by an

earthquake forcibly changing the geographic landscape.239 The 1952 earthquake destroyed a

large portion of Downtown Bakersfield, and over the next ten years, the city focused on urban

redevelopment. They successfully rebuilt the commercial center and started a new campaign for

tourism and commerce.

The annexation of Sunset-Mayflower Tracts allowed Frank Sullivan and Claude Blodget

some flexibility in attacking the Oro Vista and Aero Vista Projects. The annexation and the

passing of Prop 10 allowed city officials like Frank Sullivan to fight against the housing units.

237 Frank Sullivan, “Members of the City Council,” March 10, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 2 238 Letter to City Council Signed by Frank Sullivan, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 239 The effects of the 1952 earthquake will be analyzed in Chapter Three.

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Prop 10 allowed Blodget to sue and effectively stall the project for another two years, until 1952.

Flyers were also passed out to fight against public housing to discredit the projects.240

Figure 1

The flyer held various meanings. Joseph Stalin was printed on the left, an African American man

in the middle and Uncle Sam on the right. The flyer was meant to show that the choice for

240 See Figure 1, Anderson files, Blodget box 55, Nov. 1952, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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African Americans was either communism or America. The flyer was biased, and it was not printed to give a choice. On the contrary, the flyer stated,

Yes, after the Civil War, every citizen was unconditionally guaranteed EQUAL RIGHTS… AND ….. This was done by the REPUBLICAN PARTY …. The party of Abraham Lincoln… Yet now…… 100 years later, Joe Stalin’s workers in our country are telling us that we need NEW laws…241 While the flyer also acknowledged the Fair Employment Practices Commission, it was geared towards many different civil rights topics. The flyer suggested that Lincoln’s Emancipation

Proclamation had brought indefinite and undeniable equality.

The annexation of Mayflower and Sunset had not brought significant change to the area, but instead, various lawsuits attempted to stop the development of housing in the City of

Bakersfield. The Mayor of the City of Bakersfield aggressively advertised against public housing, and so did the property owner associations. The annexation reality proved to be a false promise in the initial years of incorporation.

Post-earthquake Resistance On August 22, 1952, an earthquake struck Kern County for a third time in series.

It was in closer proximity to the city of Bakersfield than the previous two that happened a month earlier. As the days went on, engineers and contractors were hired by the City Inspector and instructed to survey and declare buildings unsafe. The City of Bakersfield took no financial obligation in destroyed housing, nor recourse to help in the disaster. There was federal and state assistant relief loans that help businesses and churches rebuild. Oro Vista was continuing along, and Blodget’s efforts were not slowing down. He and his close associates were looking for every alternative method to stop public housing. The earthquake did not hinder their efforts, perhaps

241 Ibid

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lacking in sympathy or respect for equality and equity for racial minorities. The earthquake of

August had already passed, and the city was rapidly changed.

On September 8, 1952, the City Council heard the Housing Authority’s petition to

rezone Mayflower and Sunset from a single-family zone to a duplex family zone. At the discretion of the Planning Commission, they recommended denying the petition.242 On

September 9, 1952, a little over two weeks after the earthquake and a day after the City Council

had heard the Housing Authority’s petition, Blodget received a letter from his attorney. The letter

stated, “The [Bakersfield City] Council has sent the application for the Federal Housing

Authority for re-zoning for the area of California in Sunset-Mayflower district from R-1 to R-2

for Monday evening, September 22….”243 The attorney, Louis R. Deadrich continues in the

letter, “I suggest you immediately notify every member of the Kern County Property Owners

Association of the hearing and ask they to all be present and oppose the application of the

Federal Housing Authority.”244 Blodget held a strong influence in the Property Owners

Association. He had been a close associate and Blodget was even the past president of the

Bakersfield Realty Board in 1938, his real estate and property influence was wide, especially in

relation to Mayflower where he sold many homes. The zoning changes and restrictions were

closely related to the annexation of Mayflower and Sunset, and the building of Oro Vista.

Zoning had been changed in the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts after the annexation in late

1950. The tracks had been limited to R-1, which meant housing could only be built to

242 “Date of hearing fixed on petition of Housing Authority of the County of Kern requesting the rezoning of that certain property located south of Union Avenue from Owens Street east to existing Housing Project, from an Interim R-1 to R-2, District,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, September 8, 1952, 155 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 243 Louis R. Deadrich to Claude R. Blodget, September 9, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 244 Ibid.

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accommodate one family. Scholars Glotzer and Trounstine have shown that zoning was linking

to desires of homogeneity of home use, physical characteristics, and race. This limitation, with

other financial burdens, including socio-economic and racial segregation, forced families to build

small homes. This stopped the building of homes that could be supported by multiple family

incomes. The zoning limitation also stopped Oro Vista, since it could only be built in a multifamily zone.

When attorney Louis R. Deadrick contacted Blodget, he was speaking to the long fight against public housing and to the limitations placed on home building.245 The fight against public

housing had become a national phenomenon and part of early conservative movements. This

letter is important as it symbolizes the resistance to minority home equality progress from the

very beginning. Resistance to Oro Vista started with the Annexation in 1950. City zoning was

the final blockade placed on the approved construction of public housing in the City.

By the end of 1952, Blodget was subscribing to national associations and literature to

assist in his fight against public housing in Mayflower and Sunset. His lost lawsuit only inspired

him to become more involved and listen to the national movement against public housing. In

early September of 1952, he became a member of an organization against public housing. The

official letter from the Property Owners Association of America arrived, acknowledging that

they had received Blodget’s ten-dollar membership fee.246 The letter also included a typed thank

you memorandum, “We wish to thank you for your support in thefight [sic] against Rent Control,

245 In the long term, individuals like Blodget, Karpe, and others had a wider and lasting influence on the development of the city. Louis R. Deadrich was named to California State University, Bakersfield’s Board of Trustees in 1968. “Board Named for Cal State,” Bakersfield Californian,November 8, 1968, p 22 (Newspaperarchives.com) 246 Joseph L. Meek to Claude Blodget, “Property Owners Association of America, Inc.,” September 5, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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Public Housing, and other Socialistic Programs of the Truman administration.”247 With his own membership number, Blodget had now become a member of a lobbying force. Not to mention the literature he had been receiving informed him how to fight against public housing. The association’s literature had groomed Blodget on how to fight. His membership welcome letter stated,

We must vote for those legislators who voted against rent control and public housing and we must work to defeat those legislators who imposed rent control and public housing irrespective of their political affiliations.248 The language against Truman and New Deal philosophy was already a staple of Not in My Back

Yard (nimby) politics. The politics allowed legislation to block all projects like Prop. 10, and

only allow construction at the approval of voters, even if they did not live near the prosed sites.

Blodget knew he was not alone on the fight against public housing, the National Association of

Real Estate Boards, which Blodget had subscribed to, had stated,

The RWC this year received the greatest participation ever from members of the ERWC and the local boards. As a result of the increased activity by our members we have had increasing broad assistance from the Congress… There were 14,164 bills introduced in the 82nd congress of which nearly 500 were in some way related to the real estate industry. That’s an average of about 1 out of every 28.249 Participation in national associations for lobbying Congress and State Representative action was

how real estate owners and sellers limited national integration efforts by civil rights activists.

The letter encouraged Blodget and others to leave partisan political affairs and vote out

legislators who did not support rent control and public housing, regardless of party.250 Property

owners came to define socioeconomic status, ideology and had a profound legislative influence

247 Ibid, 1 248 Ibid, 1 249 Realtor’s Washington Committee, NAREB, “Enlarge Realtors’ Washinton Committee RWC Exclusive Coucil,” National Association of Real Estate Boards, July 30, 1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 250 Ibid, 1

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through national and local property associations. From 1950 to 1952, the subscription to

lobbying property and realtor association had influenced Blodget’s actions against public

housing.

Mayflower was in need of fair housing legislation. It had only been two years since the

housing survey revealed that many homes in the tracts were dilapidated and substandard.

Mayflower and Sunset were zoned for one-family dwellings in September of 1951.251 This put

further limitations on the neighborhoods. In early 1952, the Bakersfield Californian reported that

the Housing Authority would have to ask the planning commission for a zoning variance change,

allowing for change and approval for the building of a multifamily structure in an established R-

1 zone.252 Everett B. Mansur, a city planning consultant, stated that the Housing Authority would

have to apply, in which a public hearing allowed citizens who held an investment in the tracts to

express their views and personal concerns. This “public hearing” would allow figures like

Blodget and other white property owners to air their grievances, securing a favorable decision by

their Mayor and protectorate Frank Sullivan.

On September 22, 1952, the meeting was held to decide the changing of the tract’s

zoning. The City Council decided that the duplex zoning would be initially approved, but the

vote was immediately deferred for one week. On September 29, 1952, the city passed Ordinance

953, which established a passive measure to allow the rezoning to happen. The Ordinance stated,

“…the Planning commission and City Council have held a hearing on a petition to change the

‘District Map’ [zoning map]… the City Council has determined after due consideration that

251 “Ordinance 953,” Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, September 17, 1951, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 252 “City Planners Discuss Kern Housing Project,” Bakersfield Californian, January 15, 1952, p19 Newspaperarchive.com

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certain changes in said Map [R-2 zoning] should be authorized.253 Right after the approval of

Ordinance 953, City Council Men Saunders and Smith both supported a motion to put the

decision for public referendum on the next election.254 Having known the white majority voting

behaviors in the City of Bakersfield, they turned to their last measure, the ballots. They knew the

white majority would not support public housing in a neighborhood with a large population of

minorities. Nevertheless, the motion failed to pass. They were beaten by Councilmen Carnakis,

Shurley, Vanderlei, and Vest, who all supported the Housing Authority’s petition, a majority

vote of 4 to 3.

In October, the City Attorney was instructed to reaffirm the cooperation agreement

between the City of Bakersfield and the Housing Authority.255 The City Attorney was also

instructed to grant a modification to the zoning of Mayflower and Sunset under the guidelines of

the Public Housing Authority of May 25, 1951. The section defined building setback, uniform

building spacing, and property lines.256 This was according to the City’s uniform building code,

which governs the building of homes and structures to a uniform requirement assuring that

homes and neighborhoods have physical similarities. Uniform building codes were a defining

characteristic of post-war home modernization.

253 Ordinance 953, 1 254 “Failure of motion to place the matter of Public Housing on ballot at the earliest possible time.” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, September 29, 1952, 172 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 255 “City Attorney instructed to prepare Resolution rescinding Resolution no. 19-52,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, October 6, 1952, 180 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 256 “City Attorney Instructed to prepare Resolution granting variance to the Kern County Housing Authority to permit the construction of low rent houses according to minimum standards prescribing by Low Rent Housing Manuel [sic],” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, October 6, 1952, 180 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 119

On October 14, 1952, the Kern County Property Owners’ Association, who had been

fighting against public housing, sent a communication to the City Council. The Kern County

Property Association’s lawyer John Steward had requested the Council to withhold any action

from granting a variance to the permit allowing the Housing Authority’s change to zoning.257

The request by the Kern County Property Association was a “cease and desist.” However, the

Council did not take the challenge seriously. On December 29, 1952, Ordinance 66-52 was

passed, which reaffirmed the previously rescinded Resolution 100, the original cooperation

agreement of January 29, 1951.258 The local politics were changing, as well as public policy. By

the end of 1952 Frank Sullivan’s time as Mayor was coming to a close, having lost his two-year crusade against public housing. His defeat and rotation were symbolic and failure for white property owners. In 1953, Manuel J. Carnakis was rotated into the Mayor's position.259

Resolution 66-52 formally established the second cooperation agreement for Cal 8-6, otherwise known as Oro Vista.260 The resolution did not have to include Cal 8-5 Aero Vista in

Oildale since it was in the county and not the city. The resolution approved duplex buildings,

however, only for184 units, reducing the initial 250 units proposed in 1950.261 The resolution

was approved four to three. Of the noes, Frank Sullivan was one.262 The resolution also rezoned

Mayflower and Sunset to an R-2 zone, changing the building requirements for the Tracts.

257 “Reception of communication from John Stewart, attorney for Kern County Property Owners Association,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, October 14, 1952, 186 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 258 “Adoption of Resolution no. 66-52 relating to Cooperation with the Housing Authority of the County of Kern in the development of Low-Rent Housing Project no. Cal 8-6,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, December 29, 1952, 180 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 259 “City of Bakersfield Mayor Elected from Council,” Files of the Bakersfield City Council, 2000, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 260 Ibid. 261 “Resolution 66-52,” Resolutions of the Bakersfield City Council, December 29, 1952, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 262 Ibid, 7

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In January 1953, a new lawsuit and a new fight against public housing had started. Real

estate agents and white property owners had lost their ally in power. However, Sullivan still

remained at the City Council, just not as mayor. A real estate conference was held at the

beginning of the year, which supported white property owner rights. The Bakersfield Californian

reported on the event. The photograph published included Claude Blodget’s adoptive son, Kirby

Blodget, and other predictable attendants for real estate related matters in Bakersfield.

Former Mayor Frank Sullivan was also in attendance. He was praised at the banquet held

at Bakersfield Country Club.263 Sullivan was given high praise, “… as a friend of free enterprise

because of his fight against the proposed Sunset-Mayflower low-rent project.”264 Bakersfield

white property owners knew of the resistance Sullivan was giving as mayor and applauded his

efforts against the building of Oro Vista. His indifference to the African American community

was no secret. The State Secretary of the California Real Estate Association, Eugene Conser, was

quoted saying, “… I wanted to be with your mayor because I heard he was in trouble, but I find

that he’s well able to take care of himself. I should like to nominate him as mayor of the

year.”265. Sullivan was described as modest, as he refused any special credit claiming, “‘trying to

do the thing that was best for the home owners [sic] of Bakersfield.’”266 Sullivan claimed to

understand the needs of the community, but truly only used this rhetoric to advance the interest

of anti-integrationist groups and stop fair housing.267

263 “Mayor Given Praise at Dinner Fete,” Bakersfield Californian, 01-13-1953, 21 Newspaperarchive.com 264 Ibid, 21 265 Ibid, 21 266 Ibid, 21 267 Blodget was also a member of the California Real Estate Association and used their standardized forms for his loans 121

On the same page of the article celebrating Bakersfield real estate and the efforts of

Mayor Sullivan, the Bakersfield Californian reported of a new lawsuit against the City of

Bakersfield and the building of Oro Vista. The suit was filed by Gerald Lockhart and Gordon

Moore, two Bakersfield real estate agents who were questioning the legality of Resolution 66-52,

which reaffirmed Resolution 100 and changed Mayflower and Sunset’s zone from an R-1 (Single

Family) to an R-2 (Duplex). The newspaper exclaimed that the city inherited the housing issue with annexation, perhaps attempting to remove the city official’s responsibility on accepting

Resolution 66-52. The Bakersfield Californian stated, “After all, the city had signed a contract.

Also, the city wanted to do something nice for its 6,500 new residents.”268 The newspaper

suggested that the residents were to blame, not the city. This was the lawsuit the Property

Owners Association had threatened the City Council with if they did not cease all activity related

to Oro Vista.

Lockhart and Moore filed suit on January 12, 1953, against the City of Bakersfield.

Within days, the plaintiffs asked for a preliminary injunction to stall the project. On January 22,

the injunction was denied after receiving evidence and affidavits from city officials.269 Shortly

after, the Bakersfield Californian reported that the court had ended housing objections, including

bitterness, controversy, criticism, and violent attacks.270 The director of the Housing Authority,

Fred Widmer, was quoted, “Supporters of the projects were subjected to much unfair criticism

[racism] because they were pursuing a course they felt was right.”271 The criticisms came early

on. Bakersfield’s white property owners believed that these homes were not necessary, but rather

268 “City ‘inherited’ housing issue with annexation,” Bakersfield Californian, 1-15-1953, 17 Newspaperarchive.com 269 Case No. 59804, Lockhart v. City of Bakersfield. Kern County Court Records, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University Bakersfield, 1 270 “Court Ruling Ends Housing Objections,” Bakersfield Californian, 01-26-1953, 17 Newspaperarchive.com 271 Ibid, 17

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an expense to their tax dollars. These arguments did not acknowledge the systematic and housing

segregation. The criticisms were indeed, unfair.

In February, further attempts for the injunction were denied, and on March 10th, Lockhart

and Moore filed an appeal.272 The next day it was announced that the Housing Authority had

awarded a $1,302,000 contract for the construction of Oro Vista.273 The contract included 17

one-bedrooms, 93 two-bedrooms, and 17 four-bedroom units. The date of completion was announced for the incoming year in 1954. 1953 also gave way to the first minority representative in the City Council, Henry Collins.274

1953 was an important year for fair housing. Claude Blodget had not stopped his

lobbying against public housing. He was going two years strong. On May 27, 1953, Blodget

wrote again to an ally against public housing, Senator William Knowland. Blodget had

previously written to Knowland, showing his support for his political speeches and his efforts

against communism. 275 The same identical letter was sent to Harlan Hagen, a Bakersfield,

California House Representative.

Blodget reminded them to fight for HR 4663. The bill allowed the regulation of public

housing, putting a cap at 20,000 units in the nation. Blodget wrote, “… as you probably know it

272 The appellate decision will be discussed in greater detail, since the decision was appealed and could set precedent for other cases. 273 “Contract for Low-Rent Housing Project Let,” Bakersfield Californian, 3-11-1953, 21 Newspaperarchive.com 274 In March 30, 1953, the City Council announced a calling for a general municipal election held in the City of Bakersfield for April 14, 1953. The election call established the two candidates and precincts, including officers, judges, clerks and voting locations for Ward 1. The ward included Mayflower and Sunset. In April, Reverend Henry Holton Collins beat James W. Shurley. Collins was an African American reverend, and the first minority City Council member. Reverend Collins was the pastor at St. Paul’s Methodist Church. Collins was the first African American elected to the Bakersfield City Council. Collins is credited for bringing in the first curb and sidewalks to Lakeview in 1961. Equally he also provided help in bringing in the first fair employment practices Ordinance for the City of Bakersfield in 1957. 275 Claude R. Blodget to William Knowland, May 27, 1953, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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concerns public housing and the intelligent of Kern County are all opposed to it.”276 Blodget was

referring to the white majority, which he believed knew what was best for African American

communities. As a purveyor of homes, lots, and loans on contract, he firmly believed that his

relationship to the community was positive and necessary. Blodget was speaking about the Oro

Vista project and lobbying all of his efforts to hinder the project since his lawsuit had failed in

1952. Blodget continued, “We, of course, have our riff raff, and do-gooders with other people’s

money who support the bill, but the taxpayers are very opposed to it. Is there no help for the

taxpayer and the common man, who are the support and back bone of the government?”277 As

Blodget was speaking to the Oro Vista project, the “riff-raff” was a racialized reference. As

Blodget rarely referenced race, he used coded language. The “do-gooders” where the white middle class of Bakersfield, the ones who voted like him. Blodget’s language also separates the two groups among socio-economic assumptions. He believed that the poor did not contribute to taxes, and for that reason, did not require their opinion. There is a fallacy in Blodget’s argument.

He firmly believed that minority people were of a culture of poverty, or as he puts it “riff-raff” who lived at the cost of taxpayers. Nevertheless, even residents in Mayflower paid their property taxes, or Blodget would buy their tax debt and take their home.278

Two days after, Representative Harlan Hagen responded and notified Blodget of the

passing of HR 4663, “As you probably know, this measure passed… your interest in this matter

is greatly appreciated…”279 Hagen also included that the bill did not include the proposed 35,000

new public housing units that were up for consideration, stating that the senate could restore

276 Claude R. Blodget to Harlan Hagen, May 27, 1954, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 277 Ibid, 1 278 Chapter 3 discusses Blodget’s tax schemes. 279 Harlan Hagen to Claude R. Blodget, May 29, 1953, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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funds for future projects.280 On June 8, 1953, Blodget responded in a brief manner, “Thank you

for your cooperation regarding this matter. The Property Owners and taxpayers are surely taking

a beating on this proposition.”281 The majority of Bakersfield’s property owners were white.

Blodget was not happy to hear that the proposed public housing was not fully terminated and possibly funded by future bills.

By October of 1953, Oro Vista was still moving along towards a future and nearing opening date. The City Manager announced that notification would be given to homeowners and renters of substandard homes in Mayflower and Sunset.282 Lockhart and Moore appealed their

case and asked the court for an injunction on the basis that the City of Bakersfield was allegedly

approving irregular and unauthorized zoning.283 The Bakersfield City Charter had a referendum

provision since 1915 when the first City Charter was submitted as a municipal corporation.284

Lockhart and Moore argued that the city did not have the benefit of denying the public

referendum, henceforth, deprived of the legislative power to rezone.285 They cited section 34521

of the Health Code that stated all housing projects had to take into consideration the relationship

of projects to the long-range development of the area.286 They believed that Oro Vista would be

detrimental to the City. They sought the injunction pursuant to Cal. Health & Safety Code §

280 Ibid, 1 281 Claude R. Blodget to Harlan Hagen, June 8, 1953, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 282 “City Manager instruction to notify occupants of substandard dwellings in the Sunset-Mayflower area that they have priority to make application for admission to Oro Vista Housing Project,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, December 14, 1953, 138 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 283 Lockhart v. City of Bakersfield, 123 Cal. App. 2d 728 *; 267 P.2d 871 **; 1954 Cal. App. LEXIS 1247 ***, 1 284“If before any ordinance is in force a petition signed by electors of the city, equal in number of twenty-five per centum or more, testing against the passage of such ordinance.”; “Charter of the City of Bakersfield, State of California.” Assembly Concurrent Resolution 3, January 23, 1915, (Archive.org) https://archive.org/details/charterofcityofb00bake/page/n2/mode/2up 285 Lockhart v. City of Bakersfield, 1 286 Ibid, 1

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34521, which stated that the city’s only responsibility was to administer the law.287 The injunction accused the City of Bakersfield of rezoning against the interest of the majority of the population. The codes also stated that the city was an agency of the state, and according to the state’s fundamental laws, absent of municipal objectives.288 The lawsuit stated that the city had to follow the will of the people.

Similarly, other health codes cited the power to rezone parts of the city’s boundaries were legal when in connection to public housing projects.289 This gave the state the power to rezone any territory, and the power to make exemptions and changes to the regulation of buildings and ordinances.290 Simply put, the State of California, under the Health and Safety codes and The

Housing Authority Law, had the power to change zoning without the opinion of the electorate of the city or public referendum, let alone the interference by municipal or county administration.

The lawsuit established that the Housing Authority was a state agency and functioning under state law. Under the law, it had the power to change the zoning of Mayflower and Sunset without a public referendum. The case also affirmed that zoning, rezoning ordinance, and resolution adopted to state housing laws were not subject to referendum provision of the city charter. The case was lost on March 8, 1954. The City of Bakersfield had beaten the injunction, and Oro Vista was moving along. This was mostly due to the laws of California, not necessarily the efforts of the City Council, or their lawyers.

Conclusion

287 Ibid, 1 288 Ibid, 1 289 Ibid, 1 290 Ibid, 1

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This chapter dedicated a lot of attention to the development of Oro Vista and the

resistance to change in order to show that the development of public housing was not a swift

transformation. This chapter argues that a complex three years, from 1951 to 1954, was not

unique to Bakersfield but rather a symptom of state and national resistance. Nineteen-fifty-four was also the year of Brown v. Board of Education, the case that brought the decision to desegregate public education. The conversation about race discrimination and public resources was already a conversation. White residents lobbied for state legislation changes and the use of strategic rhetoric supported by national and state realtor and property owners’ associations.

These examples show that realtors and property owners were armed with knowledge and legal defense to combat public housing. This chapter introduces resistance to helping those financially and geographically segregated.

The annexation of December of 1950 brought little change into the new decade. Chapter

Three will address the complex transformations and the lack thereof the 1950s, post-earthquake.

This chapter covered the lawsuit by Claude Blodget and the introduction of California’s

Proposition 10, passed in December of 1950. Blodget and the Bakersfield Realty Board had supported the measure that allowed the electorate of the city to decide if public housing could be built. These were the NIMBY policies that allowed residents to influence the development of the urban landscape. Blodget’s lawsuit tested the strength of Proposition 10, only to find out that projects that preceded the proposition were not subject to election. This was not just Bakersfield.

Proposition 10 affected all the state of California. The resistance was not just legal, but well alive in the mayor’s advocacy against public housing. The resistance would have swayed public opinion. FHA loans were not readily available and by the 1950s. The established language and building standard of finance created limited options were available in the postwar era to the

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minority population in Mayflower. Blodget took the time to write and lobby recognizable

politicians fighting New Deal politics, like William Knowland and Thomas Werdel. These two

politicians were involved with some of the early transformation of the California Republican

Party to right-wing conservatism. This will become a significant development, especially in

Bakersfield in the 1960s. As Blodget lost his lawsuit in 1952, he became more involved in

supporting national lobbying real estate and property organizations to combat public housing.

As Bakersfield’s City Council eventually authorized the zoning variance to allow Oro

Vista to open, another realtor led lawsuit came about in 1953. Zoning became a conversation.

The restrictions of land use and desirability had long reserved the uses of private property to the

opinion of neighbors. When the city authorized the variance, it denied the right to a public

referendum. The denial was challenged in court, where the finding stated that the Housing

Authority had the right to change zoning without the referendum. The proposal of public housing and annexation from 1950 to 1954 brought little change, but instead zoning requirements, lawsuits, resistance to housing equality and delays.

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Chapter Three: “The Rising Phoenix and the Shadow it Casts: Urban Development, Urban Renewal, and Inequalities in Bakersfield Post- Earthquake.” Introduction

In August 1952, an earthquake struck east of Bakersfield. The Mayflower Tract was two miles closer to the epicenter than downtown. The reports and photographs show that damage was visible in both commercial and city buildings. However, no reports were created to assess the damage to housing. All the news of the damage and photograph coverage was of the city center, not Mayflower, nor any other community. What followed was rapid urban development of downtown, fostering the influx of new businesses and investment in new suburban communities northeast and southwest of the city.

This chapter discusses the Bakersfield City Chamber of Commerce’s “Bakersfield,

America’s Newest City” marketing campaign. The platform for investment by the Chamber imagined the city as a majority-white space by fostering specific new business opportunities in

Downtown Bakersfield, and urban and suburban development in the late 1950s. The sizeable urban investment contrasted to the neglect of Mayflower, which by 1952 belonged to

Bakersfield’s city boundaries. The 1950s were a pivotal moment for the redevelopment of the city.

This chapter shows that urban development intentionally excluded the Mayflower and

Sunset tracts from financial investment and urban planning. Mayflower and Sunset instead received a city ordinance approving an adjustment to lowering minimum building standards to allow substandard homes to be sold in the two tracts. No real investment existed in Mayflower,

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and the relatively small and second-class gesture approved substandard dwellings which lacked

equal investment in comparison to the 64-million-dollars the city received.

The city demolished and built a new courthouse, hospital, library, a jail, and other

publicly funded buildings. In many ways, the rebuilding also impacted the geographic influence

of the new East Bakersfield, with the moving of Bakersfield’s Community College and other various public buildings to serve the elite neighborhoods of East Bakersfield. These trends were happening in other places during the post-war era.

Phoenix, Arizona, had similar instances of urban exclusion. This chapter uses these other cities to trace the effects of national urban development outside of minority-dense areas. This chapter argues that segregation in the urban North and Western states were not necessarily unique, but part of a broader trend of urban development and exclusion. The scholarship has shown that minority communities had a stronger relationship with urban renewal programs that led to home destruction and exclusion.

This chapter uses the 1952 earthquake and the course that followed as a case study to analyze the long-term effects of urban exclusion. This chapter shows that the 64 million dollars

Bakersfield received in urban renewal, rebranding of tourism, investment in industry, and advertisements of elite homes excluded Mayflower. Mayflower became a predominantly African

American and Latina/o/x tract by 1960 as a result of white flight, the white backlash to civil rights demands, the rise of public housing, and the lack of opportunity to leave to newer and racially-exclusive neighborhoods. Bakersfield’s segregated landscape was solidified in the post- earthquake period from 1952 to 1960. Bakersfield’s racial boundaries were already present, but it was the financial growth and opportunity for urban development that facilitated the hardening of geographic and housing inequalities. The exclusion of Mayflower had the intended effects of

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removing residents from the expectation of equality. Readily available higher education was reduced with the relocation of Bakersfield College to East Bakersfield. The inequalities also resulted in the loss of homes due to zoning and urban renewal home requirements. Mayflower’s

inequalities were exacerbated in the postwar era.

Urban Exclusion

On the tenth anniversary of the 1952 earthquake, California Crossroads dedicated its cover feature and a full-page spread to the remembrance of the earthquake and rebirth of the City of Bakersfield. The photograph on the cover was of then-Governor of California, Earl Warren.291

He was photographed near a building with small amounts of rubble still on the ground. On his left was Mayor Frank Sullivan, and on his right was Police Chief Horace Grayson.

Frank Sullivan, who was mayor during the earthquake, gave some distinctive remarks on the anniversary of the transformation of the city. He recalled his interactions with out-of-town media and described the exchange as a circus, stating, “They wanted us to make rattling noises

(to simulate earthquake sounds).”292 He seemed to be displeased in his reflection of the events

that had “destroyed” the town. Sullivan asked, “‘What would have happened if we had a major

disaster?’”293 Regardless of Sullivan’s calm demeanor, he was reflecting ten years after the

initial rebuilding of Bakersfield, and as a previous mayor.294 During his reflection, he

commented, “What we had was urban renewal by an act of God.”295 Those words resonated with

the platform to rebuild Bakersfield, and launched the new marketing campaign of “Bakersfield,

291 “Earl Warren in California,” California Crossroads, August 1962, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, Cover 292 Ibid, 37 293 Ibid, 37 294 “City of the Bakersfield Mayor,” Files of the Bakersfield City Council, 2000, 1-2 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 295 California Crossroads, 37

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America’s Newest City.” The act of God was Sullivan’s opportunity to rebuild since he was

mayor in from 1950 to 1952 and again in 1957 to 1961. He took full advantage of it.

On August 22, 1952, the earthquake struck in proximity to the city of Bakersfield, and by

estimated accounts generated about 10 million to 30 million in damage.296 There were reported fires; however, none further endangered the city, and firefighters were called to dig out people who were trapped in collapsed buildings.297 As the days went on, engineers and contractors were

hired by the City Inspector and instructed to survey and declare buildings unsafe. The city did

not establish a policy on how homes should be repaired, only referring them to the City’s

existing building code.298 The City of Bakersfield took no financial obligation to rebuild or

renovate housing, nor was their recourse to help homeowners in the disaster.

The city condemned 193 classrooms as no longer safe.299 The earthquake damaged a

reported 396 buildings and 90 buildings were brought to the floor.300 While no figures were

reported for housing damage, official reports did mention housing. The “Bulletin of the

Seismological Society of America: An Engineering Study of the Southern California

Earthquakes of July 21, 1952, and its Aftershocks,” reported on the types of damage homes

sustained. The Engineering Study reported that wooden framed homes fell off their foundations

if they lacked foundation bolts.301

296 “How Bakersfield, Calif., Is handling its triple-earthquake crisis.” American City, October 1952, page 123, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 297 Ibid, 123 298 Ibid, 123 299 Ibid, 123 300 Karl V. Steinbrugge and Donald F. Morgan, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, (Berkeley, CA: Seismological Society of America, April 1954), 224; The same photograph is featured in a subsequent report, “State of California Department of Natural Resources: Earthquakes in Kern County California During 1952.” Divisions of Mines Ferry Building, San Francisco, Bulletin, 217 301 Ibid, 223

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The 1952 earthquake struck close to the modern-day intersections of Weedpatch

Highway and East Wilson Road.302 The location was rural in the 1950s and continues to be in a

rural area in the midway of Lamont, California, and Bakersfield. It was isolated and far from

Downtown Bakersfield, even today. Mayflower and Sunset were close to the epicenter of the

earthquake, about 4.6 miles away.

Downtown, which was 6.6 miles away from the epicenter, was thoroughly covered in the

reporting. Downtown Bakersfield was the financial district in 1952, and it did sustain damage,

which overshadowed almost all reporting on the earthquake. The geographic location suggests

that many rural communities were affected. There were no subsequent reports created that spoke

to the level of destruction that homes faced. The only instances referred to small and not detailed

reports in the local newspaper and the occasional photograph.303 The neighborhoods affected, of

course, included the African American homes in Mayflower and Sunset.

A single photograph of an African American home affected by the earthquake exists in the Kern County Museum’s collection, with the inscription that reads, “This is a negro house.”304

No other collections or archives contain photographs of minority-owned homes affected by the

earthquake. An African American woman can be seen on the bottom left; however, it is unknown

who owned the house or its location. All we have is the inscription on the photograph. 305

302 Letter sent to KCFL from Oliver Dunn, Librarian CIT, copy of press release August 26,1952 from California institute of technology Pasadena ca, August 26, 1952, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 303 Kern County was struck by three earthquakes in 1952. The first was in Arvin, the second in Tehachapi and the third in Bakersfield. This thesis will only cover the urban development of Bakersfield for its immediate geographic distance to Mayflower and Sunset. 304 See figure 1, “This is a Negro Home” Accession no. 91.017.01.02 Photograph, Kern County Museum, 1952; The photograph was donated to the Kern County Museum by Ruth McLemore in 1991. She donated 18 photographs that document the earthquake, they were produced in series from Dorman Photo, a local photography company who was bought out by Henly’s Photo. 305 ibid

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Figure 1

The home looks modern and noticeably in a good state, besides being shaken off the

foundation and damaged by the earthquake. The house was painted and professionally built; the

photograph does not give the appearance of a substandard or dilapidated home. As it provides no context on location, judging from the visual details, it was a suburban neighborhood with the characteristics of a modern home. The home had grass in the front and back yards. It was also designed with the intent of groomed yards. This means that the lawns were maintained and serviced regularly in order to keep the walkway open and inline. If the house stood today, it would not be uncommon to find it still standing and occupied in a moderate and perhaps aging neighborhood resembling the style of a post-war community of the “old southwest” in

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Bakersfield. If the area was not in the developing southwest, it was most likely in the African

American-only neighborhood in Mayflower.306

There is a strange relationship with this photograph. The written description provides that an African American family-owned the home; however, the home also exists in other photographs and reports. The “1954 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America,” report shows a very similar home, with a gabled roof, roof dormer, and porch with mesh screens.307 The photography credit is given to the San Francisco Examiner.308

306 See Chapter 1 for a more detailed analysis on racially restricted tracts. 307 See Figure 2 308 Karl V. Steinbrugge and Donald F. Morgan, 224

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Figure 2

The very same home is featured in the same angle as the museum’s photograph, however, without the inscription of the race of the individuals living there.309 No real details were offered in any of the three photographs.

309 Fee Figure 3

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Figure 3 was taken by the Independent Press Telegram, a Long Beach, California newspaper.310

In the wake of the reports, newspapers rushed from northern and southern California to

provide coverage on the earthquake. As journalists followed the visible destruction, they also

followed city officials. In an Associated Press photograph, both Mayor Frank Sullivan and J. R.

Copland were featured taking a look at the damage caused by the earthquake.311 J. R Copeland

was the business manager for the Kern County Building of Trades and would also be a figure in

the development of mass transportation of Bakersfield after the earthquake. Sullivan and

310 “Why Quake is Costly- This residence slipped off its foundation by Friday’s earthquake is a sample of the ruin confronting numerous ordinary citizens of the Bakersfield Area. This slippage wrenched utility pipes in the dwelling and tore at electrical fixtures,” Independent Press Telegram, August 24, 1952, A-3 Newspaperarchive.com 311 See Chapter Two for a Frank Sullivan’s efforts against public housing.

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Copeland were featured talking to Warren Munson, the Bakersfield office manager of the

California Employment Service.312

Figure 4

Sullivan had similar urban and anti-public housing sentiments as Copeland, as Sullivan

cited him in one of his anti-housing memorandums.313 They were close associates in the

municipal government. The same photograph was featured in the Oakland Tribune and the

312 Figure 4, “Aid for Employees- Employees who are not able to go to work because of such havoc as this following the Black Friday earthquake in downtown Bakersfield will receive unemployment insurance. J.R. Copeland business manager of the Kern County Building Trades, Mayor Frank Sullivan and Warren Munson, manager, Bakersfield Office, California Employment Service, discussed the plan for helping employees barred from their normal work in a conference immediately flowing the quake.” Bakersfield Californian, August 26, 1952, 23; “A wooden carving lies in the rubble at the level at Bakersfield’s Mayor Frank Sullivan (center) as he inspects damage caused by the earthquake. With him are J. R. Copeland (left) secretary of the Kern Building Trades and Warren Mugson, California State Department of Employment manager. They will supply the manpower for reconstruction.” Oakland Tribune, August 24, 1952, A-9 Newspaperarchive.com 313 See Chapter Two for an explanation on the resistance to public housing.

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Bakersfield Californian. Most likely, Frank Sullivan and J. R. Copeland were in the Kern County

Museum’s photograph of the African American home. As both Sullivan and Copeland were photographed viewing the damage to the city, the only reason a home would have been

photographed if it featured people of interest, like municipal officials. The photograph of the

African American home most likely features Sullivan, Copeland, and an unnamed woman.

While this home served as an example of the damage that homes sustained in scientific

and engineering reports, it also serves as photographic evidence that Sullivan and Copeland saw

the destruction and damage that African American neighborhoods faced. 314 Nevertheless, in the

urban development that followed, both Sullivan, Copeland, and City Council officials would

effectively deny the city and county’s full investment in urban renewal in Mayflower. They

reduced urban renewal to dilapidated home destruction and lowering building code enforcement

to authorized the approval of substandard housing. They were solely responsible for the lack of

city investment and sustaining blight. No modern infrastructure, including economic investment

in public recreation space, or revitalization, would be given to Mayflower or Sunset. However, a

64-million-dollar investment would be limited to white residential, recreational space, and

commerce. The City of Bakersfield had already been changing rapidly in the mid-1950s. As

early as 1954, the urban landscape of the City of Bakersfield had been visibly remodeled. Even

though the rebuilding of Bakersfield’s downtown has started sooner, the rebranding and strategic

remodeling of Bakersfield’s image had not yet been publicized.

The city that rose after the earthquake became an invitation for a white economy and exclusively white elite housing. Shortly before the “America’s Newest City” platform, welcome

314 See Chapter Two for Sullivan’s resistance to public housing during the 1950s.

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housing booklets were distributed to new elite homeowners. The welcome booklet included

coupons, welcome messages from business owners, a list of babysitters. This booklet also

featured a personal and a very warm welcome from the Mayor, Manuel J. Carnakis. It read,

A hearty welcome to you from the City of Bakersfield. May your stay be long and happy… We hope you will join us with our civic affairs and social affairs. Get acquainted with our municipal problems. You are invited to attend meetings of the city council….315 As the pamphlet welcomed the new homeowner, there was no mention of the race relations, and

yet, the map provided excluded the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts, the only areas where African

Americans were allowed to live.316 The welcome was not intended for the minority residents

who were segregated.

There was even a Bakersfield Hostess, Dottie Hiatt. Her message read, “Yes it’s been a

pleasure calling on you in your new home, and… if you ever need a friend, if we can ever help

you, CALL ON US….”317 The newest homes were not in Mayflower or Sunset, but in the new

East, South and West Bakersfield. By late 1952, Bakersfield College was already being

redesigned and planned to be relocated to the new East Bakersfield.318 The campus plans were

drafted in 1951, but the economic urban renewal investment of the post-earthquake accelerated

its relocation. By 1954, most of the college’s buildings were approved for construction, and a 3.4

million-dollar contract was already awarded.319 New housing and higher education was being

built for the elite communities. The college, while in the north-east, was not built to serve the

315 “Welcome to Bakersfield,” Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, June 5, 1953, 1 316 Ibid, 1 317 Ibid, 1 318 Daniel Naegele, “The Letters of Colin Rowe: Five Decades of Correspondence,” Architecture Books, Iowa State University Digital Repository, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_books/2, 33. 319 “College Stadium,” Architect and Engineer, December 1954. Archive.org

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minority and poor neighborhoods, a geographic feature that deterred public access to education

and economic uplift.320

Figure 5, Bakersfield College plans.

After the expansive urban renewal of the mid-1950s, Kern County advertised its public education as, “Good Schools, Good Citizens,” which included 133 elementary schools, 18 high schools, and two junior colleges.321

320 See figure 5, “Bakersfield College,” Clarence Cullimore Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 321 “Kern County: California’s Golden Empire,” Kern County Board of Trade, late 1950s, Earth Quake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, 9

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On August 12, 1953, President Eisenhower addressed a message to the citizens of the

City of Bakersfield, as the urban renewal was already visible. Then-President Eisenhower wrote,

addressing the noticeable physical and financial changes,

Senator Knowland has reminded me that approximately one year has passed since your community suffered the devastation of a major earthquake. He has reminded me also- with understandable pride- of the speed and extraordinary community cooperation with which you have rebuild your county. I gladly take this opportunity to salute the courage and resourcefulness shown by Bakersfield Citizens. I share Senator Knowland’s pride in these remarkable accomplishments of our fellow Americans. May Bakersfield continue to thrive through the years ahead. I am confident that it will.322 Knowland had been a long associate of Bakersfield. As a visitor to the area, it was natural for

Oakland’s Senator to speak of the condition of Bakersfield. From 1953 to 1955, Senator

Knowland was also the Senate Majority Leader and the Minority leader from 1955 to 1959. He

was well known in California and national politics, and as we saw in the previous chapter, an

opponent of public housing.323

After the earthquake, the city remodeled with the help of the City Council, Chamber of

Commerce, raises to property taxes, and state relief loans. In late 1952, Kern County property

taxes were raised for the 1953 budget. The budget included county employee raises and

$202,900 for repairing the building damage caused by the earthquake and the building of the

Veteran’s Memorial Building.324 By late 1952, Bakersfield was reimagined as an urban white

space with a modern downtown. The rebuilding of Bakersfield is still reflected in the city's urban

landscape today.

322 “President Congratulates Citizens of Bakersfield,” Natural Buyer’s Guide, v5 no 11 December 1953, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 323 See Chapter Two for a discussion on William Knowland’s influence on state and national politics. 324 Hatti Hotten, Murdock Street Property files, “1952-1953 Taxes”, Box 51, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield

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To a similar development of urban infrastructure historian John M. Findlay argues that developers, city planners, and entrepreneurs created unique urban landscapes that had regional and national influence. Findlay states that the transformation of the American West was not just its rise in population, but its physical changes. The Far West had a higher percentage of populated urban areas. By 1970, 84 percent of the West’s population lived in urban places, higher than the 74 percent of the urban population that lived in the Northeast.325 The reshaping

of the urban landscape influenced national and regional culture. As new urban spaces developed,

they were not simple Disneylands, nor fantasy, but places of real transformations, innovation,

and investment. Imagination was vital in the American West, Findlay argues, “People imagined

that the urban West (that is, the western metropolis with its central city, suburbs, and nearby

countryside) offered Americans a unique opportunity to live according to their preferences.”326

This idealized urban identity was compounded by regional landmarks, homogeneity, change, and

growth.327

The driving force was the promise of amenities, prosperity, spaciousness, freedom, and

autonomy. As westerners were involved with politics and society, their actions coalesced in

order to protect all that they believed to be distinctive, attractive, and exclusive settings.328

Findlay summarizes somewhat methodologically what happened in Bakersfield after the

earthquake. One critical tension that needs to be addressed is that while suburbs became white-

only, downtowns in other large cities were largely abandoned. Bakersfield seems to be the

exception here since urban renewal and urban development were quickly funded to rebuild

325 Findlay, John M. Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 1 326 Ibid, 5 327 Ibid, 4-5 328 Ibid, 282

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downtown. Perhaps, as other downtowns were largely abandoned in favor of urban commercial

centers, the destruction by the earthquake offered a unique opportunity to rebuild, where older

cities were not offered a clean slate opportunity. City administrators and investors quickly rebuilt

in the image of exclusivity, believing that their community reflected homogeneity.

The City of Bakersfield was taking advantage of the earthquake in many ways. The

Bakersfield Californian reported in 1954 that a high percentage of “eyesore” buildings were

gone. In the same light, the old downtown’s skid row was almost gone, following new

construction.329 The city took full advantage of removing the sores they did not approve of and

invested in removing buildings. The other history missing was how downtown’s redevelopment

displaced people who were living nearby or in downtown. The impact proved to visitors that

Bakersfield was a city that rebuilt in a “positive” direction and took an active responsibility in

transforming.

The change was also visible to neighboring cities. The Los Angeles Times, a major

southern California newspaper boasted, “Today, two years after the ‘killer quake’ struck this

major city of the Southern San Joaquin Valley, a miracle of rehabilitation has been

accomplished.”330 Bakersfield’s reconstruction had seemed like a miracle after only two years of

investment. Bakersfield was even referenced as a major city of the Southern San Joaquin Valley.

The population had doubled since the 1940s. Kern County had a population of 135,124, and in

1950 the Census reported a population of 228,309.331 With the change of the decade, Kern

329 "Second Quake anniversary recalls day of death, rebuilding program,” Bakersfield Californian, August 23, 1954, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 330 “Bakersfield Bounces Back After Killer Quake,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1954, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 331 “’Land of Magic’: Kern County Statistical Summary,” Kern County Board of Trade, 1957, Kern County Vertical File, Historical Research Center, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 33

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County also changed its slogan from “California a Billion Dollars in Sunshine,” a reference to

the substantial investment in agriculture, to “Land of Magic.”

The post-earthquake era only benefited the white community in Bakersfield and the

county.332 Most new urban centers were remodeled and had high investment resulting in the so-

called “Land of Magic.” All the new public buildings were funded through local property taxes

and bonds of which minorities also paid their part yet were not invited to participate in the

financial investment of their own neighborhood. The promise of the “Land of Magic” was cut

short for nonwhites.

Shortly after the earthquake, days later, the City Council debated changing the zoning in

Mayflower. The white property owners and real estate agents sprang into action to combat the

changing of the zoning restrictions.333 While their fight was ineffective in the long run, the

opportunity of subsidized rental homes was paused and resisted by communities outside of the

Mayflower and Sunset neighborhoods. The lack of change was enforced by the City Council and

white real estate developers. The 64-million-dollar investment in the city was a stark reality to

minority neighborhoods. The 1952 earthquake only exacerbated the conditions and solidified

segregation in Mayflower and Sunset. The federally subsidized rental units of Oro Vista may

have opened in 1954. However, later public policy did not provide fair housing practices nor

allowed access to decent homes.

Families had already started moving in 1954 after Lockhart and Moore lost their lawsuit;

however, the process had been slow. Councilman Henry Collins, the first African American to

332 Employment data is currently unavailable for the 1950s. The release of the 1950 census in 2022 will allow future historians to study the economic exclusion from 1940 to 1950. 333 Chapter Two covers the resistance to public housing.

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hold an elected position in the City Council, had reported to the Bakersfield Californian that Oro

Vista had come to be a disappointment to the residents. The project homes were to house 184

families, and with an estimated 800 applications, only a small fraction had moved. The

newspaper reported that by mid-February 1954, only 17 families had moved into Oro Vista.334

Collins complained that the application process was too rigid and strict, limiting opportunities

and access; he stated that people of irregular and lower-income could not receive help.335 The

narrow application window provided minimal access. There were also many restrictions beyond

income. The application required families to have specific types of furniture, good credit, steady

employment, and that the woman be a good housekeeper.336 Single individuals were barred from

the application; only families could apply. Collins stated the obvious, “How can a woman prove

she is a good housekeep when she has no house to keep?”337 Regardless of Collins's reflections,

he supported the county’s plan to introduce substandard homes in Mayflower and Sunset. He

stated, “I don’t like the looks of the housing deal. The city seems to be getting the run-around, and in the end the people of Sunset-Mayflower will be left out.”338 Collins understood the

politics of the city and perhaps saw little alternatives. He was right about the rigidity of

segregation, long-term change and fair housing was far away from becoming a reality. Shortly

after, the City Council crafted two urban renewal ordinances. The City Council was getting ready

to legalize the selling of substandard homes to Mayflower and Sunset.

334 “Run Around Feared in Housing Program.” Bakersfield Californian, February 24, 1954, p41, Newspaperarchive.com 335 Ibid, 41 336 Ibid, 41 337 Ibid, 41 338 Ibid, 41

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By early June, the Bakersfield Californian reported that all the homes in Oro Vista were

occupied, with occupants being 90 percent African American and 10 percent Mexican.339 The

newspaper even reported that two white families applied, but never returned to claim

consideration.340 This perhaps hinted at the segregated nature of the housing in Oro Vista. Ninety

percent of all the Oro Vista’s residents were from within the Mayflower and Sunset Tract in June

1954.341 The newspaper did not report the origin of the other 10 percent of residents. Oro Vista

was segregated from the beginning, resembling the demographic of Adelante Vista, which was

segregated and adjacent. Figure 6 shows what Oro Vista would have looked like right at opening.

Figure 6, Street view of Oro Vista. Photograph provided by the Housing Authority of the County of Kern.342

339 “Oro Vista Housing Units Now Filled, Project Officer Says,” Bakersfield Californian, June 9, 1954, 34, Newspaperarchive.com 340 Ibid, 34 341 Ibid, 41 342 See figure 6, “Cal 8-6a Oro Vista Bakersfield Calif, Looking E. From Northup St. Completed.” Housing Authority of the County of Kern, no.66, February 6, 1954

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The Housing Authority had won the appellate case in 1954 but was not an indefinite fair

housing win. 1954 had been a challenging year with limited and slow access to housing. What

was still to come for fair housing was an uphill battle. The outcome of Lockhart v. Bakersfield

was only a minor step forward, with various repercussions. On May 24, 1954, the City Attorney

was instructed by the City Council to prepare the necessary ordinances and resolutions to declare

Mayflower and Sunset an area of redevelopment.343 Mayflower was undergoing urban renewal,

but not on the residents’ terms.

In 1954, two years after the earthquake, the City Council passed emergency Ordinance

1024, authorizing the selling of substandard homes as affordable and “non-dilapidated”

alternatives.344 The ordinances were an apparent contradiction to the developing modern and

urban space available to white homebuyers southwest of the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts.345

The rapid urban renewal and the redevelopment of the city took eight years. The redevelopment

allows for a case study to analyze urban development. By 1960 most of the urban renewal of

downtown was complete. Other public buildings were projected but were not complete until the

mid-1960s.

The Mayflower urban renewal project mostly included the destruction of dilapidated

properties and the selling of substandard homes in the tracts. Shortly after, Ordinance 1015 was

approved on June 28, 1954, and allowed the selling of wartime dwellings to the Mayflower

343 “City Attorney Instructed to Prepare the necessary ordinance and Resolutions to declare the Sunset-Mayflower District a Redevelopment area.” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, May 24, 1954, http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 344 Dilapidated meant that home had no indoor sanitary facilities, nor indoor running water, and a substandard home had those amenities but required physical rebuilding. 345 “Ordinance 1024,” Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, August 23, 1954, http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/

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Tract. The City of Bakersfield considered several home building relocation projects in the

Mayflower and Sunset Tract. The ordinance stated that the East Bakersfield redevelopment

boundaries included Mayflower and Sunset, among other tracts in East Bakersfield.346 The

ordinance initially authorized the selling of the wartime public housing structures like Cal 4060

and Cal 4986.

These wartime housing projects had already been transferred to the city in 1953, and by

1954 it was at their disposal for resale to the community. The buildings were intended to be

temporary, not permanent.347

Figure 7. Cal 4986 Lease Termination, General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Record Group 196, National Archives and Records Administration- Pacific Region (San Bruno, California)

346 Ordinance 1015, “An Ordinance designating a certain area in the city of Bakersfield to be devoted to a program of Urban Development,” Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, June 28, 1954 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 347 See Figure 7, Cal 4986 Lease Termination, General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Record Group 196, National Archives and Records Administration- Pacific Region (San Bruno, California)

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Resolution 19-53, approved under the Landham Act (Public Law 475), moved temporary war

and veteran housing to the ownership of the city, without monetary compensation.348 It is difficult to answer if any of the wartime public housing projects from Bakersfield were sold to

Mayflower or Sunset residents. Records at the National Archives in San Bruno, California, show that at least one building was sold to someone in Bakersfield. On September 1, 1954, Sterling

Matthews wrote to A.A. Pierson, Chief Appraiser of the Public Housing Authority, stating that

Cal 4060 (1620 Kentucky Street, Bakersfield, Ca) and Cal 4986 (2617 16th Street, Bakersfield,

Ca) were to be removed and sold offsite by competitive bidding.349 Mrs. Decker was identified

by a note left in the records. She lived in Baker Street, Bakersfield, California, as the

memorandum states, that she had left a deposit on the Community Building and the Laundry

Building of Cal 4986, and was preparing to move it but required a bill of sale from the Housing

Authority.350 What is known was that homes from the Bay Area were sold in Mayflower and

Sunset. Claude Blodget also had bidder forms in his collection, suggesting he may have bought

some or was closely associated with someone who had purchased and sold these homes. The

bidding was open to residents, not just in Kern County. The bidder was responsible for moving

the home and retrofitting the building to meet city and state safety standards.351

Shortly after, another urban renewal policy was passed. Ordinance 1024 authorized the

replacement of dilapidated buildings along with the same provisions of Ordinance 1015.

348 “Resolution 19-53,” March 30, 1955, Resolutions of the Bakersfield City Council, 1 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 349 Sterling Mathews to AA Pierson, Chief Appraisal Section SFFO, PHA, “Interoffice Memorandum,” National Housing Agency Federal Public Housing Authority, September 1, 1954, General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Record Group 196, National Archives and Records Administration- Pacific Region (San Bruno, California) 350 Shirl Edwards to Lee Dolan, “Re Cal 4986,” August 1, 1955. General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Record Group 196, National Archives and Records Administration- Pacific Region (San Bruno, California) 351 “RRSF/PNI-10 Form,” Blodget Box 61, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 3

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However, 1024 allowed for the “use therein of certain wartime dwelling structures and

exempting aid structures from the strict application of certain provision of the Uniform Building

Code and State Housing Act…”352 The City Council had approved the lowering of minimum

building standards. The Bakersfield Californian reported on June 28, 1954, that the City Council

had approved an emergency measure only for the Mayflower and Sunset Tracts, having also

denied similar requests for other tracts outside the city limits.353 The homes moved were drafted

to sell for $2,700, delivered.354 The City Council had effectively created a public policy to sustain the blight and poverty conditions of unsafe homes. The City Council could have quickly

forced the opening of homes to racial minorities, or simply only allowed the building of safe and

sanitary homes in Mayflower Tract with restrictions on inflated prices. Nevertheless, the City

Council chose to sell substandard homes, suggesting that price drove policy, rather than

defending the right to equality.

Both urban development acts were not approved by the residents. The ordinances only

allowed for the substitution of dilapidated homes for substandard homes, which never truly

solved the problem of fair housing. The selling of substandard homes was not a real change, only

a fractional promise, separate and not equal. The City Council had not intended to create a policy

to open home buying outside of Mayflower and Sunset. They would not trespass on the

“NIMBY” attitudes or the realtor protections that had long been established.

The City Council only allowed the selling and importing of substandard homes, waiving

the building codes and state housing requirements for safe and decent homes. They effectively

352 Ordinance 1024, Ordinances of the Bakersfield City Council, August 25, 1954, http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 353 “City adopts law side stepping minimum building standards,” Bakersfield Californian, June 28, 1954, 17, Newspaperarchive.com 354 Ibid, 17

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sustained segregation and second-class conditions of the post-annexation Mayflower and Sunset.

The ordinance showed that the City Council was willing to keep the population in an unequal condition and willing to implement any policy instead of opening up white neighborhoods for sale to minorities. The same day Ordinance 1024 passed, The Sunset-Mayflower Progressive

Club protested the inferior housing in the area.355 They did not want inferior housing; they

wanted fair housing policies and equality. Their resolution read, “Inferior and tenement housing

conditions diminish the value of our property. It demoralizes the minds of our children. It

increases crime, disease, and delinquency. And other menaces to society. It paralyzes, handicaps,

and cripples out standard of living in every respect.”356 The Club protested that it did not want to

become a dumping ground for these homes.357 It was through the acts of the City Council that

actual change could never proliferate in the post-annexation years. The City Council could have authorized emergency ordinances and resolutions, without lowering the building standards. They

approved the selling of substandard homes in Mayflower and Sunset in the post-annexation. The

council was at fault for reducing the availability of fair housing. The ordinance effectively

opened the market for white real estate agents to sell substandard homes in the post-war era in

Mayflower.

The Bakersfield Californian reported on August 23, 1954, “Sunset Area Folk Protest

New Project.”358 The newspaper outlet reported that the council was convinced that substandard homes were better than condemned homes.359 This was still not equality. The green light was

355 “Reception of letter from Sunset-Mayflower Progressive Club protesting any inferior housing promotion in the area.” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, August 23, 1954, 339 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 356 “Sunset Area Fold Protest New Project.” Bakersfield Californian, August 23, 1954, 19, Newspaperarchive.com 357 Ibid, 19 358 Ibid, 19 359 Ibid, 19

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given to a promoter who wanted to sell substandard homes from the Bay Area in California.360

The city had already expressed interest in purchasing retired war housing for the Mayflower and

Sunset area since early 1954.361 The ordinance was not without opposition, the County of Kern’s

building code enforcement also refused to make any concessions that would weaken the building

code. Nevertheless, the county and the city came to an agreement.362 The councilmen and the

Bay Area promoter agreed that the homes were to be sold at $3,000 or less and not to exceed $30 dollars a month on contract.363 The “loan program” was not a guarantee of equity, but another

selling on contract scheme. The City Council sustained the same practice of “buying on contract”

that had created this problem. If buyers missed a payment, they could lose their property. The

council did not support an actual change to the neighborhoods, and they only supported separate

second-class housing. They supported the post-war modern creation of substandard homes and

blighted neighborhoods in the mid-1950s. With no support, the neighborhoods were sustained in

poor conditions even after the immediate post-war era, while other neighborhoods proliferated.

Mayflower residents received sewers in the 1950s with annexation. The result was not

just sanitary services, but all residents were bonded into debt to pay for the sewer, regardless of

their financial investments in their homes. Investors were aware of the Sunset and Mayflower

Tracts and that the practice of buying tax debt was highly profitable. As discussed in the

previous chapters, Claude Blodget, who sold homes in the tracts and fought against public

housing, also took advantage of the unpaid bonds and bought many homes that failed to pay the

sewer tax. Each resident was bonded into a $300 to $500 debt. Those prices were extremely high

360 Ibid, 19 361 “City Fears ‘Stall’ in War Housing Deal.” Bakersfield Californian, February 24, 1954, 25, Newspaperarchive.com 362 “Council Approves ‘Below-par’ Houses, Sunset Area Folk Protest New Project,” Bakersfield Californian, August 23, 1954, 19, Newspaperarchive.com 363 Ibid, 19

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since they had been the price of a single lot in the 1950s. During the development of public

housing, Blodget had written to the Secretary of the McFarland Chamber of Commerce, W.C.

Lothridge. He characterized his unwillingness to support public housing, stating, “People

wanting to build new homes will not go to the neighborhood of a public housing project. They

wish to be near their equals.” Blodget continued with his indifference, “If you allow them to

connect on some 30 or 40 units of Public Housing, they do not care about the good of the city, so

it will hasten the day you will have to extend the sewer system and enlarge your disposal

grounds. That means more bonds and expense.”364 This is how Blodget acquired people’s homes

in the Mayflower Tract through unpaid bonds. He argued that the tax money penalized the

taxpayer “… by taking his tax money to help pay for these luxuries given to the tenant in the

Housing Project.”365 By 1954, Blodget was in the business of buying sewer bonds and expanding his predatory reach to homeowners and buyers that were late in paying their sewer bonds. The

County of Kern was also eager to sell them to the highest bidder, attempting to recover the

bonds.

Blodget was in the business of buying homes through tax purchases. The action was

premeditated. Blodget had before referenced that tax money was being used to provide luxuries

to the poor. He must have believed that he deserved to benefit from paying taxes. He had

disapproved of using taxes to support public housing in 1952 when he wrote to Lothridge.

Blodget also wrote to Mrs. Gizella L. Allen. She was the attorney who settled Blodget’s tax purchases. Allen informed Blodget on delinquent sewer bonds. Blodget wrote,

We discussed the matter of the impending tax sales and the people who were not paying their taxes. It seemed that they were all delinquent on their sewer bonds also [sic]. The

364 Bodget Letter to W.C. Lothridge February ,1952, Box 48, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 2, 3 365 Ibid, 3

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next day we were both at the delinquent tax sale office and I bought seven lots of which have delinquent sewer bonds.366 In July 1957, Blodget would take ownership of 14 lots from the Mayflower Tract through

delinquent tax and sewer bonds.367 Later that month, he wrote again to Allen, stating, “Inclosed

[sic] please find my check for $1,908.80 in payment of Union Avenue Sanitation District

bonds… I am still waiting for the report on Bond No. 831, lot 27 and block 27 in Mayflower

Eddition [sic].”368 The demand for sanitary and decent conditions by the minority community had come with predatory consequences. Blodget and other real estate agents took advantage of full investment to purchase delinquent homes.

In Blodget’s archival collection, there is a post-1950 but undated file with a couple of pages, of which 67 properties were listed from the Sunset, Mayflower and Tract 1286. Fifty-six of the 67 properties were labeled “not paid” in red pencil. It is unknown how many people lost their homes to urban renewal, bonds, and unpaid taxes to the County of Kern and real estate

“investors.” Further studies are needed on the subject. Evidence of the predatory practice does exist, on January 13 of 1956, Blodget wrote to Berry Jerry Smith. In the letter, Blodget explained to Smith what was owed,

As you know the holders of the sewer bonds are about to foreclose… In order to save the money which you owe me I am forced to pay these bonds. When I get the bonds cleared I am going to begin foreclosure suit against you to take over your property unless you make arrangements to make a substantial payment of the property before that time.369

366 Claude R. Blodget to Mrs. Gizella L. Allen July 2, 1957 Box 56, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 7 367 Claude R. Blodget to Mrs. Gizella L. Allen July, 2, 15, 22, 1956, Box 56, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 5-7 368 Claude R. Blodget to Mrs. Gizella L. Allen July 22, 1956, Box 56, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 369 Claude R. Blodget to Mr. Berry Jerry Smith, January 13, 1956, Box 61, Blodget Business Papers Collection Blodget Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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The bond in question was for $185.26, and it was settled by Gizella L. Allen.370 Smith had

already paid some of the bonds. Blodget acquired ownership for less than $200 dollars. The

property was valued at $3,000 in 1954, which Smith only owed $810.66 of the original $1,800

purchase.371 Blodget’s purchases of bonds allowed him to either coerce his customers into

sending “substantial” payments or foreclose their loan and become the property owner again.

Either way, Blodget double-dipped into his contract sales, and his customers were debited their

contract amounts and their delinquent taxes. These schemes allowed Blodget to profit on the

double debt, reducing his customer’s opportunities for financial success resulting in high rates of

loan failures.

Similar letters were sent out from 1954 to 1957. One was sent to John H. Moore, Blodget wrote, “I note on checking over the property advertised for non-payment of taxes that you did

not pay your taxes this year. You had better give this your prompt attention or you will find that

someone will buy your property and you will lose out.”372 These two properties were in the

Mayflower Tract. Sewer bonds and tax debt offered Blodget an opportunity to buy and coerce

buyers and homeowners. Urban renewal and the sanitary promise of the sewer had baited the

residents of Mayflower with the promise of urban amenities. However, in the long-term

sanitation services failed to provide safe and affordable housing. The promise of annexation was

punishment for many homeowners. “Bakersfield, America’s Newest City” in the “Land of

370 Certificate of Cancelation of Street Improvement Bond, February 3, 1956, Box 61, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 371 Lien, July 9, 1954, Box 61, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1 372 Claude R. Blodget to John H. Moore and Salomie Moore, June 14 1957, Box 61, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield, 1

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Magic” was not for Mayflower. Nevertheless, Mayflower was in the city boundaries and well

inside the county.

The failed promise of annexation was a completely alien experience compared to the city

of Bakersfield. The Los Angeles Times reported that a $1,630,976 rehabilitation program

included new buildings for Bakersfield Highschool on the site of the original Bakersfield College

campus.373 The local newspaper also reported similar stories on the same day. Californians and

the regional media outlets were starting to notice the rapidly changing urban landscape of

Bakersfield. In 1956, the Bakersfield Californian followed up with headlines stating, “‘New

City’ Rises After ’52 Quake.”374 The investment was the beginning of an intentional rebuilding

of city officials. Bakersfield’s urban infrastructure was taking shape. These initial reports and

modernization were followed by an organized and purposeful advertisement and rebranding of

the city image.

The Westchester neighborhood was benefiting from the urban renewal. Westchester was

a primarily white and elite tract. By 1956, the Bakersfield Californian reported that the

Westchester community had rapidly built a second downtown, north and adjacent to the actual

downtown.375 The community of Westchester was in immediate reach of downtown, with no breaks in homes or barren lots, business, and residential areas seamlessly connected. Westchester

welcomed the Kern County Land Company’s development and many retail firms.376

The Westchester Tract (Tract 1387) was founded in the post-war era. The community was an example of how new tract housing could resemble modern suburban homes and the

373 Ibid. 374 “‘New City’ Rises After ’52 Quakes’” Bakersfield Californian, August 20, 1956, Newspaperarchive.com 375 Ibid. 376 Ibid.

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exclusivity of the crabgrass frontier. The tract was financed in its entirety by the Westchester

Development Corporation on March 15, 1948.377 The tract did come with restrictions. The

racially restrictive covenant was filed three days after, on March 18.378 Article Three, on the first

page of the covenant, stated, “No part of said property shall be used or occupied or permitted to

be occupied by any person not of the white or Caucasian race, except for such persons as are

engaged in the bona fide domestic employment of the owner….”379 Primarily white and

restricted neighborhoods had the most opportunity to advance, even foster their commercial

centers.

The City of Bakersfield had taken the financial opportunity to rebrand itself. In December

of 1956, The Beacon magazine did a multiple page feature on Bakersfield’s urban development.

The magazine praised Bakersfield for its accomplishments stating, “YOU FEEL that you are

about to shake hands with a ‘robust, friendly young giant of a community’ when you roll

northward down the Grapevine grade of the Tehachapi Mountains on Route 99, out of L.A. You

Will have the same impression coming from Fresno to the north on the same route.”380 The magazine, The Beacon, was a magazine published for employees of the Ohio Oil Company. The magazine informed employee and industry readers who were moving into Bakersfield for employment; the intended readership also included business affiliated visitors. The Beacon continued, “The Chamber of Commerce there says that Bakersfield is the ‘Newest City in

America,’ and they have a pretty sound basis on which to state their claim.”381 The

377 “Westchester Tract: Tract No. 1387,” Westchester Development Corporation, March 15, 1948, Book 6 page 104, Kern County Hall of Records, 104 378 “Westchester Declaration of Protective Restrictions,” West Chester Development Corporation, March 18, 1948, page 453, Kern County Hall of Records, 453 379 Ibid, 453 380 The Beacon 1956, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, 19 381 Ibid, 19

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advertisements of “America’s Newest City” were mostly a reality for those who lived outside of

Mayflower and Sunset. Only two years after the earthquake hit, the Oro Vista housing project

opened in February 1954. The vast difference experience was the segregated reality of America’s

Newest City. Bakersfield had accepted the selling of substandard homes in Mayflower and

exacerbated the home loss while having a 64-million-dollar investment in downtown.

In January, the same magazine ran a second part of the Bakersfield story. The Beacon

reported on the Bakersfield demeanor, “Bakersfield, Calif., is a friendly community where the

stranger in town will probably be a little surprised to find that the natives nod to one another

when they pass on the street.”382 The magazine continued that the city was not a country town,

but a mid-sized city with a population of 46,500, and with big-city sophistication.383 It stated,

“… the people of Bakersfield had enough faith in themselves and their town to turn down all outside offers of assistance in cleaning up the debris. They rolled their sleeves and brought their own the phoenix-like transformation…”384 The “bootstrapping” reference was for the multiple

bonds and state relief loans the city borrowed to finance the physical transformations around the

city. The “bootstrapping” rhetoric also protected them for the negative uses of “socialist”

references and rewrote the narrative to produce a sanitized and idealized story.

The article reported that little damage was still visible, but several new and remodeled

buildings around town were visible markers of the $64 million-dollar investment.385 It is also

worth noting that most sources cited this article for the six-million dollar figure; however, they misquoted the actual amount of $64-million-dollars. The investment included new developments

382 “Bakersfield Part II,” The Beacon 1957, Earth Quake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, 20 383 Ibid, 20 384 Ibid, 20 385 Ibid, 20

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with a multimillion-dollar civic center, a city hall, courthouse, police headquarters, seven

schools, a college, hospitals, churches, and homes.386

The City of Bakersfield even modernized its police force after the earthquake. In

November of 1958, The Motorcycle Enthusiast in Action: The Magazine for More Motorcycling

Pleasure, printed a featured spotlight on the motorcycle police force. The Bakersfield units were

photographed with their newly formed patrol. As the men stood shoulder to shoulder, it was

headlined, “Police Call.”387 The caption read, “This impressive team of Harley Davison mounted

police officers does an effective job in Bakersfield, California, a city of 54,000 people. Chief

Horace Grayson and Assistant Chief Dodge now utilize 34 solos and 7 Servi-Cars. Thirty-seven of the radio-equipped bikes are shown in the above photo.”388 The magazine was sent to every

Harley-Davidson registered owner, it is unclear how the magazine obtained the story about

Bakersfield’s units, but it was probably submitted from someone on the force who took pride in the city’s policing efforts.

Besides including photographs of the “New” Bakersfield, the Beacon magazine also reported that Kern County attracted 500,000 tourists a year, and an economy primarily of agriculture and oil, with 295 farms with more than 1000 acres each, which produced a reported

390,000 bales of cotton in 1954.389 The oil industry produced 94 million barrels of crude oil, 1/3

of California’s 1950s production.390 The magazine even quoted from Eisenhower’s letter to

Bakersfield, congratulating its citizens on the ability to reconstruct the city.

386 Ibid, 22 387 “Police Call.” The Motorcycle Enthusiast in action: The Magazine for more Motorcycling Pleasure, November 1958, back cover 388 Ibid, back cover 389 The Beacon 1957, 22 390 Ibid, 22

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The city had civic pride in the new communities and urban centers, a stark reality for

segregated neighborhoods. The City of Bakersfield had been lauded for pulling itself up by the

bootstraps and rebuilding; those who did not participate in the urban investment were blamed for

their “own” failures and not the lack of inclusion by the City. This was not true; the communities

were severely limited in choices. Ordinances from the City Council only allowed for substandard

homes to be sold, instead of actual affordable safe and sanitary homes. Those who could not

afford decent homes were removed to public housing, which removed them from the opportunity

of ownership of decent housing. The option was losing the property to urban renewal, eminent

domain, and be moved into public housing or buy substandard homes on contract. The choices

were not many. Very little of the population could afford new homes, and all the newest homes

were in the Mayflower Tract in restricted neighborhood block. The pride that the city had for

urban investment came at their approval and leisure.

The Chamber of Commerce had invested in rebranding the city, in hopes of taking advantage of the new commercial urbanization. The Chamber of Commerce printed pamphlets to distribute to businesses, tourists, and any newcomer to the City of Bakersfield. One of the first pamphlets produced read, “Bakersfield, The Newest City in America,” it advertised

A modern city requires a modern government… The community enjoys low insurance rates as a result of the outstanding police and fire protection provided and sanitation, sewage, public works, parks, recreation, and the hundreds of services rendered by the city for the benefit of its citizens are likewise of the high caliber required to earn the distinction of ‘The Newest City in America.’391 The 1956 pamphlet mostly advertised the economic and employment data relevant to agriculture,

oil, and heavy industry manufacturing. The 1959 pamphlets were more elaborate than before.

391 “Bakersfield, The Newest City in America,” Bakersfield Greater Chamber of Commerce, 1956, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library

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They read, “America’s Newest City, Bakersfield, Kern County, California, the population center

of California.”392 The pamphlet even had a map of California to show where Bakersfield was

located in relation to other towns in the county. Inside the pamphlet, there were photographs of

new churches, the county courthouse, and the new Bakersfield College football field. On the

backside of the unfolded pamphlet, it had photographs of the oil industry, textiles, agriculture,

and heavy manufacturing. The pamphlet also included photographs of public recreation places,

like Hart Park (remodeled), Lake Isabella (boating lake), Alta Sierra (skiing), and golfing. The

pamphlet quoted various statistics, including yearly economic data, agriculture production, and

demographic data. The Chamber of Commerce advertised,

With 291 sun days and delightful balmy evenings, the people of Bakersfield work live and play outdoors as much as anywhere in the world. Residents and visitors take advantage of the many natural and man-made facilities within a radius of a few miles. Proximity to mountains, lakes and beaches permit a wide choice of activities. An estimated half-million visitors enjoyed hunting, fishing, biking, and other sports in the vicinity of last year.393 The Newest City did not include any photographs of minorities. The pamphlet successfully

branded the city as a cultural and recreational paradise. The development of modern and

suburban homes was also part of the platform.

That same year the Chamber of Commerce printed magazines to advertise the city’s

suburban features. The Bakersfield, Kern County California magazine advertised, “Homes:

build to take advantage of Climate.”394 The printed featured home was luxurious with many

modern features, like “The ‘wall of glass’ building idea finds perfect conditions for use in

Bakersfield and most of the homes built in the past decade employs this styling. Airconditioning,

392 “America’s Newest City,” Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, 1959, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 393 Ibid, 3 394 “Bakersfield, Kern County California” Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, 1959, Earth Quake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, 2

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swimming pools, and patios are the rule rather than the exception of this town where the average

family income is more than 7 thousand dollars per year.”395 The Chamber of Commerce had a

selective remembrance; clearly, the segregated neighborhoods were not the image of urban

renewal, nor were they included in the economy they wanted to attract. The modernization of

Bakersfield allowed for the transformation and the qualification to be on the economic map of

the modern South-West, along with other large cities like Phoenix, Arizona, and other modern

Southern California cities.

Phoenix, Arizona became a pivotal reference to the Modern Southwest, perhaps more

than emphasized in Andrew Needham’s study. As Bakersfield was often overlooked in favor of the Southern metropolitan center of Los Angeles and the Northern city of San Francisco, or

Oakland, Bakersfield explicitly looked to Phoenix’s development as a model. Many magazines claimed Bakersfield as “America’s Newest City.396 The Beacon Magazine, which was published

for employees by the Ohio Oil Company, advertised and celebrated the city’s renewal as

“California’s Phoenix- Like City.”397 The reference to Phoenix was both to Arizona and

figuratively the ancient Egyptian fabled bird. The Bakersfield Californian emphasized that

Bakersfield had seen remarkable reconstruction in only four years after the earthquake, and like

the phoenix, rose from its ashes.398 An article by Burton Hainline, the Administrative Assistant for Information in Kern County, reported that the county officials had visited various Western cities to view contemporary structures and design after the earthquake.399 On July 16, 1956, the

395 Ibid, 2 396 “Bakersfield, Kern County, California: American’s Newest City,” Kern County Chamber of Commerce, 1959, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 397 “Magazine Lauds City’s Recovery From Temblors,” Bakersfield Californian, January 7, 1957. Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library 398 Ibid. 399 Burton Hainline “The County the Quake Couldn’t Kill!” Publication Unknown, December 1959, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library, 382

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City Council of the City of Bakersfield authorized the City Manager to travel to Oxnard and San

Diego, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, to inspect the mass transportation system.400 Officials

had traveled frequently to Phoenix, Arizona to witness the modern development, and Kern

County public housing officials traveled there.

Andrew Needham’s Powerlines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest,

characterizes the making and strategic development of a new urban metropolis of Phoenix,

Arizona, concerning the segregation of the Arizona Navajos. Before the 1940s, Arizona had been

very rural, and in the 1920s, Phoenix had been the modern highway hub of Arizona.401402 The

war and postwar related government contracts effectively transformed the “Valley of the Sun,”

as Phoenix was marketed since the 1920s.403 Investments included aircraft production,

communication industries, energy development, and military contract companies.404 Needham

emphasizes how electricity intensified the structural inequalities between Phoenix and the

Navajo Reservation.405

Needham also argues the urbanization brought many changes by politics in order to claim

energy and lands.406 By the 1940s, Phoenix was becoming one of the most modern cities in the

west, claiming 62,000 homes in the 1960s. The twenty-year change brought more than 200,000

people into the metropolitan center.407 The substantial rise in the metropolitan center led many

400 “City Manager authorized to inspect municipal operated mass-transportation system at Oxnard and San Diego, California and Phoenix, Arizona; also authorized to inspect landfill method at Riverside,” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, 234 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 401 Bradford, Luckingham, “Urban Development in Arizona: The Rise of Phoenix,” The Journal of Arizona History, vol 22, no 2, (Summer 1981), 206, (JSTOR) 4185949 402 Ibid, 216 403 Ibid, 219 404 Ibid, 219 405 Andrew Needham, Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 17 406 Luckingham, 51-52 407 Ibid, 55

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Arizona developers to see the Navajo Reservation as grounds for the development of energy. The

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) saw the reservations as potential grounds for energy sites and

saw the Colorado Plateau as grounds that were overpopulated and in urban decline during the

postwar era.408 The Four Corners and Cholla Power Plants were built in the 1960s, and their lines

ran through the Navajo Reservation. The Arizona Public Service began to draw close to half of

its power from these plants and transmitting it to urban centers.

Phoenix benefited the most from the power plants. Between 1940 and 1960, Phoenix had

become a modern city, with all the amenities and comforts of modern life, while the

neighborhoods remained racially segregated.409 The “Valley of the Sun” campaign for urban

renewal was more than a name change. It represented a draw for wealthy citizens.410 Investments

in the year-round business, recreation, and tourism allowed the rebranding of the new urban

cities as predominantly white space.

Bakersfield used the same platform for investment. The modernization and reimagination mirrored Phoenix. Both cities invested in a marketing platform, a specific demographic and

urban features like business and recreation. The Southwest became more than urban space; it

allowed for expansive growth and investment. Needham argues that the founding of subdivisions

had become second nature, this ease of construction, with little barriers was only possible with

federal guarantees, like FHA loans.411 The building of homes on former agricultural land, within

the cycle of capital, the investment dollars flowed, subdivisions were built as entire communities.

The buyer was no longer having a direct relationship with homebuilding but instead financing a

408 Ibid, 129-130 409 Needham, 57 410 Ibid, 61 411 Ibid, 68

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newly built home in an already established, but newly built community. These peripheries

became fixated in space and time; they no longer had memories of the previous land, and became

newly formed urban centers, changing the face of Phoenix.412 Financial investment had become

an essential marker of the productivity of new space, rather than the reformation of old,

dilapidated space. In Southern Phoenix, homes would be seen as dilapidated and provided with

little to no city services.413 Bakersfield had the same features in its urban landscape.

Phoenix was the closest city undergoing a similar urban development program

comparable to Bakersfield in my study. Many western cities say the creation of new urban

centers and suburban homes. Cities in the 1950s generally did not rebuild their downtowns, but

Bakersfield and Phoenix sought to keep modifying their city centers. In the same light, Phoenix

was the most significant metropolitan western center outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Bakersfield wanted a similar role, but for the Central Valley. The expansion and growth had similar characteristics: the development of an urban infrastructure, FHA backed urbanization on previous farmland, the abandonment of the dilapidated urban space for a new productive area.

Possibly the most substantial connection was the sending of officials to Phoenix to witness the new urban landscape.

The investment in urban exclusion was no secret in the West. Jerry Gonzalez, who studies the transformations in Los Angeles, explains a very complicated relationship between

Hispanics and urban development. Some Latina/o/x communities participated in the ethnic

Caucasian culture, and some were able to move into the suburbs, mirroring other ethnic white

412 Ibid, 72 413 Ibid, 111

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Americans, but not all.414 Suburban renewal displaced many of those who lived and worked on

farmland. Hispanics experience displacement at the Hick’s Camp in El Monte, Los Angeles

County. Many workers were Latina/o/x renters who worked in the Hick farms. As they lacked

real property ownership, even if the camps had little modern features, they were removed

because they were substandard.415 Most minorities were victims of urbanization’s mission to

eradicate substandard housing, which was simply called “urban renewal.” This effort took the

positive characteristics of modernity and urban development since modern changes was not a

universal experience; this came at the cost of minority renters and homeowners. Affordability did

not always translate into equal housing, sanitary, or modern amenities. Modern infrastructure

came at the cost of many minority populations. This instance in El Monte was similar to what

happened in Chavez Ravine. The neighborhood of Chavez Ravine had been acquired through

eminent domain to build public housing. As Hispanic families were evicted, subsequently, the

City of Los Angeles decided that the vacant properties would become the home of Dodger

Stadium.416 The City used eminent domain to acquire properties, and as they became owners,

they invested in urban development for tourism and industry. They had no real interest in

building minority housing.

In 1958, the Visitor’s Guide to Bakersfield did not include Mayflower, Sunset, and the

other areas that were in poverty.417 “America’s Newest City” was no accident of urban

414 Jerry Gonzalez, In Search of Mexican Beverley Hills: Latino Suburbanization in Postwar Los Angeles, (Camden: Rutgers University Press, 2018), 3 415 Ibid, 40 416 Findlay, 292 417 See Figure 8, “Visitor’s Guide to Bakersfield, California America’s Newest City,” Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, 1958, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library

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exclusion. The inequalities were hardened in the post-war era, with policy and unequal regard for policy stakeholders.

Figure 8 “Visitor’s Guide to Bakersfield, California America’s Newest City,” Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, 1958, Earthquake Vertical File, Jack Maguire Local History Room, Beale Memorial Library

Segregation was already in place before the War, as many racially restrictive covenants were already in place and excluded individuals from equal and fair housing in the 1940s. Most restrictive covenants were written in the wake of the migrations after 1938. As most restrictive covenants included race, they also limited home use, like keeping animals or unwanted uses of homes or yards. They also distanced themselves from white and black Dust Bowl migrants, by limiting race and uses of the home for income.

In 1959, under the “America’s Newest City” platform, the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce’s Committee commissioned to “Study the Needs for an Institution of Higher

Education, a Sub-committee of the Education Committee of the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of

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Commerce.” The report studied and argued for the need for a four-year higher education

institution in 1959. As the committee visited the University of California, Riverside and Fresno

State College, they concluded that Kern County had an immediate need for an independent

higher education institution to “… augment the facilities of our existing junior colleges, [Taft

College and Bakersfield College] and the Bakersfield Center of Fresno State College…”418 The

study called for a higher education institution. The university materialized in 1965 when a Senate

Bill established California State College, Kern County, now today known as California State

University, Bakersfield. Its location, with the donation of land by Tenneco, was built adjacent

and near the elite community of Stockdale Country Club.419 The developers had proposed a zone of influence. The university’s setting and neighborhoods were supposed to compliment the site of higher learning. The fundamental structures of suburbanization were used, including the structures of inequalities.

418 “A Study of the Need for Locating an Institution of Higher Education in Kern County,” Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, Vertical File, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 419 See figure 9, “Stockdale Vicinity Map,” California State University History Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield

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Figure 9

Bakersfield’s higher education system was strategically placed outside of the immediate

reach of those in poverty, and adjacent to neighborhoods with a white majority. Bakersfield’s

segregated landscape was solidified in the post-earthquake period from 1952 to 1960.

Bakersfield’s conservatism and racial boundaries were already present. It was the financial growth and opportunity for urban development that facilitated the hardening of geographic and housing inequalities. The urbanizing City of Bakersfield in the 1960s spoke the national language of anti-civil rights and merit base language. During the rise of the Silent Majority of the

South, the language became national and used in defense of white privilege attacking minority demands for equal rights.

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Conclusion

Modernity in the 1950s was not particularly a shared experience. There was a duality to

modern changes -- or even a contradiction. Suburbanization and blight were seen as

incompatible, but often shared a relationship with policyholders, planners, and developers. As

suburban and urban areas experienced modern change and development, minority neighborhoods

also changed. They received a lesser form of investment like the destruction of dilapidated

homes, zoning restrictions, public housing, and resistance. Many theorists of the 1970s and later

years sought to define the contributing characteristics of modern not just in physical space but

culture and identity. Marshall Berman’s theory on modernism explains that modernity lacks a

centralized public space. Yet, it is followed by a public desire for visible modern changes, which

resulted in substantial physical changes.420 These changes were visible in postwar Bakersfield.

This aspect of modernism was possible by uniform planning of homes and city centers. As urban

centers became a reality, modernity was transformed into access to opportunity for many people,

but not everyone. Modern became a recent memory, and it influenced culture, physical space,

and relationships between race. Modern change overshadowed the lasting inequalities that lacked long-term transformations. The modernity that shaped the postwar era became the recent history in Bakersfield and shaped new race relations in the 1950s.

The postwar era brought many changes to Bakersfield, California and the West. For

Bakersfield, what truly accelerated the inequalities that already existed in housing was the 1952 earthquake. Chapter One described the housing practices and living conditions, showing that inequalities had long existed before the postwar period. The high rate of dilapidation gave way to

420 Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), 7; The first edition was published in 1982.

171 public housing, with the promise of accessing sanitary home conditions. The promise of subsidized rental housing was not without resistance, as the housing projects were fought, the

1952 earthquake came, allowing for the accelerated rebuilding of the city of Bakersfield. The earthquake brought new inequalities.

The earthquake had negative consequences for minorities. The earthquake, supported by a decade of research on housing conditions, practices, and public policy, allowed for a valuable case study on housing inequalities. As the promise of fair housing were being debated, race relations and segregation proved to be rigid. The city avoided large and infrastructure investment in dense minority areas, unlike other areas of town. Real estate agents not only controlled the markets but also reaffirmed the position of the municipal government. Realtors took advantage of the failed promise of modern infrastructure, preying on unpaid taxes and sewer bonds.

Housing outside of minority districts was not opened to integration; on the contrary, only second-class homes and substandard structured were supported as an alternative to fair housing.

These new inequalities and resistance to equality also impacted the 1960s.

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Epilogue: “Resistance to Change” Introduction

The epilogue of this thesis explores the rise of right-wing conservative resistance to equality in Bakersfield, California. As anti-civil rights rhetoric was used in the form of meritocratic language, it became an effective strategy to combat progress and shifted the responsibility of segregation to the victims of disenfranchisement in the 1960s. The use of meritocratic language and action gave way to the rise of the de facto segregation myth that persists in Bakersfield today. The epilogue explores the 1960s to recent history to analyze the lack of change in Mayflower. I use sources from local political correspondents responding to national civil rights policies, pamphlets, and publications by the local conservative right-wing figures, like Richard Cotten, who was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This thesis ends with recent reports on unequal geographic opportunities to access public and health services in Bakersfield.

Finally, the epilogue explores the question of why these neighborhoods continue to lack equal opportunity in housing and education. I suggest that it was the white backlash that hindered progress and created a narrative of minorities “choosing” to live in dilapidated conditions in the

1960s. This thesis suggests that Mayflower still lacks inclusion by economic opportunity as it still suffers from the adverse effects of public policy. Residents cannot afford enforced changes in building codes or zero-tolerance zoning enforcement. Minorities who live in affordable areas are more susceptible to the condemnation of homes and limited housing opportunities. The

City’s minimal investment and lack of fair housing availability continue to trouble the neighborhoods, resulting in gross inequalities in comparison to other geographic areas. The similar housing situation remains, affordability does not equal safe and sanitary housing.

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I argue that the early influence of conservatism had led to fewer progress for racial

minorities. The rise of right-wing anti-civil rights rhetoric established a myth of de facto

segregation in Bakersfield. Neoliberalism also had similar patterns and defense of limitations.

Both movements had a veneer of their responsibility of public good, but ultimately ignored

systemic segregation in housing and other areas of civic and social equality. The use of

meritocratic language solidified the myth in popular memory. The merit-based language written

to policy writers depicted minorities as victims of their self-determination, and the absence of

these motivations were attributed to the failures of race. The white communities used

meritocratic language as false rhetoric and a convenient language. These writers had not

experienced racial discrimination, nor did they research the effects of systemic discrimination or

how their actions contributed to local inequalities. The mythic ideology of self-segregation

allowed for continued inequalities in the Mayflower Tract to exist. Policy writers could blame

the geographic area and their people and avoid accountability in their actions. This epilogue will

analyze the rise of conservatism in Bakersfield and the support to counter the civil rights

movement. The movement’s rhetoric and racial expectations, regardless of existing

discrimination, established new inequalities in the post-1960s that continue into the present.

By 1960, segregation was well engrained into the geographic landscape and public policy

of Bakersfield. Mayflower, Census Tract 22, was already a primarily African American tract and

reflected that reality in the Census of 1960.421 This thesis explored housing conditions in Chapter

One, public policy and early resistance to fair housing in Chapter Two, and exclusion to Modern and equal housing in Chapter Three. Many opportunities were still not open for minority housing

421 Johnie Mae Parker, How Long? Not Long!: The Battle to end Poverty in Bakersfield, (Bakersfield: Johnie Mae Parker, 1987) 3

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in 1960. While we do not have vast records or reports of white mobs intimidating African

Americans who moved into “white” neighborhoods, there are vast records that show how

Bakersfield became segregated. Each chapter shows the limited transformations and resistance to

fair housing that was experienced in twenty years.

There exists a recorded instance of an African American family that was harassed for

moving into a white neighborhood. The experience was published in a local magazine,

California Crossroads, where repeated phone calls and neighbor harassment described the

account.422 By 1960, Mayflower’s homes totaled 610 owner-occupied compared to 849 renter- occupied.423 The buying on contract economy had shifted to a renting economy, further

removing the opportunity for minority homeownership. Bakersfield’s segregation was

identifiable: the 1960 Census also revealed that Bakersfield had above-average segregation on

the national index value.424 The percentage index represented how many whites lived in

proximity to non-whites. The same index number was reported on Racial Isolation in Public

Schools: A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1967.

Segregation was a reality by 1960, but the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement and

Brown v. Board of Education started a movement to reduce equality and actions to deny equal

participation. This backlash effectively limited attempts at desegregation and the promise of

equality of the 1960s and further on. Housing was also limited, as the rhetoric of meritocratic

language fundamentally influenced public policy. Neoliberalism also followed in similar patterns

with opportunities that required grant applications, programs, and other forms of support. While

422 Oliver Rosales, “’Mississippi West’: Race, Politics and Civil Rights in California’s Central Valley, 1947-1984,” (Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012), 23 ProQuest (3540209) 423 Ibid, 67 424 Bakersfield had a reported 87.5 and where the average mean of segregation was 86.2: Karl E. Taueber Alma F. Taeuber, Negroes in Cities: Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Change, (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1965), 32

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these efforts brought changes, they were limited to application processes, limited funds, administrations, and the lack of direct access to help. This was the lack of change that can be seen later in the decades that preceded this study. This is often cited to the credit of the rise of the

“Silent Majority.” The “Majority” expressed their disapproval in civil rights public policy and federal subsidized programs, and they found support from their public officials who were sympathetic to their cause. If not, they elected public officials who were sympathetic to their cause. It is essential to state that this “Silent Majority” was not silent. They took their time to write and support anti-civil rights policy and action. The organization and lobbying efforts were

the rise of the “conservative” activism in the 1960s. Though the word activism denotes associations of righteous action and demands for justice, in this case, activism was broadly individuals plans of action and coalitions to support changes in the national arena.

The Rise of Right-Wing Conservatism and Backlash to the Civil Rights Movement

By 1969, Richard Cotten was an established and recognizable right-wing conservative

writer, radio talk broadcaster, and once a resident of Bakersfield, California. By the time he

moved to the South, his main office still functioned in Bakersfield, with a second office in

Washington, D.C., for lobbying politicians. In the mid-1960s, he had used his newsletter to promote a right-wing conservative ideology, which led to a national readership. Richard Cotten is relatively unheard of in current historical analysis, perhaps due to his extreme writings and

constant offensive language. However, Cotten was a national figure in the 1960s and essential to

analyze. By 1965, the Los Angeles Times had taken an interest in investigating Cotten and his

motivations. In April, columnist Paul Coates wrote on political right-winged extremists, stating,

“But I confess to a certain feeling of amusement everytime the extremists to the right of us let

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out a pained yelp that radio and TV commenters are slanted against them.” 425 As much as

Coates took to criticize his more radical colleagues, he titled his column, “Patriots of the Right of

Us…”426 Coates’ article focused on analyzing right-winged talk radio. Regardless of his soft

criticism, Coates stated that Richard Cotten was spending as much as $14,000 a year on one

radio broadcast, which Coates then questioned how much Cotten spent; Cotten had stated that he

was broadcasting up to 20 stations.427 If this analysis was accurate, that meant that Cotten was

receiving more than $280,000 yearly in 1965. The tally does not include his profits, nor payment

for his speaking engagements. That was serious money, but no other sources analyze Cotten’s

finances. Future analysis is necessary, which would add to the conversation of the supporter’s

demographics, economics, geographic span, and in turn, allow for new analysis on extreme right- wing support in the 1960s. Coates then concluded, “He is in big business. And I wonder who is paying for it.”428 Coates was right, but there are light sources that remain to characterize his

financial contributors. All evidence that is left of Cotten’s broadcast career is his pamphlets.

Cotten’s publications also exist in various conservative archival collections and even

contemporary acknowledgments. In 2010 the National Vanguard, a racist and conservative

website, featured an article to honor his legend.429 Cotten is short of in or perhaps selective

remembrance.

Interestingly enough, the Los Angeles Times published a response to Coates’ column, and

it was Ruth W. Cotten, Richard’s mother. Ruth Cotten had written to disapprove of her son’s

actions stating, “In my family, we have never before had a racist…,” Ruth even stated, “I am a

425 Paul Coates, “Partriots to the Right of Us…” Los Angles Times, April 18, 1965, F7 Newspaperarchive.com 426 Ibid 427 ibid 428 Ibid 429 Kevin Alred Strom, “A Tribute to Richard Cotten,” National Vanguard, October 26, 2010, [accessed 3-14-2020] https://nationalvanguard.org/2010/10/a-tribute-to-richard-cotten/

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member of the Urban League of 12 years standing, and a close friend of its president Dr. J.J.

Kimbrough.”430 Coates was even able to confirm that Dr. Kimbrough, the first African American

to be appointed to the State Board of Dental Examiners, had been Ruth’s dentist and had known

her for some years through donations to the Urban League.431 Dr. Jack Johnson Kimbrough had

been San Diego’s first African American dentist and a civil rights activist, where he founded the

San Diego Urban League and was a former President of the local NAACP chapter.432 Regardless

of the Cotten family’s bizarre relationship, Coates was able to state that Richard Cotten was a

professional racist. Coates never revealed Cotten’s finances, but his wide distribution was not of

his merit. Cotten’s finances were through contributions to his publication, and other donations.

Readers believed in his rhetoric to give financial support by subscribing to his publication.

On February 18, 1966, Cotten took the time to explain his conflicts with “More

Discrimination.” He explained to his readers that bigotry was not discrimination or racism, but

protective measures of a rational choice. Cotten wrote,

Goodness no, I don’t discriminate. This seems to be about a standard reply! We reply this way because somehow it is suddenly supposed to be ‘not nice’ to discriminate!... We teach our children to discriminate and guard them, and guide them, in their selection of playmates. Because we are ‘bigoted’? Hardly, but we love them, and want what is good for them, and because we are the sum and substance of our culture, our beliefs, our religion, our heritage, and we want our children to select companions who are in harmony.433 Cotten was not in favor of integration, as his writing reflects that discrimination was a necessary

policy and a right of choice.

430 Paul Coats, “Politically Sane Mother Can’t Understand Hate-Mongering Son.” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1965, A6 Newspaperarchive.com 431 Ibid 432 John H. Lee, “Activist Jack Johnson Kimbrough Remembered,” Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1992, [accessed 3- 14-2020] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-17-me-441-story.html 433 Richard Cotten, “More Discrimination.” Richard Cotten’s Conservative Viewpoint, Vol 4 no. 41, February 18, 1969, 1

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Regardless of what he wrote at times, he was a segregationist with consistent rhetoric. On

March 8, 1966, he wrote a piece attacking the national press for calling the Citizen’s Council, the

“White Citizen’s Council.” In his writings, he included excerpts from segregationist Alabama

Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace. Wallace is often credited as the modern

shift in conservative politics. He was a pro-segregationist national voice, who ran a presidential

campaign in 1965 and found extensive support. Wallace was depicting the strength and shift to

emphasizing the racial politics of the South, to national rhetoric. Cotten cited Wallace’s excerpts,

where Wallace defended the formation of the council movement for the preservation of the white

majority leadership.434 Cotten was making a point and leading a transition to colorblind

disenfranchisement. His sources provided language that argued for the preservation of the white

majority, but by only including small excerpts for white supremacy. He attempted to mask or

coded his racism by explaining his racial beliefs in his arguments.

In that same publication, Cotten printed a Citizen’s Council flyer from Jackson

Mississippi titled, “What is the Citizen’s Council Doing?” Some of the many quoted accomplishments was, “Preserving Racial Segregation, and maintaining the rights of states…,” listing various “if you believe” statements. The Council’s flyer listed,

If you believe that integration will bring the evils of miscegenation (interbreeding between the different races). If you believe that social intermingling and miscegenation will be seriously detrimental to both races and our civilization… THEN… You should support the Citizens’ Councils!435 Cotten’s rhetoric was not about rationality, let alone equality, but defending real bigotry. He

offered a redefinition of discrimination and race relations. Cotten hid the rhetoric of racism in his

434 Richard Cotten, “The Truth Cries Out.” Richard Cotten’s Conservative Viewpoint, Vol 4 no. 56, March 8, 1966, 1 435 Ibid, 2

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statements and arguments, where he supported hardened ideology on segregation. As much as

Cotten was attempting to clear up his own “confusion” on the name of the Citizen’s Council, it was indeed the pro-white-Citizen’s Council; he even provided the evidence. He cited segregationist arguments in that same publication, for example, the flyer that supported the preservation of white leadership and taking pride in racial segregation.

Richard Cotten’s rhetoric was not strange nor foreign when he signed his slogan,

“Freedom is not Free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not Free,” in the 1960s.436 Cotten

rose from a figure whose rhetoric and publications were investigated by the FBI, to a known

figure of conservative ideology, finding a community in many national conservative gatherings.

Bakersfield had not been a stranger to right-wing conservative ideas. In the 1950s,

Thomas Werdel ran a platform and rhetoric against New Deal philosophy and “freeing the

GOP.” Werdel had been one of the significant obstacles for Governor Earl Warren’s presidential campaign in 1952. Werdel had run on an “anything but Warren campaign,” and ran as his only

Republican challenger in California, winning support in Orange County. His platform was focused on a “Free Republican Delegation.”437 Werdel was described as a right-wing conservative. Werdel believed that Warren had abandoned the Republican Party for New Deal philosophy by supporting government-subsidized programs. Werdel’s supporters spent $150,000 fighting Warren’s campaign, on the rhetoric of, “real Republicanism versus Warren’s

Trumanism.” Warren beat Werdel by a two-to-one margin, and Werdel did not make it out of

California in 1952, but 1956 he ran on the vice president ticket for the pro-segregation States’

436 Richard Cotten, “Conservative Viewpoint: Broadcasts 29-31.” Richard Cotten’s Conservative Viewpoint, Vol 7 no. 6, February 8, 1969, 1 437 Kurt Schuparra, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of California Conservative Movement, 1945-1966, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 19

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Rights party. Conservative right-wing politicians had existed since the 1950s in Kern County,

and this would come to define the region and population’s political voting behaviors.

California’s politics were shifting rapidly in the 1950s. As suburbanization was taking

shape, neighborhoods, and race relations were also shifting. The era was marked by politics of

anticommunism, a new middle class, and political personalities that came to define the 1950s and

1960s. The 1960s also brought much change and hardened right-wing conservative “values” into

Bakersfield. Many took their time to write to their political representatives to voice their

disapproval of the national Civil Rights Acts through demonstrations, and the use of meritocratic

language. The John Birch Society and other conservative groups found support in Bakersfield’s

new economy and new urban space. By the 1950s and the end of the 1960s, “New Deal” philosophies had been relabeled as socialist or communist, becoming a negative and unfavorable association. With the shifting rhetoric, government-subsidized programs and Civil Rights legislation found resistance as they were labeled as advancing the ideologies of the anti-

American international relationships.

Conservative political ideology of the 1960s was marked by problems and public policy that defined the 1950s. As many debated the introduction of public housing, investment in urban renewal, and international relationships in the 1950s, the focus of the emerging right-wing conservatism was marked in the 1960s by property owners, opinions of moral decency, social services, nation civil rights, and labor hierarchies.438 Property owners were labeled as producers,

and those who reached the new middle class took their time to lobby and contribute to a national

voice and political platforms. The voices focused on self-defined moral decency and a counter to

438 Ibid, xix

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public expressions of the contrary, a backlash to the idea of unproductive and non-contributing

producers who used social services and strong resistance to civil rights.439 They resisted even if

the people in question paid their fair share of taxes.

Historian Lisa McGrirr provides a valuable addition to scholarly understandings of

California conservatism’s growth. She defines the rise of conservatism as separate from “radical

right” ideologies.440 Werdel fits as a mainstream conservative figure, only really taking

advantage of the social anxieties of the white majority, rarely focusing on direct mentions to

race. He was against integration and funding of social programs. However, as an early figure, he

was not a radical right conservative by failing to address race directly. Cotten was very direct

and very extreme, a sharper contrast than Werdel, who also supported segregation. McGirr

argues that by the end of the 1960s that radicalism had been mainstreamed by the general

feelings of lacking political power and voice. Those feelings led to active participation in

publishing and spreading literature by local supporters, informing new supporters of values, and

consolidating political support through new political strategies.441 Cotten represents the shift of

radicalism to mainstream conservatism.

Richard Cotten rose to national standing by speaking and publishing his rhetoric in a self-

published journal. He defended southern racial politics and the rise of national efforts to hinder

equal racial rights. Other journals helped spread his message and defense. The journals became a

voice for each other, a coalition of support, and favorable commentary. Cotten and other writers

often focused on the unfair treatment they received. In a publication titled, “California

439 Ibid, xix 440 Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of New American Right, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 10 441 Ibid, 15-16

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Broadcaster Defends the South,” in the John B. Hood Journal. The editor Robert B. Hughes wrote,

During the most recent smear attacks on the Southland by the national press, Richard Cotten, a commentator from Bakersfield, California risked his radio career to come to its defense. Mr. Cotten’s reports told factually how the South had come under attack from a communist reporting in favor of “civil riots” and against Christian Southerners over dozens of radio stations in the West and North. His program schedule may be obtained by writing to Richard Cotten Conservative Viewpoint Post Office Box 1976, Bakersfield, California.442 The Hood Journal also followed the rhetoric of unfairness, often demanding to receive a chance to defend their ideas. Writers hoped that a sense of victimization would add clarity or validation to their argument. Cotten and the Hood Journal felt it necessary to clarify and explain their stances, using the rhetoric that they were attacked or falsely accused of publishing specific ideas.

The journal was published in Dallas, Texas, and served white readers to support white views and racial supremacy of the white South. The Hood Journal offered its readers a limited supply of ‘white only’ signs produced by the journal. The advertisement read, “They read ‘White

Only’ and are professionally [produced]… They are self-adhesive with waterproof ink. Think of their possibilities. On your personal bathrooms, etc., anywhere they are still legal.”443 The fifteen cents or a quarter for two could be mailed to the journal’s publication address.444 The journal still exists today and holds a claimed lineage to sons of Confederate veterans.

Cotten served the ideology of white supremacy locally in Bakersfield but also had a national readership.445 Cotten’s pamphlets are available outside of California still today in

442 Robert B. Hughes, Jr. “John B. Hood Camp Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) John B. Hood Journal.” John B. Hood Camp no. 1224 Sons of Confederate Veterans, Complied by Edward H. Sebesta, 10/18/2017, a website is still active representing the group. http://scvtexas.org/Camp_50.html 443 Ibid, 1 444 Ibid, 1 445 Richard Cotten’s name is spelled Richard Cotton in various publications but are indeed the same person.

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conservative collections. Cotten’s influence and prominence was also investigated by the CIA

and FBI, for his powerful language and support of the Minutemen, which alerted authorities.

In May of 1965, Cotten promoted and supported Minutemen on his radio show and was also working in secret by purchasing guns for the group; the same informant who gave this information also alleged that Cotten was involved in a plot to murder Martin Luther King Jr. during his visit to California in 1965.446 The Minutemen had a small following in Southern

California in the 1960s, and it was an extreme group of white supremacists that stepped out of

the democratic process to achieve their goals.447 The accusation charged that Cotten was

planning on acquiring dynamite to kill Dr. King, but the plan had been diverted when the FBI

arrested and charged a construction worker for stealing dynamite. Cotten was never charged or

arrested.

Cotten was reported as being very anti-African American and Antisemitic.448 Reviews of

his publications confirm the accusation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s file shows that

Cotten was investigated as early as 1962, having shown religious films in the Bakersfield City

Council.449 On March 20, 1963, Cotten advised an individual of the National Guard to join the

group of Minutemen to protect this country.450 On May 27, 1963, Cotten sent his opposition

statement to AB1240, otherwise known as the Rumford Fair Housing Act of 1963.451 Cotten had

446Caufield, Jefferey, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy.” (Moreland Press 2015) 555 447 McGirr, 10 448 Ibid, 555 449 FBI files, Freedom of Information Act, Richard Berkley Cotten, LA-157-1131, March 9, 1965 1 [accessed 3-14- 2020] https://archive.org/details/COTTENRIchardBerkeleyLosAngeles1571132/page/n11/mode/2up 450 The name of the individual is retracted. Ibid, 1 451 City Council, “Reception of Communication from Richard B. Cotten expressing opposition to AB 1240.” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, July 16, 1963 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/

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the support of the local Minutemen and took an active role in not just pushing his rhetoric, but

also taking action at the local level.

During this time in Bakersfield, he was the Secretary for the Christian Laymen of Kern

County. Research suggests that this organization was a closeted Ku Klux Klan group,

functioning under the auspices of the American Council Christian Laymen. The organization

under official groups was standard of hate factions, as they attempted to hide their views under a

political group to hold influence and official membership to spread their message. In the 1950s,

the American Council of Christian Laymen was also investigated for producing anti-communist

material and anti-Protestant literature.452 The organization was listed as a financial contributor to

the Christian Nationalist Crusade from 1952 to 1953.453 The closest Christian Nationalist

Crusade group was in Los Angeles, about 100 miles south of Bakersfield.454 Outside of

California, it was in Atlanta, Georgia, and in Indianapolis, Indiana, where former Klan members

founded the same politically affiliated groups.455 Most of Cotten’s speeches and booklets suggest

that Cotten was a Klan member. In September of 1976, he attended the World’s National

Congress or the International Patriotic Congress in Metairie, Louisiana, which was held by

David Duke and his supporters.456 David Duke, a recognizable name for white supremacy,

chartered his chapter of the KKK in August 1975.457

452 FBI Files, Freedom of Information Act, American Council of Christian Laymen, FBI file 1128548-000 https://archive.org/details/AmericanCouncilOfChristianLaymenVerneKaubHQ62100432/page/n23/mode/2up 453 FBI Files, Freedom of Information Act, American Christian Nationalist Party, FBI file 1068690-000, 41 https://archive.org/details/ChristianNationalistPartyGeraldLKSmithBoston1003009865pp/page/n3/mode/2up/search/ American+Christian+Nationalist+Party?q=American+Christian+Nationalist+Party 454 Ibid, 63 455 Ibid, 62 456 Michael Newton, The National States Rights Party: A History, (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 2017) 183 457 Ibid, 183

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In 1964, Cotten filed the articles of incorporation for his bulletin, “Conservative

Viewpoint,” in Bakersfield, California. Cotten’s rise to fame was fast; by 1964, he had a national readership and by 1965, he was booked for speaking engagements over the country. Cotten was booked for speaking engagements in 1965 up to and down the nation from Washington, Oregon,

Illinois, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas.458 His bulletin, “Richard Cotten’s

Conservative Viewpoint,” reached national audiences too. His radio broadcast reached equally as far, including states like California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon,

Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Illinois.459

Cotten’s records showed that he had never been arrested.460 Perhaps this was a signifier that his extreme views on race were popular and widely accepted, or just were not a threat to white Americans. One FBI file described Cotten as, “… an ultra-rightist individual with some emotional instability, and with a tendency toward violence… through the years, had been extremely active in disseminating anti-negro and anti-Semitic information.”461 Little action was taken against Cotten, regardless of his radical ideas. In late 1965, the owner of the radio station that employed Cotten was charged with a complaint under FCC rules that violated rules for broadcasting anti-government material.462 The owner, Albert Williams defended Cotten’s stance,

“… of this date [1965] had been reinstated by the owner of the station because Mr. Williams feels that to do otherwise would be to infringe on Mr. Cotten’s right to express himself.”463

Cotten found resistance, but little enforcement on censorship. The concept of freedom of speech was used by radical right-wing figures to defend and intimidate others publicly. The act of

458 FBI files, Richard Berkley Cotten, 6 459 Ibid, 7 460 Ibid, 9 461 Ibid. 62-63 462 Ibid, 96 463 Ibid, 99

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defending the freedom of speech was diluted to a singular concept. It was based on the

expressions of demanding resistance to stop the advancement of racial equality and equity.

In the same memorandum, Cotten was described as a “racist,” yet the FCC failed to enforce the censorship, citing his right to free speech.464 Freedom of speech became a tool for

empowerment and the ability to express desires to discriminate. Cotten had also defended the Ku

Klux Klan. An informant to the FBI stated,

… that Cotten praises the Ku Klux Klan, refers to the Justice Department as an ‘off balance investigative body,’ derides the Supreme Court; He also stated on his broadcasts that in the South membership in the Ku Klux Klan is an honorable thing, and has stated further that the Ku Klux Klan was investigated in the state of Louisiana and no fault could be found in it.465 Richard Cotten’s rise to popularity does not suggest his personality as romantic, nor charismatic,

but rather aligned with the anti-civil rights movement and the rise of national conservative

rhetoric to combat equal rights for racial minorities. The FBI had collected pamphlets, testimony,

and articles supporting Cotten’s accused extremism. Cotten’s popularity symbolizes the rise of

the right and the all-out resistance to equal rights regardless of national policy. His lack of

enforced censorship exacerbated this.

The question is: why did Bakersfield become a place for right-wing conservatism? This is an important question, considering larger and more influential cities in California overshadow

Bakersfield. Perhaps the question is too complex to answer at this moment; nevertheless, it seems to correlate to the evolution and reconstruction of Bakersfield after the 1952 earthquake.

Bakersfield became an economic powerhouse of the Central Valley, both in investment and in politics. It remains challenging to characterize Bakersfield’s conservatism as influenced by the

464 “FCC Refuses to Censor Cotten’s Broadcast,” Bakersfield Californian, September 29, 1966, FBI files 110 465 Ibid, 100

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migration of Southern whites during the Dust Bowl. In essence, racism didn’t just come from the

South. What is known is that Bakersfield’s racial boundaries were policed early on, and even before the Dust Bowl, the Ku Klux Klan operated in Taft and in Bakersfield during the 1920s.

Taft, California, was also a recognizable Sundown town.466 Both Taft and Bakersfield are in

Kern County. Racial profiling and racist policing existed in the 1930s and 1940s.

The City of Bakersfield also had policed race relations. In 1938 an investigating officer

for the District Attorney, Deputy Dupes, responded to a case in the county.467 The case he was

called to this time involved two African American men. The charge was disturbing the peace.

Allegedly, J. W. Webb went to the home of Mildred Johnson, a white girl. He asked to borrow a

washstand and, at the time, handed off a hand-written letter to Johnson. The exchange of the

alleged letter resulted in a call to the police and warranted an investigation. The police

memorandum concluded with an ominous note, “Hold this until we get the address of these

Negroes and have someone [b]eat [sic] them up.”468 By 1943, the negative attitudes were still

present, and most visibly had real consequences in Bakersfield. The District Attorney files

contain another memorandum for bothering a white woman: “Complainant has complained

several times that defendants and their children are continually bothering her. All colored people.

Please see if you can throw scare into the defendant so they will leave her alone. Address of Mr.

and Mrs. Wise, 1110 -O Street, Bakersfield, California.”469 The racial boundaries were well

466 James Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, (New York: The New Press, 2005) 344 467 Dupes had already been a seasoned veteran of the police force. In 1915 he served as Interim Chief of Police in Bakersfield, California. Dupes later moved on as a special investigator for the district attorney. 468 Webb and Johnson Case, District Attorney Investigation Box, 1938, Kern County Court Records Collection, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield [02-05-2019], 1 469 Wise and Tucker Case, District Attorney Investigation Box, Kern County Court Records Collection, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield [02-05-2019], 3

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known in Bakersfield, so well, that the police were called to maintain them. Racial boundaries

were well established before the 1960s.

What does seem clearer is that Bakersfield’s right-wing conservatism and backlash to the

Civil rights movement gave rise and support to figures like Richard Cotten. Anti-civil rights

pamphlets were published, stating that the democratic party was trying to buy votes and would

not enforce the constitution.470 These pamphlets were in Claude Blodget’s archival collection.

By the 1960s, Bakersfield residents were also mailing in their opinion against Civil Rights

legislation hardening the racial inequalities in the city. Richard Cotten’s program was aired

during the same decade and followed by the publication of his news bulletin. Conservatism

seems to have taken shape and power in Bakersfield due to the different demands for equality

and resistance to fair housing.

Earl Warren, the Supreme Court Justice, faced backlash for supporting desegregation in

Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision. Right-wing conservative politicians had long given up their support of Warren. Bakersfield’s residents wrote to their representative

Harlan Hagen, California Representative, for Bakersfield from 1953 to 1967.471 His constituents

wrote on many subjects, including anti-communism and anti-civil rights.

Frequently, writers merged the two subjects to discredit the Civil rights movement.

Constituents sent in a published pamphlet with the photograph of Earl Warren.472 Their

470 “The Truth about Civil Rights,” (1952) Box 56, Blodget Business Papers Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 471 Harlan Hagen had been an agent of counterintelligence corps in WWII, and he had investigated communist in the Army. He had helped a position in the Reserve Commission in the Army Intelligence and was briefed on communist actions. Harlan Hagen to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Harris, January 16, 1951, Harlan Hagen Collection, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 1 472 The pamphlets were published by the Cinema Education Guild, which was published by Myron G. Fagen. Fagen and his pamphlets were also investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

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Representative Harlan Hagen kept a list of names of members of the John Birch Society and a

file on constituents who sent in their fierce rejections of civil rights. The pamphlets read,

“Wanted! Earl Warren for Impeachment, for giving aid and comfort to the communist

conspiracy, the moral enemy of the United States and the American People!”473 The pamphlets

argued that there was a communist conspiracy to overthrow whites, by supporting minority civil

rights. They also attacked the desegregation decision stating, “And that ‘Desegregation Decision’

transformed all those communist directives to the rigid law of the land!!! Furthermore, by his

own admission, Warren ignored our Constitution when he wrote that ‘Decision’… Can there be

any doubt that that ‘Decision’ was framed to conform with those Communist Directives?... There

is only one way to find out – through impeachment proceedings!”474 The pamphlet was sent in

large quantities from Bakersfield to Hagen. The Birch Society members sent the bulk of the

correspondents, having written their support against integration. As a constituent wrote, “Your

awareness no doubt of this grave situation but let it be known millions are behind movements to

IMPEACH Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”475 Resistance also happened at

the national level.

National business associations also attempted to lobby Harlan Hagen. In 1963, the

National Retail Merchants Association wrote on official letterhead,

At the request of the Attorney General we asked our members to advise us what progress had been made with regard to the problems relating to racia [sic] matters… Several of our Southern stores reported that for the past three years they have been hiring non-whites in selling and non-selling capacities… On the basis of our study it would seem that a

473 Cinema Education Guild, Inc., “Wanted! Earl Warren for Impeachment,” Harlan Hagen Box 43, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 474 Ibid, 2 475 Mr. H. A. Nygaard to Harlan Hagen, March 3, 1961, Harlan Hagen Box 43, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield

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Federal Statue such as the one being considered dealing with public accommodations is neither needed or advisable.476 As Civil Rights legislation was being considered in the 1960s, more and more letters continued

to be sent in backlash, stating that the situation of racial injustice should be solved by

individuals, not the government. In that same year, a constituent wrote, “As a representative of

the people of your state I hope you will do your best to stop the March on Washington on August

28, and also to get the federal government out of the civil rights turmoil, except for performing

your duty to expose and prosecute the Communist Enemies of our Country.”477 The March on

Washington was peaceful and ended peacefully. Conservative constituents demanded their

representative to be accountable and support their anti-civil rights crusade. They believed that

this was a threat to their way of life. They also believed that minorities were not deserving of

such legislation. One constituent wrote,

They are being supported by welfare without doing work… I find people are accepted for themselves not on a race. I go to Mexican, Chinese and many like restaurants – but there are no Negro restaurants in Bakersfield frequented by whites. The answer is they have no pride in appearance – cleanliness or conduct. Why now all their freedom? I’m not stopping them from cleaning up their places with soap, water and paint. Do I have to associate their slovenliness and filth to prove I’m without prejudice?... I don’t think little of U.S. can support the world and 10% their population (negro) in the fashion they would like to become accepted for.478 As many wrote their defiance to African American Civil Rights, they focused on how much they

believed that others could not support national legislation, let alone they believed that African

Americans were not deserving of such changes in society. This was the clear and very direct

meritocratic language, a clear difference from color blind language. The language enforced the

476 John C. Hazen NRMA to Harlan Hagen, August 14, 1963, Harlan Hagen Box 43, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 477 Theo Krumrey to Harlan Hagen, August 21, 1963, Harlan Hagen Box 48, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield 478 John H. Kirsch to Harlan Hagen, August 31, 1963, Harlan Hagen Box 48, Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield

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belief that the “failures” and demands for equality were based on individual decisions and lack of

individual merit. This argument was based on denying systemic segregation and

disenfranchisement. The theory applauded people who were “productive” and shamed the

“unproductive” people taking from the taxpayer. This was not true. It was the failure of the system and the conservative activism that limited progress after the 1960s. This gave way to the modern concept and conservative influenced definition of de facto segregation.

De facto segregation was a malleable and artificial creation that attempted to establish that racial minorities chose to live in excluded communities. Often de facto segregation was used to explain segregation outside of the American South, which was called de jure. De facto defined

segregation as a mix of socially enforced, self-segregation, some extralegal actions, or even

harassment. De jure was the legal segregation that was enforced by legal agreements, signs,

publications, and public laws. The associated characteristics attempted to vilify the South in

order to rationalize Northern and Western segregation. Brian Prunell and Jeanne Theoharis, in

“Histories of Racism and Resistance, Seen and Unseen: How and Why to Think about the Jim

Crow North,” state that de facto segregation in the liberal North was argued with reasoning

rooted in explanations of racial differences about culture and behavior of racial minorities, not

biology.”479 Instead, it had claims to taxpayer rights, law and order, anti-busing, and states’

rights. These actions hardened inequality in the North. Segregation was systemic and a symptom

of national policy, government programs, and national associations. The North’s segregation was

also exacerbated by regional enforcement of racism. While white northerners used theories of

“culture of poverty” to justify segregation, they rationalized that northern African Americans

479 Brian Purnell, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodward. The Strange Careers of Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South. (New York: New York University Press, 2019), 6

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developed a set of cultural behaviors and practices that impeded on their own economic and

educational success.480 This was the basis of the meritocratic language and giving birth to the

mythic and profound misunderstanding of the complex nature of Northern segregation. White

residents consumed these cultural arguments, as journalists, scholars, and policymakers upheld

this argument.481 These simple understandings for complex disenfranchisement were

consolidated in right-wing conservatism. Historians have also contributed to the mythic qualities.

The theory of “culture of poverty” was defended by historians and sociologists as a

pathological characteristic of African Americans. As late as 2005, sociologist Jim Loewen stated

that residential exclusion was the problem in the nation, not race, and neither, “The ghetto-with all its pathologies.”482 Loewen was starting to break from the pathological association to the so-

called behaviors of impoverished areas but found it necessary to cite pathology. Similarly,

historian Kenneth Jackson argued that the failure of public housing was not with tenants, but the expectation that it would vastly reduce poverty and social pathology.483 In the same light,

Jackson was one of the first historians to analyze suburbanization and its inequalities in 1985, but

could not abandon the pathological association, even when analyzing systemic discrimination.

According to Purnell and Theoharis, race relations and the types of racism that existed

were fundamentally different in the South and North. In the South, African Americans could get

close to whites but could not become too “uppity” by advocating for their social, political, or

economic equality to whites.484 In the North, African Americans could get “uppity,” running a

successful business, consume luxury goods, and sit next to white people on the bus, as long as

480 Ibid, 8 481 Ibid, 8 482 Jim Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, (New York: Norton Press, 2005), 17 483 Jackson, 229 484 Ibid, 3

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they did not get close to whites.485 “Uppity” was a coded word for visible and expressions of

unsegregated public, social, and financial equality. This was a generalization by Purnell and

Theoharis. However, African Americans could participate in housing and urban development,

and other things, but it was profoundly unequal in some neighborhoods, cities, and states. The

northern limitations influenced relationships, housing, employment, and education. These

limitations, regardless of their location in the United States, demanded that African Americans

remain in their “place,” as defined by whites.486

The North’s public policy relied on colorblind ideology rooted in meritocratic

language.487 The result was visible inequalities that were mapped in patterns of race and class.

The North reasoned that the visible and segregated inequalities were because of the individual or

race’s merit-based efforts and that their deficiencies were of their own, not the policy or society.

This was very hypocritical since many had written and supported community and national

inequality. Historian Matthew Lassiter argues that there is a false dichotomy between de facto

and de jure segregation, but both are truly the same segregation. 488 Lassiter argues that the white

middle class found new power in the post-war era, which was expressed in ideas of consumer

rights and meritocratic language.489

Matthew Lassiter’s Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South: The Silent Majority, provides

valuable insight on white suburban politics and shows how postwar suburban growth changed

geographic residential segregation. Further, Lassiter shows how southern middle-class outlooks

485 Ibid, 3 486 Ibid, 4 487 Ibid, 7 488 Matthew D. Lassiter, Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South: The Silent Majority, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 4 489 Ibid, 3

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became expressed through colorblind policy language that was unequal in the outcome. The

fundamental transformations of the post-war era were in three phases. First, the Sunbelt South

became the center of political power, and the two-party system heavily favored white-collared suburbs and large corporations. After the passing of Civil Rights legislation, the legislation was used to discredit that overt racism still existed but expressed their desires for inequality through colorblind language.

Lassiter argues that the creation of the artificial dichotomy between de facto and de jure

segregation has distorted the understanding of the civil rights era. The artificial dichotomy

obscured the ways state-financed suburbanization and state-sponsored residential segregation

established the model of race relations in the national scope.490 Lassiter argues that this paved the

way for the “rise of the Right,” “the Southern Strategy,” “the Republican South,” and white

backlash.491 These concepts were the new political strategy and grassroots support of the

normalization of right-winged ideology. The memory of suburbanization suffers from historical

amnesia. The memory reflected that the affluent white suburban neighborhoods appeared to be

built overnight, portraying the process as natural and not artificial; the narrow view of the white

liberals and rhetorical strategy of the Republican Party allowed for the fundamental

misunderstanding of long-term economic and demographic transformations.492 Lassiter

fundamentally argues that segregation was not natural, nor was the strategy to combat race

integration after the civil rights movement. This was the artificial construction of de facto

segregation. The national history should tell how suburbanization affected the politics of the

nation, rather than focusing on the race relationships between the South and north and de jure

490 Ibid, 4 491 Ibid, 4 492 Ibid, 9

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and de facto segregation. Lassiter’s work highlights the creation of the modern political field and

the fight to sustain the systematic exclusion of the people from public resources and housing.

Discrimination ran parallel with the idea of property values. As N.D.B. Conolly argues

that people built a vast and robust infrastructure for white supremacy, which remains in place.493

Whites, blacks, immigrants, and even indigenous people invested in segregation in attempts to unleash the value of real estate property.494 Real estate was primarily perceived as exclusive and

reinforced by associations that all-white communities could exist, which was appealing to them.

This encouraged white residents to believe that they were deserving of state assistance with

protection. They also believed that black people had adverse effects on the property aspirations

of others.495 These beliefs were solidified by racist ideas that tenants of color were lazy and dirty,

allowing white and realtors to exploit African Americans to the point of destitution.496 Conolly

traces early instances of racial segregation in Florida’s Jim Crow, and how zoning was used to

restrict black people, forcing communities to stay segregated. White communities also used

inconvenient zoning arguments of property rights, making sure multifamily housing stayed

separate from single-family tracts.497 This system stemmed from slavery’s systematic

degradation that made African Americans disposable, in the same way, made African American

housing and properties more disposable than white homes in the mid-century.498

Mayflower and Sunset never truly escaped the condition of poverty regardless of

national, state, and local “social help” public policy. In 1968, the War on Poverty programs had

493 N. D. B. Conolly. A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 3 494 Ibid, 3 495 Ibid, 7 496 Ibid, 9 497 Ibid, 39 498 Ibid, 52

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shifted to the war on crime. In 1965, the remaining of the War on Poverty programs in Kern

County were ending. Johnie Mae Parker, a longtime activist and Mayflower resident,

characterized the Mayor’s visit to the Mayflower and Sunset communities as indifference

towards the visit, as the youth was particularly loud, but not hostile.499 Parker stated the outcome

of the community’s message toward the Mayor on August 13, 1965, “… the complaining

message from the group was clear that it was not only the beginning of a ‘War on Poverty,’ but

their actions indicated the beginning of a war against social injustice.”500 The community was

tired of waiting and tired of hearing of the answers the City Council had to offer. Johnie Mae

Parker and other activist founded organizations for self-help, like the Friendship House and other

community efforts. Activist acknowledged the discrimination and inequalities of the larger

community and responded by creating community organizations to empower and uplift

themselves.

What materialized was a small-scale riot in resistance and expressions of demanding change. In 1968, the City Council passed Resolution 32-68, a loosely written anti-riot resolution.

The Resolution was based on preserving law and order. The City Council passed the Resolution based on protecting the community,

These citizens were not given the full and timely protection of the law and as a consequence, countless Negroes today are homeless, and their source of livelihood destroyed. What this disaster out to remind us of, hopefully, is that when the law and order are abdicated to hoodlums, it is all society that suffers, and that those who suffer most grievously are the forgotten Negro people.501

499 Parker, 56 500 Ibid, 57 501 Councilman Heisey, “Council Statements. Councilman Heisey made the following statement.” Minutes of the Bakersfield City Council, April 15, 1968, http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/

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The Resolution argued that the African American people were victims of their own unpoliced activities, and according to the Council were the detriment to both the white and black communities. The City also established the policing had to be done by the City and their police, suggesting that policing was the solution, instead of providing equality and partnerships. The

Resolution was a way to pursue zero-tolerance policing actively. The Resolution stated that it was created to combat the idea of selective law-abiding people, suggesting that all City laws were justified.502 Regardless of the Resolution stating that officials had empathy for diverse communities, it stated, “The City Council hereby goes on record that lawlessness will never be tolerated in this City and that the utmost support will be given to the police and other safety personnel carrying out their duties of protection of people and property... and to use whatever force is deemed necessary to ensure full and prompt obedience to the law.”503 Justice had always been a one-way street; the zero-tolerance policy allowed for immediate and full force response to administer obedience.

Conclusion

Mayflower and Sunset are east of Highway 99, and this thesis shows that these areas have been impoverished well before the post-war era. In 2017 the University of California, Davis

Center for Regional Change, did a study on “Kern County: Geography of Inequality and

Opportunities for Action.” The study quoted that only 5% of the 2010 Census population,

850,000 people in the County of Kern, had access to higher levels of opportunity. In simple, the study stated that “people living on the west side of Highway 99, in tracts that are displayed in

502 Ressolution 32-68, “A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Bakersfield Affirming that the Laws of the State and City will be enforced throughout the City. Resolutions of the Bakersfield City Council, April 15, 1968 http://www.bakersfieldcity.us/administration/citymanager/cityclerk/city_records.htm/ 503 Ibid, 2

198 green, tend to do better in terms of education, economic opportunity and health/ environment. On the east side of Highway 99 and in areas around Wasco, Shafter and Taft, levels of opportunity are much lower in these domains.”504 The report concluded that all economic resources, agriculture, oil and other industries do not benefit all residents and that people of color and immigrants are the most likely to experience environmental, social, housing, and economic injustice.505

These are graphs that represent the data for Mayflower: Red is a negative marker and symbolized the worst services that reduce opportunity. The Mayflower Census Tract is always highlighted in red to orange, signifying the lowest opportunity. The Mayflower Tract is highlighted in each map; each chart represents the Tract analysis. I used the website to create custom maps to reflect different aspects of the Mayflower Census Tract. These maps are available at https://interact.regionalchange.ucdavis.edu/

504 UC Davis, “Kern County: Geography of Inequality and Opportunities for Action.” October 2017, 12 https://www.sierrahealth.org SJVHF_Kern_County_Report_Oct_2017 505 Ibid, 12

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Figure 1: shows that whites are the lowest population and their concentration is west of Highway 99.

Figure 2: This figure shows that the economic opportunity is amongst the lowest on the graph.

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Figure 3: These figures show that housing opportunity is closest to the highest, but the Tract analysis shows that that is only positive based on affordability, which is contradicted with housing conditions.

Figure 4: This graph shows the Regional Opportunity Index of people in the area. The graph shows that it is amongst the lowest.

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The geographic area continues to have blight and poverty. What started with buying on contract ended with the absence of the opportunity for ownership. As the buying economy shifted to a renter’s economy, the housing opportunity was denied again. These tracts were founded in 1911 and 1910: the most important question is, why do these areas continue to have poverty and low opportunity after a century? What is shown in this thesis is that buying on contract did not create opportunities for fair housing ownership. Public housing also failed to meet the demand for housing availability, and neither did it help solve income and housing disparities. As the annexation loomed and Bakersfield incorporated Mayflower and Sunset, the visible improvements were sanitary facilities, but at the cost of housing and the destruction of dilapidated homes. The shifting policy on home buying allowed real estate agents to shift their practice to the renter economy, no longer the prospective home buyer. As the War on Poverty programs started and national civil rights policy became a public conversation and a reality, the backlash to the civil rights movement was effective enough to hinder progress well into the modern era. Civil rights legislation provided to support the ability to sue for equal rights, not the right for equality by economic uplift or access to open equal housing. Mayflower and Sunset continue to have visual blight. You can follow the almost 11-mile straight road of Stockdale

Highway, from CSU, Bakersfield (Stockdale Highway changes name to Brundage Lane at the intersection of Oak Street), from the West end of suburban communities. The road leads to the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard, where you can see the stark differences between suburbanization and segregation that are still alive today. The University and opportunity remain far from reach, not to mention far from offering a real opportunity. The road is straight west, and by car, the only barriers are stoplights, but that is not the whole truth. In order to get to higher education, you need supporting finances, education, transportation, public services, and urban

202 infrastructure. One cannot only drive down to the university without the building of a supporting environment. Studies suggest that segregation and that the resistance to equality was so profound that it was widely embedded in public policy and federal programs, and it is still practiced today.

Barriers continue to exist.

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Bibliography Archives Bakersfield, California Historical Research Center and Archives, Walter Stiern Library, California State University, Bakersfield Claude Blodget Business Paper Collection Harlan Hagen Political Collection Clarence Cullimore Architectural Collection California State University, Bakersfield Historical Collection Kern County Court Records Jack MaGuire Local History Room Earthquake Vertical File Housing Authority of the County of Kern Photograph Collection Annual Reports Kern County Museum Historical Photograph Collections Bakersfield City Council City Council Minutes Kern County Board of Supervisors Board Minutes Kern County Hall of Records Public Records San Bruno, California National Archives and Records Administration RG 196, General Records of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Archive.org Newspapers Bakersfield Californian Oakland Tribune

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