How a Legacy of Racism Is Putting a 115-Year-Old Historically Black Town At Risk of Flooding — Again
Racism Robbed This Historically Black California Town of Its Water. Now, They're Developing Water of Their Own
'Promised Land': A Historically Black California Town Honors Its Proud, Painful Past — and Fights for Its Future
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"slug": "how-systemic-racism-is-putting-allensworth-a-historically-black-town-at-risk-of-flooding-again",
"title": "How a Legacy of Racism Is Putting a 115-Year-Old Historically Black Town At Risk of Flooding — Again",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">Allensworth, a farmworker town\u003c/a> of about 500 people in California’s San Joaquin Valley, sits at the edge of an area called the Tulare Lake basin, a patchwork of scrub brush and irrigated farmland that’s part of the most productive agricultural region in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, California’s barrage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11943031/atmospheric-river-storm-san-francisco-bay-area-impacts-march-9-2023\">atmospheric river storms\u003c/a> overwhelmed the area, flooding pistachio orchards and swamping communities, and Allensworth found itself all but surrounded by a shallow sea. Residents were told to evacuate. They were also told that this flood is just the beginning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is fighting a slow-motion disaster, one that could become its largest flood in recent history. As the near-record snowpack in the Sierra melts, the water making its way through the foothills is pooling in the basin, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reborn-from-record-winter-tulare-lake-could-see-explosive-growth-from-snowmelt/\">reviving a lake that had long since disappeared\u003c/a>. This process is expected to accelerate over the coming weeks and months, and it could take up to two years to subside. And while the return of Tulare Lake could devastate everyone in the region, historically disenfranchised communities like Allensworth are uniquely vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949155\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949155\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A field is flooded with nearby lake water. Brown brush peeks up from beneath the water.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water from Tulare Lake fills a field outside Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a horrific situation,” said Denise Kadara, an Allensworth community leader and vice chair of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. “We’re here like sitting ducks, waiting for the water to come and flood us out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of Allensworth’s problem stems from the politics of water: For over a hundred years, water in the Tulare Lake basin has been controlled and hoarded by a handful of powerful landowners, usually at the expense of everyone else. The basin’s water management system still favors those landowners, leaving Allensworth with little recourse when floodwaters approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I don’t need a whole bunch of people to break the law’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That was evident one windy night in March, when Allensworth residents Takoa Kadara and his father, Kayode, called an emergency town meeting. The goal was simple: to keep the water massing in the basin from pouring into people’s homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Denise Kadara, vice chair, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board\"]‘It’s a horrific situation. We’re here like sitting ducks, waiting for the water to come and flood us out.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, water was flowing toward town through culverts that run under railroad tracks to the east. The culverts are on private property, and the tracks that run on top of them are owned by BNSF Railway, one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bnsf.com/bnsf-resources/pdf/about-bnsf/fact_sheet.pdf\">top freight transportation companies in the nation (PDF)\u003c/a>. The last time community members tried to block the culverts with rocks, gravel and plywood, a BNSF employee called the police, then removed the makeshift dam they had built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt='A gray building with a sign out front that reads, \"Allensworth Community Center.\" A white SUV is parked in the driveway and gray clouds hover above. The road surrounding the property is visibly wet from flooding.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Allensworth Community Center. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now the group wanted to protect the community, but knew they might be at risk of breaking the law. Residents saw only two options: act illegally, or not at all. And they couldn’t come to an agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you guys disagree with this solution, then let’s go home,” Kayode Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No, it’s not, ‘Let’s go home!’” his son said. “Let’s come up with another solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll just say it like it is,” said one resident, who declined to give his name. “If I’m gonna break the law, I don’t need a whole bunch of people to break the law [with me]. Ten minutes? We’re gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth residents have tried to block the culverts legally — many, many times. But BNSF wouldn’t give them permission to do it, and so far, the town hasn’t been able to find a government agency with the power to override the corporation’s decision, or persuade it to reconsider. Their \u003ca href=\"https://sjvwater.org/whos-in-charge-agencies-deal-with-fragmented-flood-response-in-the-south-san-joaquin-valley/\">local stormwater district doesn’t have jurisdiction over the railroad’s property\u003c/a>, and representatives from several state agencies, including Caltrans, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources, said they couldn’t do anything either, even though community members said those agencies agreed that the water spilling through the culverts is a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949152\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A pile of sandbags line the perimeter of a small home. In the front yard, a blue trampoline is visible and a weathered, black mailbox sits on top of a thick piece of wood.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sandbags surround a home in Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>BNSF did not respond to a request for comment, but in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-18/california-towns-frantic-fight-floods\">interview with the\u003cem> Los Angeles Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a company spokesperson claimed that blocking the culverts could damage their tracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Allensworth was put under a mandatory evacuation order back in March, the Kadaras and most of their neighbors refused to leave. Who would defend their town if they did?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The water flowing is natural,” Denise Kadara said — but, she added, it’s also determined by men who say, “This is where they want the water to go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The history behind today’s water politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To understand the power dynamics in the Tulare Lake basin — and how Allensworth ended up on the losing side of it — we have to go back to when the town was founded and Tulare Lake was still alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949149\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A historic sign that reads, "California's African American Pioneers." Illustrations of historic men and women are surrounded by text explaining each figure.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign with information about California’s African American historical figures sits at the entrance to Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1908, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth was a formerly enslaved person who became the highest-ranking Black military officer of his time. As Jim Crow tightened its grip throughout the South, he moved to California to create what he hoped would become the “Tuskegee of the West,” a thriving Black community and college town. Founded by a dream team of Black doctors, professors and farmers, the community of Allensworth became \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">the first town in California to be founded, financed and governed by Black Americans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth picked a spot near Tulare Lake, which used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi. Accounts from the late 1800s describe it as shallow, thick with tule reeds and ringed by marshland. Herds of elk waded through the shallows, and millions of migratory birds flocked to its shores every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the time Allensworth got there, the lake was rapidly disappearing — and had been for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Geologists call that end of the San Joaquin Valley one of the most engineered landscapes in human history,” said Mark Arax, a journalist and expert on the Central Valley’s history and water politics. “[The] human hand has altered that land in a way that few places have been altered.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949154\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949154\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A cargo train in the distance steams ahead next to a large dirt field that has been flooded with water. Gray clouds hover above.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Floodwater from Tulare Lake lingers beside train tracks. One of the main flooding threats residents face are culverts that run under the tracks, sending water straight toward the town. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The residents of Allensworth weren’t the only people who’d settled along Tulare Lake. A group of white landowners had settled there, too — some descending from slave-owning families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of them were Southerners who’d come from the Confederate states,” Arax said. “They arrived here and they started grabbing the snowmelt out of those rivers, and then diverting that onto their farmland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1920s, two particularly bold landowner families, the Boswells and the Salyers, made a move on the lake bed itself. The soil at the bottom was dark and unusually rich; it’d be the perfect place for a farm, if the lake weren’t in the way. So they drained it and diverted the water for irrigation. According to Arax, those diversions ended up drying up the lake completely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Allensworth couldn’t get enough water to sustain itself, no matter how hard the community tried. White farmers diverted a river they relied on. A white-owned company refused to dig the community’s wells, but it was more than happy to dig wells for a white town nearby. By the 1920s, a lot of Allensworth’s original settlers had moved away. And by the 1940s, the white landowners in the Tulare Lake basin had become some of the most powerful farmers in the country, and had successfully seized control of the water for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949150\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949150\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"An open field with green and tan weeds and plants sits under a gray, cloudy sky. In the center, a brown, wooden barn rests to the left of two, small white homes.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Historic homes and buildings fill Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Those long-established power dynamics are still at work in the region. Today, Allensworth is a farmworker town where the tap water isn’t safe to drink. Many of its neighbors are large corporations and wealthy farmers, and these neighbors control many local agencies — like water and reclamation districts — which make decisions about who gets water in dry years and what to do when the floods come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have these quasi government agencies, but they’re controlled by the biggest landowners,” Arax said. “It’s a no-man’s-land in a lot of ways, and that’s the way it’s operated. It resorts to its own devices all the time.”[aside postID=news_11925109 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58542_01_Allensworth00018-qut-1020x652.jpg']The Tulare Lake basin also has a long history of levee sabotage. Historically, when the basin has flooded, some farmers have cut levees and blocked canals to protect their land, but this also threatened the town with flooding. This is still happening today. Denise Kadara remembers getting the news from their local stormwater manager in March that a levee on the west side of town had been intentionally breached, prompting calls to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As communities like Allensworth brace for the snowmelt this spring — and the floods they know are coming — this history of water theft, sabotage and discrimination is always in the backs of their minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although residents at that March meeting decided against blocking the railroad culverts, they haven’t stayed quiet. Allensworth’s community leaders have been calling every government official they can think of, trying to find someone who can help. And in the past few weeks, Takoa Kadara and his family say some politicians and government agencies have started to respond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949163\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11949163 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man with trim white hair and a white beard, wearing a gray, button-up shirt, sits at a table with a white man (the governor) dressed casually in a blue puffer vest, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs. The two are looking at paperwork in a spare, clean, well-lit commercial room.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayode Kadara (left) shows photos to Gov. Gavin Newsom during a meeting with community leaders to talk about flood preparedness, on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, in Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire’s emergency response team blocked the levee that was allegedly sabotaged, as well as other breaches, saving the town from flooding. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the community in April, and promised to send more resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth residents are used to the system in this basin working against them, but they hope that’s finally changing. How state agencies act may be the only thing standing between Allensworth and catastrophic flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need all the help we can get from every agency, and every person that wants to help and believes in communities like ours,” Denise Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Allensworth, in the Tulare Lake basin, braces for major flooding as the Sierra snowpack melts. Residents are hoping California will step in.",
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"title": "How a Legacy of Racism Is Putting a 115-Year-Old Historically Black Town At Risk of Flooding — Again | KQED",
"description": "Allensworth, in the Tulare Lake basin, braces for major flooding as the Sierra snowpack melts. Residents are hoping California will step in.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">Allensworth, a farmworker town\u003c/a> of about 500 people in California’s San Joaquin Valley, sits at the edge of an area called the Tulare Lake basin, a patchwork of scrub brush and irrigated farmland that’s part of the most productive agricultural region in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, California’s barrage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11943031/atmospheric-river-storm-san-francisco-bay-area-impacts-march-9-2023\">atmospheric river storms\u003c/a> overwhelmed the area, flooding pistachio orchards and swamping communities, and Allensworth found itself all but surrounded by a shallow sea. Residents were told to evacuate. They were also told that this flood is just the beginning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is fighting a slow-motion disaster, one that could become its largest flood in recent history. As the near-record snowpack in the Sierra melts, the water making its way through the foothills is pooling in the basin, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reborn-from-record-winter-tulare-lake-could-see-explosive-growth-from-snowmelt/\">reviving a lake that had long since disappeared\u003c/a>. This process is expected to accelerate over the coming weeks and months, and it could take up to two years to subside. And while the return of Tulare Lake could devastate everyone in the region, historically disenfranchised communities like Allensworth are uniquely vulnerable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949155\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949155\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A field is flooded with nearby lake water. Brown brush peeks up from beneath the water.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/001_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water from Tulare Lake fills a field outside Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a horrific situation,” said Denise Kadara, an Allensworth community leader and vice chair of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. “We’re here like sitting ducks, waiting for the water to come and flood us out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of Allensworth’s problem stems from the politics of water: For over a hundred years, water in the Tulare Lake basin has been controlled and hoarded by a handful of powerful landowners, usually at the expense of everyone else. The basin’s water management system still favors those landowners, leaving Allensworth with little recourse when floodwaters approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I don’t need a whole bunch of people to break the law’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That was evident one windy night in March, when Allensworth residents Takoa Kadara and his father, Kayode, called an emergency town meeting. The goal was simple: to keep the water massing in the basin from pouring into people’s homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘It’s a horrific situation. We’re here like sitting ducks, waiting for the water to come and flood us out.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, water was flowing toward town through culverts that run under railroad tracks to the east. The culverts are on private property, and the tracks that run on top of them are owned by BNSF Railway, one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bnsf.com/bnsf-resources/pdf/about-bnsf/fact_sheet.pdf\">top freight transportation companies in the nation (PDF)\u003c/a>. The last time community members tried to block the culverts with rocks, gravel and plywood, a BNSF employee called the police, then removed the makeshift dam they had built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949153\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt='A gray building with a sign out front that reads, \"Allensworth Community Center.\" A white SUV is parked in the driveway and gray clouds hover above. The road surrounding the property is visibly wet from flooding.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/011_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Allensworth Community Center. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now the group wanted to protect the community, but knew they might be at risk of breaking the law. Residents saw only two options: act illegally, or not at all. And they couldn’t come to an agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you guys disagree with this solution, then let’s go home,” Kayode Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No, it’s not, ‘Let’s go home!’” his son said. “Let’s come up with another solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll just say it like it is,” said one resident, who declined to give his name. “If I’m gonna break the law, I don’t need a whole bunch of people to break the law [with me]. Ten minutes? We’re gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth residents have tried to block the culverts legally — many, many times. But BNSF wouldn’t give them permission to do it, and so far, the town hasn’t been able to find a government agency with the power to override the corporation’s decision, or persuade it to reconsider. Their \u003ca href=\"https://sjvwater.org/whos-in-charge-agencies-deal-with-fragmented-flood-response-in-the-south-san-joaquin-valley/\">local stormwater district doesn’t have jurisdiction over the railroad’s property\u003c/a>, and representatives from several state agencies, including Caltrans, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources, said they couldn’t do anything either, even though community members said those agencies agreed that the water spilling through the culverts is a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949152\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949152\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A pile of sandbags line the perimeter of a small home. In the front yard, a blue trampoline is visible and a weathered, black mailbox sits on top of a thick piece of wood.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/015_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sandbags surround a home in Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>BNSF did not respond to a request for comment, but in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-18/california-towns-frantic-fight-floods\">interview with the\u003cem> Los Angeles Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a company spokesperson claimed that blocking the culverts could damage their tracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Allensworth was put under a mandatory evacuation order back in March, the Kadaras and most of their neighbors refused to leave. Who would defend their town if they did?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The water flowing is natural,” Denise Kadara said — but, she added, it’s also determined by men who say, “This is where they want the water to go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The history behind today’s water politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To understand the power dynamics in the Tulare Lake basin — and how Allensworth ended up on the losing side of it — we have to go back to when the town was founded and Tulare Lake was still alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949149\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A historic sign that reads, "California's African American Pioneers." Illustrations of historic men and women are surrounded by text explaining each figure.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/026_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign with information about California’s African American historical figures sits at the entrance to Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1908, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth was a formerly enslaved person who became the highest-ranking Black military officer of his time. As Jim Crow tightened its grip throughout the South, he moved to California to create what he hoped would become the “Tuskegee of the West,” a thriving Black community and college town. Founded by a dream team of Black doctors, professors and farmers, the community of Allensworth became \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">the first town in California to be founded, financed and governed by Black Americans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth picked a spot near Tulare Lake, which used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi. Accounts from the late 1800s describe it as shallow, thick with tule reeds and ringed by marshland. Herds of elk waded through the shallows, and millions of migratory birds flocked to its shores every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the time Allensworth got there, the lake was rapidly disappearing — and had been for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Geologists call that end of the San Joaquin Valley one of the most engineered landscapes in human history,” said Mark Arax, a journalist and expert on the Central Valley’s history and water politics. “[The] human hand has altered that land in a way that few places have been altered.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949154\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949154\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"A cargo train in the distance steams ahead next to a large dirt field that has been flooded with water. Gray clouds hover above.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/005_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Floodwater from Tulare Lake lingers beside train tracks. One of the main flooding threats residents face are culverts that run under the tracks, sending water straight toward the town. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The residents of Allensworth weren’t the only people who’d settled along Tulare Lake. A group of white landowners had settled there, too — some descending from slave-owning families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of them were Southerners who’d come from the Confederate states,” Arax said. “They arrived here and they started grabbing the snowmelt out of those rivers, and then diverting that onto their farmland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1920s, two particularly bold landowner families, the Boswells and the Salyers, made a move on the lake bed itself. The soil at the bottom was dark and unusually rich; it’d be the perfect place for a farm, if the lake weren’t in the way. So they drained it and diverted the water for irrigation. According to Arax, those diversions ended up drying up the lake completely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Allensworth couldn’t get enough water to sustain itself, no matter how hard the community tried. White farmers diverted a river they relied on. A white-owned company refused to dig the community’s wells, but it was more than happy to dig wells for a white town nearby. By the 1920s, a lot of Allensworth’s original settlers had moved away. And by the 1940s, the white landowners in the Tulare Lake basin had become some of the most powerful farmers in the country, and had successfully seized control of the water for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949150\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11949150\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg\" alt=\"An open field with green and tan weeds and plants sits under a gray, cloudy sky. In the center, a brown, wooden barn rests to the left of two, small white homes.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/021_KQED_Allensworth_05042023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Historic homes and buildings fill Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Those long-established power dynamics are still at work in the region. Today, Allensworth is a farmworker town where the tap water isn’t safe to drink. Many of its neighbors are large corporations and wealthy farmers, and these neighbors control many local agencies — like water and reclamation districts — which make decisions about who gets water in dry years and what to do when the floods come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have these quasi government agencies, but they’re controlled by the biggest landowners,” Arax said. “It’s a no-man’s-land in a lot of ways, and that’s the way it’s operated. It resorts to its own devices all the time.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Tulare Lake basin also has a long history of levee sabotage. Historically, when the basin has flooded, some farmers have cut levees and blocked canals to protect their land, but this also threatened the town with flooding. This is still happening today. Denise Kadara remembers getting the news from their local stormwater manager in March that a levee on the west side of town had been intentionally breached, prompting calls to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As communities like Allensworth brace for the snowmelt this spring — and the floods they know are coming — this history of water theft, sabotage and discrimination is always in the backs of their minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although residents at that March meeting decided against blocking the railroad culverts, they haven’t stayed quiet. Allensworth’s community leaders have been calling every government official they can think of, trying to find someone who can help. And in the past few weeks, Takoa Kadara and his family say some politicians and government agencies have started to respond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11949163\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11949163 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man with trim white hair and a white beard, wearing a gray, button-up shirt, sits at a table with a white man (the governor) dressed casually in a blue puffer vest, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs. The two are looking at paperwork in a spare, clean, well-lit commercial room.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/05/GettyTCRMAG-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayode Kadara (left) shows photos to Gov. Gavin Newsom during a meeting with community leaders to talk about flood preparedness, on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, in Allensworth. \u003ccite>(Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire’s emergency response team blocked the levee that was allegedly sabotaged, as well as other breaches, saving the town from flooding. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the community in April, and promised to send more resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth residents are used to the system in this basin working against them, but they hope that’s finally changing. How state agencies act may be the only thing standing between Allensworth and catastrophic flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need all the help we can get from every agency, and every person that wants to help and believes in communities like ours,” Denise Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Racism Robbed This Historically Black California Town of Its Water. Now, They're Developing Water of Their Own",
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"content": "\u003cp>Valeria Contreras’ phone started ringing on a bustling Saturday last February, when she was driving past almond and pistachio orchards on an errand run. Some callers sounded panicked. Others were just upset. “Where’s the water?” they asked her. “How come you guys don’t notify us? I know I’m past due, but did you guys turn off my water?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contreras lives in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">Allensworth\u003c/a>, a small town of about 500 people an hour’s drive north of Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley. She runs her own catering company, and in her spare time she is also the general manager of the Allensworth Community Services District, which oversees the town’s water supply. Back in February, Contreras had no idea why the water had stopped flowing. And it was her job to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_11925020,education_535779']Contreras and other community leaders spent the rest of the weekend scrambling to find the source of the problem. It turned out the pumps on a few of Allensworth’s water wells had failed — the system is old and prone to breaking — and it took the town a month to fully fix it. Then the water system broke down again a few months later. These days, Contreras keeps a few extra gallons of water on her back patio, just in case it happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would think it’s just water, but it’s a necessity — to use a restroom, to wash, to do anything,” Contreras said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clean, safe and affordable drinking water is considered a human right under state law, but nearly a million residents don’t have access to it. Like Contreras, many of them live in the Central Valley, a patchwork of desert scrub and irrigated farmland that’s twice the size of Massachusetts and produces 25% of the nation’s food supply. To some extent, the state’s historic, climate change-fueled drought is to blame. The number of dry wells in California has shot up by more than 70% since last year, many of them in the valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' citation='Sherry Hunter, president, Allensworth Community Services District']‘Water is something you cannot live without. And if it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without.’[/pullquote]The drought has only exacerbated long-standing water access issues that in many valley communities can be traced back to decades of neglect and racist policies. Nowhere is this more apparent than Allensworth. Founded in 1908, the town was the first community in California to be financed, built and governed by African Americans. Ten years later, it had been all but decimated by white farmers and corporate interests. Water was one of their weapons of choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, more than a century later, local leaders like Contreras are still dealing with the aftereffects and periodic crises. But they are also laser-focused on securing a sustainable and clean drinking water supply for the town — and their creative approach could turn out to be a blueprint for other water-insecure communities in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A thriving Black community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Water has always been an issue here in Allensworth,” said Sherry Hunter, who is president of the Allensworth Community Services District and manages the town’s water system with Contreras. Contreras was visiting her on a sweltering summer afternoon, when it was over 100 degrees, but no one seemed to mind. When it comes to California heat, the women agreed, people from Los Angeles are whiners; people from the Bay Area are just plain weak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we were kids, there was no AC,” said Contreras. “You sat in those leather seats … ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And sweated profusely,” said Hunter. “And you were happy about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925128\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-800x522.jpg\" alt='Two Black women with natural salt-and-pepper hair and one Latina woman with black hair pulled into a tight bun sit on the cracked cement front steps of a gray, wood-paneled building with a white door. The women wear blue jeans. One woman wears a white t-shirt with front buttons and splashes of purple and green. One woman wears a white cotton shirt with black embroidery down the front and arms. The third woman wears a white t-shirt reading \"La Cocina de Contreras.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-800x522.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-1020x666.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-1536x1002.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Denise Kadara, Sherry Hunter and Valeria Contreras talk on the steps of the Allensworth Community Center on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. The women are residents of the small Tulare County town and are trying to get help to provide its residents with clean water. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hunter’s sister, Denise Kadara, was there, too. She advocates for marginalized communities across the region as vice chair of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. The sisters played a pivotal role in helping Contreras fix the water outage back in February. They are also among Allensworth’s few remaining Black residents. Their mother moved to town in the 1970s after learning about its troubled history, and her children followed her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Her mission was to make sure that this town did not die and that history got it right,” said Hunter. “And we knew without a second thought we had to be a part of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth was the town’s iconoclastic founder. He was born into slavery, escaped to fight for the Union during the Civil War, and became the highest-ranking Black military officer of his time. With Jim Crow tightening its grip on the South, he wanted to go West and build a town “where African Americans would settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_11922175,news_11891836']In 1908, he and his co-founders bought a stretch of farmland in the Central Valley and got to work. Many of the town’s streets were named after prominent Black leaders or abolitionists, and its founders dreamed of building the West’s first Black university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had a glee club, they had a debate society,” said Kadara. “They were a thriving, upscale community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they had water from the nearby White River. But a few years after Allensworth was established, powerful white farmers diverted the stream to irrigate their crops and cut off the town’s supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, Allensworth had a backup plan: groundwater. The town planned to tap into the ancient aquifers that run deep underground in the Central Valley. A local company that had sold them land promised to help dig the wells and build the town’s water system, according to several historians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the firm, Pacific Farming Co., violated its contract and drilled fewer than half of the wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Allensworth was promised fertile land and water — which [was] reneged on,” said Hunter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925123\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a small, dusty town, surrounded by bare dirt. In the distance, lush, irrigated farmlands are visible. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dusty roads and parched land lead through the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County. Irrigated, lush farmlands are visible in the distance. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The town sued Pacific Farming, but reached a settlement that left the town in debt. Meanwhile, the company honored its contract with Alpaugh, a majority-white community a few miles away, and dug all the wells they had agreed to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These battles over water access were prevalent throughout California in the early 20th century. As the Central Valley became an agricultural powerhouse, Black migrants flocked to it for a piece of the California dream, along with immigrants from Mexico, Japan, India and the Philippines. But more established local farmers, almost all of whom were white, sought to control as much of the state’s water as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result, says Jonathan London, an associate professor at the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology, was a “separate but unequal system of water provisions.” When corporate interests resorted to illegal behavior, communities of color took them to court, but rarely got a fair hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a really difficult situation — getting squeezed by the corporations on one hand, in a way that really was racially biased, and then having a judicial system that was also racially biased,” said London. “They had really nowhere to turn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925125\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925125\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A sagging, abandoned wooden building sits in dry soil behind a barbed wire fence.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An abandoned structure sits on dry land in the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Without a secure water supply, Allensworth’s farmers couldn’t get enough water for their crops. And they faced other racist roadblocks. Local companies charged Black farmers nearly four times as much for land as white farmers, then tried to prevent them from buying land altogether. The railroad shut down Allensworth’s station and moved it to the majority-white Alpaugh. Then, in 1914, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth was struck and killed by a motorcycle. The driver was white, and no charges were ever brought against him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the 1920s, Allensworth’s Black residents started to move away.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘If it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Today, the most visible evidence of Lt. Col. Allensworth’s utopian project is an obscure California state park. Tourists can walk through the town’s original buildings, visit the old church, and tour the lieutenant colonel’s home. Contemporary Allensworth sits across the street. It’s quiet and welcoming, populated by mostly Latinx farmworkers who moved in as Black residents departed. The town is hemmed in by irrigated vineyards and orchards. Many Central Valley farmers get water deliveries from the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, feats of 20th-century engineering that shuttle water from Northern California to cities and farms in the south. But like most small valley towns, Allensworth doesn’t have access to this water source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it’s still tapping its shrinking aquifer, which, according to residents, tastes unusually good. There’s “an itty-bitty sweetness to it,” said Hunter. But like most people in town, she only uses the water to shower, wash dishes or flush toilets. She hasn’t had a drink from it in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Come to find out the water was contaminated with arsenic,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' citation='Denise Kadara, Allensworth resident']‘Being creative is not something we wanted to do. It’s that we’ve had enough.’[/pullquote]Arsenic is tasteless, odorless, colorless and extremely toxic; trace amounts of the naturally occurring contaminant can increase cancer risk. In Allensworth, some wells have arsenic levels 15 times the legal limit. State officials have known about Allensworth’s arsenic problem since at least the 1960s, but for decades, residents say, they weren’t told how dangerous it was. Hunter and her sister didn’t find out until the 1990s. By then, residents had been drinking the contaminated water their entire lives. “Nobody told them,” said Hunter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth is far from alone. According to a damning state auditor’s report earlier this year, nearly a million Californians face an increased risk of cancer, kidney problems and other long-term health crises because their water isn’t safe to drink. Many systems are contaminated by nitrate pollution arising from farming, or by arsenic, which can become more concentrated when farmers overpump their aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to other studies, the communities suffering from contamination are disproportionately Black and Brown, without the resources to fix the problem, the report noted. The California State Water Resources Control Board has the funding to help these failing water systems, but the agency “has generally demonstrated a lack of urgency in providing this critical assistance,” the state auditor’s report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925127\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-800x523.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman with natural salt-and-pepper hair fills up a plastic water bottle from a outdoor silver spigot. The woman wears blue jeans and a white t-shirt with buttons down the front and splashes of purple and green. Behind her is a grey, wood-paneled building and a large tree with wide branches.\" width=\"800\" height=\"523\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-800x523.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-1020x666.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-1536x1003.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Denise Kadara fills up her water bottle from a spigot producing the only clean water in the town of Allensworth. The water is collected via solar-powered hydropanels, which suck ambient moisture from the air. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right now, the only arsenic-free water in Allensworth comes from a small spigot in the center of town, across the street from the elementary school. There are two black solar panels a few feet away, which emit a mechanical buzz beneath the squabbling of nearby chickens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You hear the hum?” said Kayode Kadara, Denise Kadara’s husband. “Those are motors running, powered by the sun.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hydropanel system pulls moisture out of the air. Kadara poured some water from the spigot. “Completely arsenic-free,” he said with satisfaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth’s hydropanels are the result of a pilot program with Source, a renewable drinking water company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year, the town installed two hydropanel prototypes near the elementary school, and local leaders plan to install two panels at every home in the community. The technology is expensive and somewhat limited — each hydropanel produces only about a gallon of water a day. But to Hunter, they’re better than nothing because the water is arsenic-free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be enough to cook and enough to drink,” she said. “Water is something you cannot live without. And if it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925124\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two rectangular solar panels sit slanted to the sun in front of a one-story, grey, wood-paneled building. Three windows in the building have white wood trim and a lattice of squares inside the trim.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar-powered hydropanels collect ambient moisture from the air to produce the only clean water in Allensworth outside the town’s community center. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panels are also a stopgap measure, which will tide Allensworth over as it works on longer-term solutions like an experimental arsenic-removal technology with UC Berkeley’s Gadgil Laboratory. If it works, it could help hundreds of other communities whose water is also contaminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town is pursuing much of this work on its own, with unpaid volunteers working with partners on projects and cobbling together grant funding to make it happen. Hunter, Kadara and a group of other Black and Latinx leaders in town know that if they’re going to save Allensworth — and its history — they need to solve its water crisis. It’s the only way Allensworth can thrive again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Watering the future\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a 105-degree day last June, Allensworth doubled in size. Hundreds of people braved the heat, bought themselves plates of hot links and crowded the stage in the center of town to celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Reparations in California\" link1=\"https://www.kqed.org/reparations,Explore why California launched the first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations for Black people\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/2022/02/RiCLandingPageGraphic-1020x574.png\"]As the audience sweated over Styrofoam cups of lemonade and swayed to the music, Hunter and Kadara worked the crowd. A coalition of Black and Brown farmers handed out smoothies. Scientists and grad students set up shop by the old schoolhouse, showcasing a half dozen projects to help solve Allensworth’s water crisis. Staffers for local congressmembers and state senators milled about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a reason scientists and politicians are looking at Allensworth. California’s historic drought is getting worse. More than 90% of Central Valley residents are now relying on groundwater, and as the state overpumps its aquifers, the water is becoming more contaminated and dwindling fast. If any of these communities are going to survive in the long term, they’re going to need access to clean drinking water. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Allensworth may become a beacon, an example of what one water-stressed community can do to ensure a water supply after a century of denied access and repeated crises. Its leaders might end up piloting some of California’s water solutions precisely because they’ve been forced to take matters into their own hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being creative is not something we wanted to do,” said Kadara. “It’s that we’ve had enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This piece was produced in collaboration with the \u003c/i>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">\u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://thefern.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://thefern.org/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\" data-remove-tab-index=\"true\">Food and Environment Reporting Network\u003c/a>\u003c/i>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">, a nonprofit, investigative news organization\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Racism Robbed This Historically Black California Town of Its Water. Now, They're Developing Water of Their Own | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Valeria Contreras’ phone started ringing on a bustling Saturday last February, when she was driving past almond and pistachio orchards on an errand run. Some callers sounded panicked. Others were just upset. “Where’s the water?” they asked her. “How come you guys don’t notify us? I know I’m past due, but did you guys turn off my water?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contreras lives in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925020/promised-land-a-historically-black-california-town-honors-its-proud-painful-past-and-fights-for-its-future\">Allensworth\u003c/a>, a small town of about 500 people an hour’s drive north of Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley. She runs her own catering company, and in her spare time she is also the general manager of the Allensworth Community Services District, which oversees the town’s water supply. Back in February, Contreras had no idea why the water had stopped flowing. And it was her job to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Contreras and other community leaders spent the rest of the weekend scrambling to find the source of the problem. It turned out the pumps on a few of Allensworth’s water wells had failed — the system is old and prone to breaking — and it took the town a month to fully fix it. Then the water system broke down again a few months later. These days, Contreras keeps a few extra gallons of water on her back patio, just in case it happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would think it’s just water, but it’s a necessity — to use a restroom, to wash, to do anything,” Contreras said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clean, safe and affordable drinking water is considered a human right under state law, but nearly a million residents don’t have access to it. Like Contreras, many of them live in the Central Valley, a patchwork of desert scrub and irrigated farmland that’s twice the size of Massachusetts and produces 25% of the nation’s food supply. To some extent, the state’s historic, climate change-fueled drought is to blame. The number of dry wells in California has shot up by more than 70% since last year, many of them in the valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Water is something you cannot live without. And if it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The drought has only exacerbated long-standing water access issues that in many valley communities can be traced back to decades of neglect and racist policies. Nowhere is this more apparent than Allensworth. Founded in 1908, the town was the first community in California to be financed, built and governed by African Americans. Ten years later, it had been all but decimated by white farmers and corporate interests. Water was one of their weapons of choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, more than a century later, local leaders like Contreras are still dealing with the aftereffects and periodic crises. But they are also laser-focused on securing a sustainable and clean drinking water supply for the town — and their creative approach could turn out to be a blueprint for other water-insecure communities in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A thriving Black community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Water has always been an issue here in Allensworth,” said Sherry Hunter, who is president of the Allensworth Community Services District and manages the town’s water system with Contreras. Contreras was visiting her on a sweltering summer afternoon, when it was over 100 degrees, but no one seemed to mind. When it comes to California heat, the women agreed, people from Los Angeles are whiners; people from the Bay Area are just plain weak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we were kids, there was no AC,” said Contreras. “You sat in those leather seats … ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And sweated profusely,” said Hunter. “And you were happy about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925128\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-800x522.jpg\" alt='Two Black women with natural salt-and-pepper hair and one Latina woman with black hair pulled into a tight bun sit on the cracked cement front steps of a gray, wood-paneled building with a white door. The women wear blue jeans. One woman wears a white t-shirt with front buttons and splashes of purple and green. One woman wears a white cotton shirt with black embroidery down the front and arms. The third woman wears a white t-shirt reading \"La Cocina de Contreras.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-800x522.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-1020x666.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut-1536x1002.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58540_02_Allensworth00017-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Denise Kadara, Sherry Hunter and Valeria Contreras talk on the steps of the Allensworth Community Center on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. The women are residents of the small Tulare County town and are trying to get help to provide its residents with clean water. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hunter’s sister, Denise Kadara, was there, too. She advocates for marginalized communities across the region as vice chair of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. The sisters played a pivotal role in helping Contreras fix the water outage back in February. They are also among Allensworth’s few remaining Black residents. Their mother moved to town in the 1970s after learning about its troubled history, and her children followed her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Her mission was to make sure that this town did not die and that history got it right,” said Hunter. “And we knew without a second thought we had to be a part of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth was the town’s iconoclastic founder. He was born into slavery, escaped to fight for the Union during the Civil War, and became the highest-ranking Black military officer of his time. With Jim Crow tightening its grip on the South, he wanted to go West and build a town “where African Americans would settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In 1908, he and his co-founders bought a stretch of farmland in the Central Valley and got to work. Many of the town’s streets were named after prominent Black leaders or abolitionists, and its founders dreamed of building the West’s first Black university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They had a glee club, they had a debate society,” said Kadara. “They were a thriving, upscale community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they had water from the nearby White River. But a few years after Allensworth was established, powerful white farmers diverted the stream to irrigate their crops and cut off the town’s supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, Allensworth had a backup plan: groundwater. The town planned to tap into the ancient aquifers that run deep underground in the Central Valley. A local company that had sold them land promised to help dig the wells and build the town’s water system, according to several historians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the firm, Pacific Farming Co., violated its contract and drilled fewer than half of the wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Allensworth was promised fertile land and water — which [was] reneged on,” said Hunter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925123\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a small, dusty town, surrounded by bare dirt. In the distance, lush, irrigated farmlands are visible. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00009-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dusty roads and parched land lead through the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County. Irrigated, lush farmlands are visible in the distance. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The town sued Pacific Farming, but reached a settlement that left the town in debt. Meanwhile, the company honored its contract with Alpaugh, a majority-white community a few miles away, and dug all the wells they had agreed to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These battles over water access were prevalent throughout California in the early 20th century. As the Central Valley became an agricultural powerhouse, Black migrants flocked to it for a piece of the California dream, along with immigrants from Mexico, Japan, India and the Philippines. But more established local farmers, almost all of whom were white, sought to control as much of the state’s water as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result, says Jonathan London, an associate professor at the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology, was a “separate but unequal system of water provisions.” When corporate interests resorted to illegal behavior, communities of color took them to court, but rarely got a fair hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a really difficult situation — getting squeezed by the corporations on one hand, in a way that really was racially biased, and then having a judicial system that was also racially biased,” said London. “They had really nowhere to turn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925125\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925125\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A sagging, abandoned wooden building sits in dry soil behind a barbed wire fence.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/Allensworth00012-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An abandoned structure sits on dry land in the town of Allensworth in rural Tulare County. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Without a secure water supply, Allensworth’s farmers couldn’t get enough water for their crops. And they faced other racist roadblocks. Local companies charged Black farmers nearly four times as much for land as white farmers, then tried to prevent them from buying land altogether. The railroad shut down Allensworth’s station and moved it to the majority-white Alpaugh. Then, in 1914, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth was struck and killed by a motorcycle. The driver was white, and no charges were ever brought against him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the 1920s, Allensworth’s Black residents started to move away.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘If it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Today, the most visible evidence of Lt. Col. Allensworth’s utopian project is an obscure California state park. Tourists can walk through the town’s original buildings, visit the old church, and tour the lieutenant colonel’s home. Contemporary Allensworth sits across the street. It’s quiet and welcoming, populated by mostly Latinx farmworkers who moved in as Black residents departed. The town is hemmed in by irrigated vineyards and orchards. Many Central Valley farmers get water deliveries from the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, feats of 20th-century engineering that shuttle water from Northern California to cities and farms in the south. But like most small valley towns, Allensworth doesn’t have access to this water source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it’s still tapping its shrinking aquifer, which, according to residents, tastes unusually good. There’s “an itty-bitty sweetness to it,” said Hunter. But like most people in town, she only uses the water to shower, wash dishes or flush toilets. She hasn’t had a drink from it in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Come to find out the water was contaminated with arsenic,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Arsenic is tasteless, odorless, colorless and extremely toxic; trace amounts of the naturally occurring contaminant can increase cancer risk. In Allensworth, some wells have arsenic levels 15 times the legal limit. State officials have known about Allensworth’s arsenic problem since at least the 1960s, but for decades, residents say, they weren’t told how dangerous it was. Hunter and her sister didn’t find out until the 1990s. By then, residents had been drinking the contaminated water their entire lives. “Nobody told them,” said Hunter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth is far from alone. According to a damning state auditor’s report earlier this year, nearly a million Californians face an increased risk of cancer, kidney problems and other long-term health crises because their water isn’t safe to drink. Many systems are contaminated by nitrate pollution arising from farming, or by arsenic, which can become more concentrated when farmers overpump their aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to other studies, the communities suffering from contamination are disproportionately Black and Brown, without the resources to fix the problem, the report noted. The California State Water Resources Control Board has the funding to help these failing water systems, but the agency “has generally demonstrated a lack of urgency in providing this critical assistance,” the state auditor’s report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925127\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-800x523.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman with natural salt-and-pepper hair fills up a plastic water bottle from a outdoor silver spigot. The woman wears blue jeans and a white t-shirt with buttons down the front and splashes of purple and green. Behind her is a grey, wood-paneled building and a large tree with wide branches.\" width=\"800\" height=\"523\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-800x523.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-1020x666.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut-1536x1003.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/RS58541_05_Allensworth00016-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Denise Kadara fills up her water bottle from a spigot producing the only clean water in the town of Allensworth. The water is collected via solar-powered hydropanels, which suck ambient moisture from the air. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Right now, the only arsenic-free water in Allensworth comes from a small spigot in the center of town, across the street from the elementary school. There are two black solar panels a few feet away, which emit a mechanical buzz beneath the squabbling of nearby chickens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You hear the hum?” said Kayode Kadara, Denise Kadara’s husband. “Those are motors running, powered by the sun.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hydropanel system pulls moisture out of the air. Kadara poured some water from the spigot. “Completely arsenic-free,” he said with satisfaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allensworth’s hydropanels are the result of a pilot program with Source, a renewable drinking water company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year, the town installed two hydropanel prototypes near the elementary school, and local leaders plan to install two panels at every home in the community. The technology is expensive and somewhat limited — each hydropanel produces only about a gallon of water a day. But to Hunter, they’re better than nothing because the water is arsenic-free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be enough to cook and enough to drink,” she said. “Water is something you cannot live without. And if it’s not drinkable, you may as well be without.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11925124\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two rectangular solar panels sit slanted to the sun in front of a one-story, grey, wood-paneled building. Three windows in the building have white wood trim and a lattice of squares inside the trim.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/06_Allensworth00006-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar-powered hydropanels collect ambient moisture from the air to produce the only clean water in Allensworth outside the town’s community center. \u003ccite>(Craig Kohlruss/FERN)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panels are also a stopgap measure, which will tide Allensworth over as it works on longer-term solutions like an experimental arsenic-removal technology with UC Berkeley’s Gadgil Laboratory. If it works, it could help hundreds of other communities whose water is also contaminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town is pursuing much of this work on its own, with unpaid volunteers working with partners on projects and cobbling together grant funding to make it happen. Hunter, Kadara and a group of other Black and Latinx leaders in town know that if they’re going to save Allensworth — and its history — they need to solve its water crisis. It’s the only way Allensworth can thrive again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Watering the future\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a 105-degree day last June, Allensworth doubled in size. Hundreds of people braved the heat, bought themselves plates of hot links and crowded the stage in the center of town to celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"link1": "https://www.kqed.org/reparations,Explore why California launched the first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations for Black people",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As the audience sweated over Styrofoam cups of lemonade and swayed to the music, Hunter and Kadara worked the crowd. A coalition of Black and Brown farmers handed out smoothies. Scientists and grad students set up shop by the old schoolhouse, showcasing a half dozen projects to help solve Allensworth’s water crisis. Staffers for local congressmembers and state senators milled about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a reason scientists and politicians are looking at Allensworth. California’s historic drought is getting worse. More than 90% of Central Valley residents are now relying on groundwater, and as the state overpumps its aquifers, the water is becoming more contaminated and dwindling fast. If any of these communities are going to survive in the long term, they’re going to need access to clean drinking water. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Allensworth may become a beacon, an example of what one water-stressed community can do to ensure a water supply after a century of denied access and repeated crises. Its leaders might end up piloting some of California’s water solutions precisely because they’ve been forced to take matters into their own hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being creative is not something we wanted to do,” said Kadara. “It’s that we’ve had enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This piece was produced in collaboration with the \u003c/i>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">\u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://thefern.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://thefern.org/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\" data-remove-tab-index=\"true\">Food and Environment Reporting Network\u003c/a>\u003c/i>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">, a nonprofit, investigative news organization\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "'Promised Land': A Historically Black California Town Honors Its Proud, Painful Past — and Fights for Its Future",
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"content": "\u003cp>The town of Allensworth, located 30 minutes off Interstate 5 near Bakersfield, was a thriving Black community in the early 20th century. Its founders — a group of five Black settlers including Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth — envisioned a Black utopia. The town had its own school, church and bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To escape racist violence and discrimination after the Civil War, Black people built settlements known as freedmen’s towns in a number of states across the U.S. But Allensworth, established in 1908, was the first of its kind in California: a town governed entirely by Black people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_11925109']Lt. Col. Allensworth, who was enslaved in Kentucky before fleeing and becoming a Union soldier in the Civil War, was also a minister, educator and businessman. With his town, he hoped to create the “Tuskegee of the West,” according to Terrance Dean, a Black studies professor at Denison University in Ohio who has provided expert testimony to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906054/it-means-to-repair-what-you-should-know-about-reparations-for-black-californians\">California’s Reparations Task Force\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter to Booker T. Washington — a prominent Black leader in the early 20th century and the principal of Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University, a historically Black school in Alabama — Allensworth said the town would be “where African Americans would settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925050\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1718\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-800x537.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1536x1031.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-2048x1374.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1920x1289.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portrait of Lt. Col. Allensworth near an abandoned home in Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Ted Streshinsky/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Allensworth did blossom into a thriving town. But it had to rely on the state government and white-owned companies that controlled water distribution and the railroad, two lifelines that were soon snatched to squeeze Allensworth into submission — by 1920, the town was in severe decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Determined to be recognized\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before the more widely known 1921 incident in which a white mob destroyed the homes and businesses of prosperous Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., killing almost 40 people, there was Allensworth, a settlement decimated by racism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a destination where Black people from around the country moved for safety and an opportunity to flourish, Allensworth is now a dusty Central Valley outpost with a population of roughly 500. The town is a remarkable part of the state’s history, yet many people have never heard of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11922175,news_11840548,news_11916026\"]Allensworth and Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, founded in 1974\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\"> \u003c/b>to honor the town’s history and Black Californians, have come up in several meetings of California’s Reparations Task Force, the group researching reparations for the harm caused by the legacy of slavery in the state. The task force will make a formal recommendation to the state Legislature next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been previous efforts to preserve and share Allensworth’s history and to revitalize the town’s economic base, but what might reparations look like? State Sen. Steven Bradford, a member of the Reparations Task Force, has referred to Allensworth as a ghost town. But a visit almost three months ago revealed a community determined to be recognized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtrak offered a special 50% discount for train passengers stopping at Allensworth for a celebration of Juneteenth, the national holiday that commemorates emancipation. Maxine Butler was among those who took advantage of the chance to visit the town, catching the train at 6 a.m. on June 11 from the Emeryville Amtrak station. The platform bustled with excitement and anticipation as people boarded the Bakersfield-bound train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Butler, who is from North Oakland, had received a terminal cancer diagnosis earlier that week. She said visiting Allensworth was on her bucket list. She’d also recently learned that her sister-in-law’s family lived there for six years, until 1940.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925097\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925097\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg\" alt=\"an older woman sits on a train wearing a hat and sunglasses and looking out the window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maxine Butler of Oakland rides an Amtrak train to visit Allensworth in June 2022. \u003ccite>(Lakshmi Sarah/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I can only imagine the atmosphere at that time,” she said, referring to Allensworth’s beginnings. “Escaping the lynchings. Escaping the aftereffects of slavery. And they probably heard about this — this Jerusalem, this promised land called Allensworth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Butler has bright eyes and is a classical music singer who used to sing with the Oakland Symphony Chorus. She broke into song more than once as the train made its way through Central Valley towns during the 4.5-hour ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The importance of ‘home’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Homeownership is often the largest contributor to personal wealth in the United States. According to a Public Policy Institute of California data analysis, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-housing-divide/\">Black homeownership rate in California is at 36.8%\u003c/a>, about 26.4 points below the rate for white households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Home helps us to place a marker on our beginnings,” said Dean, of Denison University, in his testimony to the Reparations Task Force. “This is where this American odyssey begins for the hundreds of Black families of Allensworth, Calif., who unfortunately do not and cannot claim inheritance to a home that their ancestors created for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the town’s founding, Dean spoke about William Payne, Allensworth’s first teacher and principal, who was denied a teaching license by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Terrance Dean, Black studies professor, Denison University\"]‘Home helps us to place a marker on our beginnings. This is where this American odyssey begins for the hundreds of Black families … who unfortunately do not and cannot claim inheritance to a home that their ancestors created for them.’[/pullquote]Lt. Col. Allensworth had secured more than 9,000 acres “of the richest land in central California,” he wrote to Booker T. Washington. The settlement was on the main line of the Santa Fe Railway. According to Dean, Allensworth was the only transfer point between Los Angeles and Fresno at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In essence, it was a shining example of Black self-sufficiency and prosperity,” Dean said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A railroad diverted\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, visitors can peek into the windows of each structure — the schoolhouse, the library and homes. The nearly 20 buildings are meant to look like they would have looked in 1908, complete with outhouses, furniture, books and even fake food in the kitchen of Lt. Col. Allensworth’s home. There’s a bizarre ghost-like quality to the buildings on days when there isn’t a celebration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a self-guided tour of sorts, visitors can call a number to hear a brief recording describing aspects of each building. The recording also describes the railroad station that connected Allensworth to the outside world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trains brought friends and relatives, mail supplies and building materials,” a recorded voice says. “Most important, freight shipments supported the town’s economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1914, a new stop was created in a neighboring white town and the number of shipments from Allensworth severely declined. That’s one of the factors that led to the town’s demise, according to Jerelyn Oliveira, who leads tours of the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They added tracks over to the little community of Alpaugh, which is west of here by about seven miles,” she said. “All that agricultural product was being transported from Alpaugh instead of Allensworth. So the money started slowing down, dwindling, and then the trains stopped stopping here in 1929.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925098\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925098\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a bumper sticker that reads 'Visit California's Black Historic Town Allensworth'\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2095\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-800x655.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1020x835.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-160x131.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1536x1257.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-2048x1676.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1920x1571.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bumper sticker from Allensworth, circa 1970s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Photograph Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925109/racism-robbed-this-historically-black-california-town-of-its-water-now-theyre-developing-water-of-their-own\">Water was another issue\u003c/a>. The Pacific Water Company built only four wells for Allensworth, compared to the 10 wells built for Alpaugh, according to a report released by the Reparations Task Force in June. Allensworth’s wells started drying up, and the water became contaminated. The settlers were “victims of a racist scam and were sold land that would never have enough water,” the report noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denise Kadara’s mother, Nettie Morrison, moved Denise and her siblings to Allensworth in the ’70s. For almost four decades, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/6640864\">Morrison helped keep the memory of the town alive\u003c/a> through park events, like the Juneteenth celebration. Though she passed away in 2018, her children — including Kadara and her twin brother, Dennis Hutson — are continuing the legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All we want to do here is bring the community back, and make it a thriving community once again,” Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pride and sadness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Butler disembarked the train in the blazing heat, she walked across the tracks to wait for the small bus to take her to the schoolhouse. There, Butler told the docents that she heard a story about how Gloria Harris, her sister-in-law’s mother, had carved her name into a desk. She didn’t find Harris’ name on a desk, but one of the school’s record books confirmed Harris did attend the one-room school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925095\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a schoolhouse\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2102\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-800x657.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1020x838.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-160x131.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1536x1261.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-2048x1682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1920x1577.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Exterior of Allensworth Elementary School building, Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, circa 1970s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Photograph Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several other visitors walked across the school’s creaky floorboards and examined the desks, including Latrice Hutchings, who took the train from Stockton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels amazing. There’s a sense of nostalgia,” said Hutchings, who had previously visited the park a few weeks prior to the Juneteenth celebration. All of the buildings had been closed then, and she could only look through the windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s awesome to be inside,” Hutchings continued. “You feel a little bit emotional and you feel a little proud, because you can see that they had a good life here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gail Autry, who boarded the train in the Bay Area, said she had mixed emotions being at the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of want to cry,” she said. “Any time I’ve ever gone to a different plantation, it’s just the feeling of pride, of sadness, of how they made it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A road map to repair\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sen. Bradford, of the Reparations Task Force, is focused on bringing attention to the accomplishments of Black people and properties they owned at the turn of the century, such as Val Verde and Bruce’s Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Reparations in California\" link1=\"https://www.kqed.org/reparations,Explore why California launched the first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations for Black people\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/2022/02/RiCLandingPageGraphic-1020x574.png\"]\u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/val-verde-black-palm-springs-castaic/11587364/\">Val Verde\u003c/a> was a Santa Clarita Valley city known as the “Black Palm Springs,” where Black people could buy property before World War II. Bruce’s Beach was the beachfront resort built in Manhattan Beach by Charles and Willa Bruce in 1912; the property was seized by the city, and the land owned by Los Angeles County until last year, when the property was transferred to the couple’s descendants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bradford helped secure $40 million in the 2022 state budget for Allensworth, including $10 million for a teaching and innovation farm. According to The Sun Gazette\u003cem>,\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://thesungazette.com/article/news/2022/07/14/state-funding-seeks-to-restore-historic-black-town/\">$28 million will be used for a park visitor center and almost $2 million for a town civic center\u003c/a>. But Bradford believes there’s more to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925100\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a sunset over a desert town\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sun sets on Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park in 2008. \u003ccite>(Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think it has a nexus to reparations,” he said. “To show what was promised but was never delivered, but also what we had that was stolen from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to know the full story. Far too often we look at where we are today and say, ‘Oh, things are great.’ But we’ve got to understand how we got here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Dennis Hutson, son of Nettie Morrison, who moved to Allensworth in the 1970s\"]‘If you owed me $100 and you want to give me a dime, is that really reparations?’[/pullquote]Dennis Hutson, for his part, isn’t convinced the millions from the state budget will amount to reparations for the descendants of Allensworth settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sounds like a good idea, but I just really wonder, is it really heartfelt?” Hutson said. “And if you owed me $100 and you want to give me a dime, is that really reparations?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the train ride back to Emeryville, I asked Butler how she was feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really bristle when I hear about ‘the first African American who did this,’” she said. “(It’s) always something that was hidden, that never was brought to the surface.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In 1908, Allensworth was designed by its Black founders as a place where 'African Americans would settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose' — before racist policies squashed it into submission. More than a century later, the town is one of about a dozen Black communities shaping the conversation about what reparations might mean in California.",
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"title": "'Promised Land': A Historically Black California Town Honors Its Proud, Painful Past — and Fights for Its Future | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The town of Allensworth, located 30 minutes off Interstate 5 near Bakersfield, was a thriving Black community in the early 20th century. Its founders — a group of five Black settlers including Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth — envisioned a Black utopia. The town had its own school, church and bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To escape racist violence and discrimination after the Civil War, Black people built settlements known as freedmen’s towns in a number of states across the U.S. But Allensworth, established in 1908, was the first of its kind in California: a town governed entirely by Black people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Lt. Col. Allensworth, who was enslaved in Kentucky before fleeing and becoming a Union soldier in the Civil War, was also a minister, educator and businessman. With his town, he hoped to create the “Tuskegee of the West,” according to Terrance Dean, a Black studies professor at Denison University in Ohio who has provided expert testimony to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11906054/it-means-to-repair-what-you-should-know-about-reparations-for-black-californians\">California’s Reparations Task Force\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter to Booker T. Washington — a prominent Black leader in the early 20th century and the principal of Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University, a historically Black school in Alabama — Allensworth said the town would be “where African Americans would settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925050\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1718\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-800x537.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1536x1031.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-2048x1374.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-576842560-1920x1289.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portrait of Lt. Col. Allensworth near an abandoned home in Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. \u003ccite>(Ted Streshinsky/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Allensworth did blossom into a thriving town. But it had to rely on the state government and white-owned companies that controlled water distribution and the railroad, two lifelines that were soon snatched to squeeze Allensworth into submission — by 1920, the town was in severe decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Determined to be recognized\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before the more widely known 1921 incident in which a white mob destroyed the homes and businesses of prosperous Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., killing almost 40 people, there was Allensworth, a settlement decimated by racism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a destination where Black people from around the country moved for safety and an opportunity to flourish, Allensworth is now a dusty Central Valley outpost with a population of roughly 500. The town is a remarkable part of the state’s history, yet many people have never heard of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Allensworth and Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, founded in 1974\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\"> \u003c/b>to honor the town’s history and Black Californians, have come up in several meetings of California’s Reparations Task Force, the group researching reparations for the harm caused by the legacy of slavery in the state. The task force will make a formal recommendation to the state Legislature next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been previous efforts to preserve and share Allensworth’s history and to revitalize the town’s economic base, but what might reparations look like? State Sen. Steven Bradford, a member of the Reparations Task Force, has referred to Allensworth as a ghost town. But a visit almost three months ago revealed a community determined to be recognized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtrak offered a special 50% discount for train passengers stopping at Allensworth for a celebration of Juneteenth, the national holiday that commemorates emancipation. Maxine Butler was among those who took advantage of the chance to visit the town, catching the train at 6 a.m. on June 11 from the Emeryville Amtrak station. The platform bustled with excitement and anticipation as people boarded the Bakersfield-bound train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Butler, who is from North Oakland, had received a terminal cancer diagnosis earlier that week. She said visiting Allensworth was on her bucket list. She’d also recently learned that her sister-in-law’s family lived there for six years, until 1940.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925097\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925097\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg\" alt=\"an older woman sits on a train wearing a hat and sunglasses and looking out the window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/02_Maxine_Butler-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maxine Butler of Oakland rides an Amtrak train to visit Allensworth in June 2022. \u003ccite>(Lakshmi Sarah/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I can only imagine the atmosphere at that time,” she said, referring to Allensworth’s beginnings. “Escaping the lynchings. Escaping the aftereffects of slavery. And they probably heard about this — this Jerusalem, this promised land called Allensworth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Butler has bright eyes and is a classical music singer who used to sing with the Oakland Symphony Chorus. She broke into song more than once as the train made its way through Central Valley towns during the 4.5-hour ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The importance of ‘home’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Homeownership is often the largest contributor to personal wealth in the United States. According to a Public Policy Institute of California data analysis, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-housing-divide/\">Black homeownership rate in California is at 36.8%\u003c/a>, about 26.4 points below the rate for white households.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Home helps us to place a marker on our beginnings,” said Dean, of Denison University, in his testimony to the Reparations Task Force. “This is where this American odyssey begins for the hundreds of Black families of Allensworth, Calif., who unfortunately do not and cannot claim inheritance to a home that their ancestors created for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the town’s founding, Dean spoke about William Payne, Allensworth’s first teacher and principal, who was denied a teaching license by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Lt. Col. Allensworth had secured more than 9,000 acres “of the richest land in central California,” he wrote to Booker T. Washington. The settlement was on the main line of the Santa Fe Railway. According to Dean, Allensworth was the only transfer point between Los Angeles and Fresno at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In essence, it was a shining example of Black self-sufficiency and prosperity,” Dean said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A railroad diverted\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, visitors can peek into the windows of each structure — the schoolhouse, the library and homes. The nearly 20 buildings are meant to look like they would have looked in 1908, complete with outhouses, furniture, books and even fake food in the kitchen of Lt. Col. Allensworth’s home. There’s a bizarre ghost-like quality to the buildings on days when there isn’t a celebration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a self-guided tour of sorts, visitors can call a number to hear a brief recording describing aspects of each building. The recording also describes the railroad station that connected Allensworth to the outside world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trains brought friends and relatives, mail supplies and building materials,” a recorded voice says. “Most important, freight shipments supported the town’s economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1914, a new stop was created in a neighboring white town and the number of shipments from Allensworth severely declined. That’s one of the factors that led to the town’s demise, according to Jerelyn Oliveira, who leads tours of the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They added tracks over to the little community of Alpaugh, which is west of here by about seven miles,” she said. “All that agricultural product was being transported from Alpaugh instead of Allensworth. So the money started slowing down, dwindling, and then the trains stopped stopping here in 1929.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925098\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925098\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a bumper sticker that reads 'Visit California's Black Historic Town Allensworth'\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2095\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-800x655.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1020x835.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-160x131.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1536x1257.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-2048x1676.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0015-1920x1571.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bumper sticker from Allensworth, circa 1970s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Photograph Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11925109/racism-robbed-this-historically-black-california-town-of-its-water-now-theyre-developing-water-of-their-own\">Water was another issue\u003c/a>. The Pacific Water Company built only four wells for Allensworth, compared to the 10 wells built for Alpaugh, according to a report released by the Reparations Task Force in June. Allensworth’s wells started drying up, and the water became contaminated. The settlers were “victims of a racist scam and were sold land that would never have enough water,” the report noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denise Kadara’s mother, Nettie Morrison, moved Denise and her siblings to Allensworth in the ’70s. For almost four decades, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/6640864\">Morrison helped keep the memory of the town alive\u003c/a> through park events, like the Juneteenth celebration. Though she passed away in 2018, her children — including Kadara and her twin brother, Dennis Hutson — are continuing the legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All we want to do here is bring the community back, and make it a thriving community once again,” Kadara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pride and sadness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Butler disembarked the train in the blazing heat, she walked across the tracks to wait for the small bus to take her to the schoolhouse. There, Butler told the docents that she heard a story about how Gloria Harris, her sister-in-law’s mother, had carved her name into a desk. She didn’t find Harris’ name on a desk, but one of the school’s record books confirmed Harris did attend the one-room school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925095\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a black and white photo of a schoolhouse\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2102\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-800x657.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1020x838.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-160x131.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1536x1261.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-2048x1682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/MS189_0012-1920x1577.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Exterior of Allensworth Elementary School building, Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, circa 1970s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Photograph Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several other visitors walked across the school’s creaky floorboards and examined the desks, including Latrice Hutchings, who took the train from Stockton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels amazing. There’s a sense of nostalgia,” said Hutchings, who had previously visited the park a few weeks prior to the Juneteenth celebration. All of the buildings had been closed then, and she could only look through the windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s awesome to be inside,” Hutchings continued. “You feel a little bit emotional and you feel a little proud, because you can see that they had a good life here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gail Autry, who boarded the train in the Bay Area, said she had mixed emotions being at the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of want to cry,” she said. “Any time I’ve ever gone to a different plantation, it’s just the feeling of pride, of sadness, of how they made it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A road map to repair\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sen. Bradford, of the Reparations Task Force, is focused on bringing attention to the accomplishments of Black people and properties they owned at the turn of the century, such as Val Verde and Bruce’s Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/val-verde-black-palm-springs-castaic/11587364/\">Val Verde\u003c/a> was a Santa Clarita Valley city known as the “Black Palm Springs,” where Black people could buy property before World War II. Bruce’s Beach was the beachfront resort built in Manhattan Beach by Charles and Willa Bruce in 1912; the property was seized by the city, and the land owned by Los Angeles County until last year, when the property was transferred to the couple’s descendants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bradford helped secure $40 million in the 2022 state budget for Allensworth, including $10 million for a teaching and innovation farm. According to The Sun Gazette\u003cem>,\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://thesungazette.com/article/news/2022/07/14/state-funding-seeks-to-restore-historic-black-town/\">$28 million will be used for a park visitor center and almost $2 million for a town civic center\u003c/a>. But Bradford believes there’s more to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11925100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11925100\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"a sunset over a desert town\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/09/GettyImages-566048923-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sun sets on Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park in 2008. \u003ccite>(Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think it has a nexus to reparations,” he said. “To show what was promised but was never delivered, but also what we had that was stolen from us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to know the full story. Far too often we look at where we are today and say, ‘Oh, things are great.’ But we’ve got to understand how we got here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Dennis Hutson, for his part, isn’t convinced the millions from the state budget will amount to reparations for the descendants of Allensworth settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sounds like a good idea, but I just really wonder, is it really heartfelt?” Hutson said. “And if you owed me $100 and you want to give me a dime, is that really reparations?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the train ride back to Emeryville, I asked Butler how she was feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really bristle when I hear about ‘the first African American who did this,’” she said. “(It’s) always something that was hidden, that never was brought to the surface.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"order": 3
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},
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
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},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"order": 10
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"here-and-now": {
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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