# data[].attributes.headline
Yuhaaviatam, or “People of the Pines” Creation Story

# data[].attributes.subject
Yuhaaviatam, or “People of the Pines” Creation Story

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our Creation Story

People of the Pines

High in the San Bernardino mountains at Yuhaaviat, an area of pine trees near present day Big Bear Lake, Kü̱ktac our Creator laid dying. When Kü̱ktac died, the people began to mourn and their grief turned into pine trees, which enriched the land with vegetation and animals, allowing for future generations to thrive.

The people who lived at Yuhaaviat were known as the Yuhaaviatam, or "People of the Pines", and were a clan of Maara'yam (Serrano) people. Our people, now known as the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, are the Yuhaaviatam clan of Maara'yam (Serrano) and continue the tradition of holding sacred the land and everything it provides.

Our Name

The Yuhaaviatam Clan of the Maara'yam (Serrano)

The first Spanish explorers of the area identified our ancestors as the "Serrano" people, the Spanish term for "highlander." Many terms have been used in many languages to describe our people. We use the word Maara'yam, the People of Maara', to describe all peoples known today as Serrano. The name Yuhaaviatam, or People of the Pines, refers to the Serrano clan of our progenitor, Santos Manuel.

As a result of colonization, our Tribe is modernly known as the "San Manuel Band of Mission Indians." The name "San Manuel" comes from a Yuhaaviatam leader that was known by his Spanish name of "Santos Manuel". The term "Mission Indians" originated from the 21 missions established by Spanish settlers along California's coast between 1769 and 1823, from San Diego, CA to Sonoma, CA.

Contact and Post-Contact

During the 1700s, the California Mission System was established, leading to the murder of thousands of California indigenous people. Those that survived long enough to be absorbed into the Missions themselves were forced to give up their traditions in favor of western ways of life.

Many of our people, the Maara'yam (Serrano), were taken from the Antelope Valley, Mojave River region, and even the Inland Empire and placed in the San Gabriel Mission, which was established in 1771. Mission records report contact with clans at the villages of Guachama and Yukaipa't and the subsequent baptisms of those Maara'yam (Serrano) people at Mission San Gabriel in 1776.

In 1775, the Missions established new rancho outposts, or estancias, across the region, increasing their influence by creating a system or chain of structures that would become essential in their communities.

An estancia in Redlands, modernly known as the Asistencia, was established in 1819. This outpost held many Maara'yam (Serrano) people, as well as other indigenous people from nearby regions, using them as labor for mission support. One notable feat was the building of the Mill Creek Zanja, which is a massive irrigation system that extends from the base of the San Bernardino Mountains through Mentone, Redlands, and Loma Linda. This feature supported the agriculture across the region, within which many indigenous people served as labor, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places with the notation that it was built by Serrano men.

In addition to the Mission system and agricultural industry, opportunities related to mining and the Gold Rush drastically changed California, bringing in new settlers who created ranches, farms, mines, and logging camps. Not only did these newcomers want to establish ownership over the land, but they also wanted to utilize it without obstruction. As a result, indigenous people who remained on their ancestral lands were viewed as a nuisance, and were often the victim of harsh treatment and violence.

One such group of people was our clan, the Yuhaaviatam, or "People of the Pines", of Maara'yam (Serrano) people who had remained in our homelands across the Big Bear Valley. In 1866, as anti-Native American sentiment ran high, a skirmish between settlers and non-Maara'yam (Serrano) Native Americans in the Summit Valley triggered a month-long killing spree of our peoples across the Big Bear area by a San Bernardino militia. Our Kiika', or Tribal Leader, Santos Manuel, led the remaining Yuhaaviatam, only 20-30 people in number, away from our mountainous homelands into the San Bernardino Valley.

Over the next few decades, our people ventured through the valley along Warm Creek, running into unwelcome settlers who reacted harshly to our presence. We began near what is now known as the National Orange Show Event Center, then moved on to Meadowbrook Park, and finally made our way to the Harlem Springs area before being completely removed from the landscape and placed on the San Manuel Reservation in 1891.

The Act of Relief for Mission Indians was passed in 1891, which recognized the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians' inherent rights to self-govern as a sovereign nation, as bestowed upon them by the Creator.

Following the establishment of the Reservation, the federal government would continue to make decisions on our behalf, dictating what we could and could not do as an independent nation. Our Tribe fought to rebuild our community in a way that remained true to our culture and tradition, as well as honored the gift and responsibility bestowed upon us by our Creator.

In the 1960s and 70s, nationwide protests strengthened relations between Native Americans and the federal government. Following a message by President Richard Nixon recommending a policy of self-determination for Indian Tribes in 1970, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was signed into law in 1975 and allowed San Manuel, and all Federally-recognized Tribes, to finally exercise our retained inherent right to self-governance.

A more secure economy that followed the introduction of Tribal government gaming in the mid-1980s on the Reservation enabled our Tribe to rebuild its governance capacity. With our government-recognized independence intact and our future in mind, we began to explore opportunities for new businesses both on and off the Reservation.

Our Tribal government oversees many governmental units, and focuses on building infrastructure, maintaining civil services, and promoting social, economic, and cultural development.

Our Tribe operates San Manuel Casino® and is one of the largest employers in the Inland Empire area.

We support neighboring communities and Indian County through financial contributions for education, health and wellness, economic development, and cultural projects.

Our Land

Our people in the San Manuel Reservation are the indigenous people of the San Bernardino highlands, passes, valleys, and mountains. Our Maara'yam (Serrano) ancestral territory covers present day Antelope Valley on the west, southwest Mojave Desert to the north, portions of San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains in the center, Inland Empire north of the city of Riverside to the south, and the city of Twentynine Palms to the east.

As the the Yuhaaviatam clan of Maara'yam from Big Bear Valley, Krukat our Creator gave us the responsibility to steward all of Serrano ancestral territory.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
High in the San Bernardino mountains at Yuhaaviat, an area of pine trees near present day Big Bear Lake, Kü̱ktac our Creator laid dying. When Kü̱ktac died, the people began to mourn and their grief turned into pine trees, which enriched the land with vegetation and animals, allowing for future generations to thrive.

# data[].attributes.headline
1780s: Maara’yam (Serrano) people decimated by disease and forced from villages

# data[].attributes.subject
1780s: Maara’yam (Serrano) people decimated by disease and forced from villages

# data[].attributes.body
The way of life was forever changed for the Maara’yam (Serrano)  beginning in the 1780s, as their people in the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert regions were decimated by European diseases and forced from their villages and conscripted into the San Gabriel Mission in order to provide unpaid labor to Spain. Many Maara’yam (Serrano) were involuntarily marched to the Asistencia in Redlands, which served as an outpost of the San Gabriel Mission, to build the Mill Creek Zanja, which later permitted the citrus industry and other agricultural pursuits to flourish in this portion of Serrano territory.

Agricultural pursuits irreversibly changed the natural world the Maara’yam depended on for their sustenance and ceremony and pushed Serrano people out of the most fertile lands.  Life in the missions was also very destructive to Native families.  Life expectancy was very short and cultural traditions, including the use of indigenous languages, were banned. When practiced, our ancestors were punished and beaten.

# data[].attributes.headline
1849: Economic arguments prompt California to enter US as free state

# data[].attributes.subject
1849: Economic arguments prompt California to enter US as free state

# data[].attributes.body
Gold Rush prospectors feared competition from owners of enslaved people. "The Monterey delegates who made California a free state did so largely on the basis of the mining economy. They did not extend civil rights to California's African Americans or Native Americans. Both groups were denied the right to vote and the right to testify in court. One delegate had even rallied substantial support for banning blacks from California altogether, but the provision was dropped from the constitution. In 1852 California passed its own version of the Fugitive Slave Law, allowing white slave owners to reclaim escaped black slaves."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Stephen Hill, Courtesy: Greg French

In September 1854 Owen R. Rozier complained to the San Joaquin Republican that his slave, Stephen Spencer Hill, had escaped from the steamer Urilda the night before Rozier and Hill were to set sail for Arkansas. Further, Rozier alleged that Hill had stolen his gold watch and thirteen dollars in cash.

"Mr. Rozier is still in this city, at the St. Charles where he would be glad to receive any information of the fugitive," the newspaper read.

Liberated
It's doubtful Rozier got much help. Stephen Spencer Hill's escape was no fluke, but a plan concocted by his white neighbors to free him. Known as the Gold Spring Boys, Hill's neighbors didn't believe he was Rozier's property. They had spent months trying to extricate Hill from the white man's clutches.

Court Ruled against Hill
California was a free state, but under state and federal laws a fugitive slave could be captured and returned to his owner. Rozier claimed he was the agent for Wood Tucker, of Arkansas, who had brought Hill to California. Hill didn't have the paperwork to prove he was a free man and a judge ruled in Rozier's favor.

Slavery in the Gold Rush
White southerners brought black slaves into the California mines as early as the summer of 1849. Slave owners and slaves came primarily from western U.S. states -- Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas. Among them were Stephen Spencer Hill and Wood Tucker, who mined near Columbia. Slavery wasn't popular in the mines, but there were no laws barring it in the early days of the gold rush.

Statehood
In Washington, Congress was embroiled in a rancorous debate over whether the land acquired during the war with Mexico, including California, would be admitted to the union as free or slave states. The nation was evenly divided, with 15 states free and 15 states slaveholding. California would tip the balance in one direction or the other.

Delegates Declared California a Free State
By September of 1849 Californians were tired of waiting for the federal government to act on the matter of their statehood. Forty-eight state delegates gathered in Monterey and voted to join the Union. Many of California's delegates were from slave states, but they were also miners. They had experienced the hard physical toil of digging for gold and the majority thought slavery an unfair advantage in the mines. They declared California a free state, writing into the constitution, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State."

Threat of Dissolution
With the north and the south at an impasse, California's demand for admission as a free state raised the specter of dissolution of the Union. "Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be -- an American no longer?" asked Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster. The debate went on for six months. At one point, one senator drew a pistol on another.

The Compromise
Finally, Congress reached the Compromise of 1850, under which California entered the Union under the state delegates' terms. New Mexico and Utah also became territories, without determining whether they would be free or slave states. The slave trade was banned from the District of Columbia and the Fugitive Slave Law was tightened. "Whatever party may prevail hereafter, the Union stands firm," said Webster.

Anti-slavery, Not Anti-racist
The Monterey delegates who made California a free state did so largely on the basis of the mining economy. They did not extend civil rights to California's African Americans or Native Americans. Both groups were denied the right to vote and the right to testify in court. One delegate had even rallied substantial support for banning blacks from California altogether, but the provision was dropped from the constitution. In 1852 California passed its own version of the Fugitive Slave Law, allowing white slave owners to reclaim escaped black slaves.

Free Blacks
Despite the racially charged climate in California, free blacks, many from northeastern states where black people possessed comparatively more rights, were nonetheless eager to get to California. They tended to dismiss the reports of prejudice and hardship. Instead, they focused on the accounts of financial success and freedom. To combat the unfairness of laws such as the one that prevented them from testifying in court, they petitioned and organized statewide "colored conventions." They had support from sympathetic whites, as was seen in the case of Stephen Spencer Hill.

From Miner to Farmer
When Hill's owner Wood Tucker returned to Arkansas in April 1853, Hill purchased his freedom and remained in California. He bought 160 acres and cleared 40 to plant wheat and barley. To buy farm equipment, he mined, once pulling out a nine-ounce nugget. Hill was well-liked by his neighbors. When Rozier showed up to take Hill back to Arkansas, he faced local opposition, but Rozier had the law on his side.

Hill Flees
Acting on Rozier's claim that Tucker still owned Hill, the sheriff threw Hill in jail. Legally, Hill was unable to speak on his own behalf, but the Gold Spring Boys got him an attorney. They also harvested Hill's crops so Rozier couldn't profit from them. Ultimately, Hill lost his battle in court, but the Gold Spring Boys won the fight for their friend's freedom. The night before Rozier and Hill were to sail from California, Hill's friends got Rozier drunk and Hill disappeared.

California Votes for Lincoln
During the second half of the 1850s, as the gold mines petered out and farming became more prevalent, California appeared increasingly supportive of the Southern cause. In the presidential election of 1860, nearly twice as many Californians voted Democrat as voted Republican. But the Democrats' votes were split between Southerner John Breckinridge and Northerner Stephen Douglas. With the Republicans solidly behind one candidate, the state's electoral votes went to Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
African Americans in the Gold Rush | American Experience | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In September 1854 Owen R. Rozier complained to the San Joaquin Republican that his slave, Stephen Spencer Hill, had escaped from the steamer Urilda the night before Rozier and Hill were to set sail for Arkansas. Further, Rozier alleged that Hill had stolen his gold watch and thirteen dollars in cash.

# data[].attributes.headline
1850: Act for the Government and Protection of Indians

# data[].attributes.subject
1850: Act for the Government and Protection of Indians

# data[].attributes.body
Law that made it illegal to be Native in public unless working for a white person. Codified forced slavery of native people. Banned cultural burning (prescribed burning)

# data[].attributes.body
Allowed certain “citizens” ability to claim land for ownership at the expense of forced migration and genocide of Native people. Excluded people of certain races and ethnicities from participating.

# data[].attributes.body
Slavery, bondage and servitude still "legal" under the terms of crime and incarceration

# data[].attributes.body
"The earliest recorded observation occurred on May 1st 1865 in Charleston, SC when 250-257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp were honored. Lead by freedmen (former enslaved Africans), they dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom." - This is quite impactful as we have a large community of military folks and veterans in the Morongo Basin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nowadays, Memorial Day honors veterans of all wars, but its roots are in America's deadliest conflict, the Civil War. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died, about two-thirds from disease.

More from TIME

The work of honoring the dead began right away all over the country, and several American towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. Researchers have traced the earliest annual commemoration to women who laid flowers on soldiers' graves in the Civil War hospital town of Columbus, Miss., in April 1866. But historians like the Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight have tried to raise awareness of freed slaves who decorated soldiers' graves a year earlier, to make sure their story gets told too.

According to Blight's 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, a commemoration organized by freed slaves and some white missionaries took place on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, S.C., at a former planters' racetrack where Confederates held captured Union soldiers during the last year of the war. At least 257 prisoners died, many of disease, and were buried in unmarked graves, so black residents of Charleston decided to give them a proper burial.

Clubhouse at the race course where Union soldiers were held prisoner. Civil war photographs, 1861-1865, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

In the approximately 10 days leading up to the event, roughly two dozen African American Charlestonians reorganized the graves into rows and built a 10-foot-tall white fence around them. An archway overhead spelled out "Martyrs of the Race Course" in black letters.
Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter
About 10,000 people, mostly black residents, participated in the May 1 tribute, according to coverage back then in the Charleston Daily Courier and the New York Tribune. Starting at 9 a.m., about 3,000 black schoolchildren paraded around the race track holding roses and singing the Union song "John Brown's Body," and were followed by adults representing aid societies for freed black men and women. Black pastors delivered sermons and led attendees in prayer and in the singing of spirituals, and there were picnics. James Redpath, the white director of freedman's education in the region, organized about 30 speeches by Union officers, missionaries and black ministers. Participants sang patriotic songs like "America" and "We'll Rally around the Flag" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." In the afternoon, three white and black Union regiments marched around the graves and staged a drill.

The New York Tribune described the tribute as "a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before." The gravesites looked like a "one mass of flowers" and "the breeze wafted the sweet perfumes from them" and "tears of joy" were shed.

This tribute, "gave birth to an American tradition," Blight wrote in Race and Reunion: "The war was over, and Memorial Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration."

In 1996, Blight stumbled upon a New York Herald Tribune article detailing the tribute in a Harvard University archive - but the origin story it told was not the Memorial Day history that many white people had wanted to tell, he argues.

About 50 years after the Civil War ended, someone at the United Daughters of the Confederacy asked the Ladies Memorial Association of Charleston to confirm that the May 1, 1865, tribute occurred, and received a reply from one S.C. Beckwith: "I regret that I was unable to gather any official information in answer to this." Whether Beckwith actually knew about the tribute or not, Blight argues, the exchange illustrates "how white Charlestonians suppressed from memory this founding." A 1937 book also incorrectly stated that James Redpath singlehandedly organized the tribute - when in reality it was a group effort - and that it took place on May 30, when it actually took place on May 1. That book also diminished the role of the African Americans involved by referring to them as "black hands which only knew that the dead they were honoring had raised them from a condition of servitude."

An Alfred Waud illustration of the.Union soldiers cemetery known as "Martyrs of the Race course" in Charleston, S.C. Morgan collection of Civil War drawings at the Library of Congress

The origin story that did stick involves an 1868 call from General John A. Logan, president of a Union Army veterans group, urging Americans to decorate the graves of the fallen with flowers on May 30 of that year. The ceremony that took place in Arlington National Cemetery that day has been considered the first official Memorial Day celebration. Memorial Day became a national holiday two decades later, in 1889, and it took a century before it was moved in 1968 to the last Monday of May, where it remains today. According to Blight, Hampton Park, named after Confederate General Wade Hampton, replaced the gravesite at the Martyrs of the Race Course, and the graves were reinterred in the 1880s at a national cemetery in Beaufort, S.C.

The fact that the freed slaves' Memorial Day tribute is not as well remembered is emblematic of the struggle that would follow, as African Americans' fight to be fully recognized for their contributions to American society continues to this day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Overlooked Black History of Memorial Day

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Historians like the Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight have tried to raise awareness of freed slaves who decorated soldiers' graves in 1865

# data[].attributes.body
Established in 1865,  the Morongo Indian Reservation was one of nine small reservations created by President Ulysses S. Grant by executive order in 1876.

# data[].attributes.headline
1866 attack of the Yuhaaviatam in Big Bear Valley

# data[].attributes.subject
1866 attack of the Yuhaaviatam in Big Bear Valley

# data[].attributes.body
The Yuhaaviatam (Serrano @ Big Bear) were attacked by a California state government-sanctioned militia in their homeland of Big Bear Valley during a 32-day campaign in 1866.  Most of their people were mercilessly killed in the name of American expansion and resource extraction.  Less than 30 members of the clan survived this massacre.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Contact with three different waves of European peoples and their governments led to our Tribe's forced removal from our vast ancestral territory and our near extermination as a people. This physical and cultural genocide has led to ongoing disconnection and disenfranchisement from our sacred spaces, culturally important plants/animals, the remains of our ancestors, and our traditional clan-based interactions. We remember these harsh realities of those who came before us, but by telling these stories, we also honor the strength, perseverance, and resiliency of our people. Our way of life may have been fundamentally altered over the last few centuries, but our Creator-given sovereignty and our ability to adapt and thrive remains.

Today, the Reservation, once only 640 acres, is now over 1,100 acres in size. Our San Manuel Tribal Government works to provide a better quality of life for our citizens by building infrastructure, maintaining civil services, and promoting social, economic, and cultural development. San Manuel also operates San Manuel Casino®, as well as other enterprises, and supports neighboring communities as one of the largest employers and philanthropists in the Inland Empire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About Us | San Manuel Band of Mission Indians

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Contact with three different waves of European peoples and their governments led to our Tribe's forced removal from our vast ancestral territory and our near extermination as a people. This physical and cultural genocide has led to ongoing disconnection and disenfranchisement from our sacred spaces, culturally important plants/animals, the remains of our ancestors, and our traditional clan-based interactions.

# data[].attributes.headline
1882: Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (US)

# data[].attributes.subject
1882: Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (US)

# data[].attributes.body
The exclusionary legislation was a rebuke to a people who had in many ways built California.

# data[].attributes.body
Decreed that Indian Reservation land was to be divided into plots and allocated to individual Native Americans. These plots could not be sold for 25 years, but reservation land left over after the distribution of allotments could be sold to outsiders.

# data[].attributes.headline
1890: Jim Crow segregation and redlining

# data[].attributes.subject
1890: Jim Crow segregation and redlining

# data[].attributes.body
Forced people of color to live in certain areas.

# data[].attributes.body
Start of Owens Valley Water Wars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Salton Sea is not a sea at all. It is a lake lake in the heavily farmed Imperial Valley of Southern California. The salty sea is an odd, utterly huge expanse of water smack in the middle of the desert.

The Salton Sea is the largest lake in California, at some 375 square miles (970 square km).

Thing is, it didn't use to be there. Throughout geologic history, the basin has alternated between being a lake and a dry lakebed as the climate fluctuated over long time periods. Through modern history, it was bone dry.

So how did the Salton Sea form? It was all a big mistake.

In 1905, water from the Colorado River was diverted through the Alamo Canal to irrigate farmlands in the Imperial Valley, but huge precipitation and snow melt in the mountains that feed the Colorado sent a flood. The water broke through wooden gates in the canal and filled up the Salton basin, submerging most of the town of Salton.

The canal was fixed by 1907, but the Salton Sea had been created.

Now the lake gets replenished by irrigation runoff and "municipal and industrial drainage," according to the U.S. Geological Survey, so it is quite unnatural. Yet it has taken on a life of it's own. The nutrients in the runoff create algae blooms and there is abundant wildlife - lots of birds use it as a migratory stopover.

Interestingly, the Salton Sea is 226 feet (69 meters) BELOW sea level. It's about 35 miles long, 15 miles wide, and up to 37 feet deep.

Water can't flow out of the Salton Sea, so it escapes only by evaporation, which leaves behind salts and other minerals. The water is 30 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean. In fact, this man-made disaster of a lake has gotten so salty that scientists say it now threatens some of the birds that rely on it.
Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Salton Sea is not a sea at all. It is a lake lake in the heavily farmed Imperial Valley of Southern California. The salty sea is an odd, utterly huge expanse of water smack in the middle of the desert.

# data[].attributes.headline
1908 - Town of Allensworth Founded in Tulare Co.

# data[].attributes.subject
1908 - Town of Allensworth Founded in Tulare Co.

# data[].attributes.body
First town in California established exclusively by Black Americans.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/history-allensworth-california-1908/

https://www.kqed.org/news/11727455/black-farmworkers-in-the-central-valley-escaping-jim-crow-for-a-subtler-kind-of-racism

# data[].attributes.headline
1909 Willie Boy, a Chemehuevi man, killed after massive man hunt. 

# data[].attributes.subject
1909 Willie Boy, a Chemehuevi man, killed after massive man hunt. 

# data[].attributes.body
Coachella vigilantes chased him throughout the desert. Was referred to as the "last hurrah of the Wild West."

# data[].attributes.headline
1910: Six African American families found town of Dunbar in east Mojave

# data[].attributes.subject
1910: Six African American families found town of Dunbar in east Mojave

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Homesteading in the Mojave

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Residents of the Lanfair Valley may well have enjoyed more relative freedom, and less hatred, than any other African-Americans in the U.S.

# data[].attributes.body
Black Americans had established a prosperous, self-contained community within Tulsa. After a disputed incident, a large group of white residents, some deputized by local law enforcement, burned down 35 blocks of homes and businesses in the Black community and killed a still-unknown number of residents. For decades the massacre was referred to as a "race riot," and only decades later was it acknowledged as a massacre. Since then, no meaningful reparations have been made.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/podcasts/the-daily/tulsa-race-massacre-centenary.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/tulsa-massacre-survivors.html

# data[].attributes.headline
1926: Founding of Murray's Dude Ranch in Apple Valley

# data[].attributes.subject
1926: Founding of Murray's Dude Ranch in Apple Valley

# data[].attributes.body
Vacation site for African-American people (later integrated) offers refuge from racism for travelers. Lasted until 1960s.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Though the history of African-Americans in the California desert contains more than its share of privation, backbreaking toil and discrimination, it wasn't all as bleak as the desert's dry lakes. At places like Murray's Dude Ranch in Apple Valley, in fact, the history of African-American people in the desert mainly involved kicking back, enjoying a break from the grind of mid-20th-century city life, and drinking in that clean, high-desert air.

Not that there wasn't hard work to be done on the ranch. When Nolie and Lela Murray bought their 40-acre spread at Waalew and Bell Mountain roads in 1922 -- for $100 -- they committed themselves to what turned out to be a lifetime of hard work. Just getting the ranch established involved construction, planting an orchard and hand-digging a 115-foot-deep well into the hard desert soil.

The Murrays weren't the first African-Americans in the area. The desert near Bell Mountain had been a gathering place for black homesteaders for close to a decade when Lela Murray's respiratory ailments prompted the pair to leave Los Angeles, where they'd owned a pool hall and cigar store on East 9th Street. At first, they ran their ranch as a waystation for troubled youth, focusing on African-American kids but before long including the complete rainbow of skin colors. Kids that came to the attention of the courts through misfortune or delinquency, or a combination of the two, were sent out to live with the Murrays, where they helped run the ranch. As desert historian Richard Thompson says in his invaluable profile of the Murrays,

By the time the late 1930s rolled around, the ranch held about 20 structures including cabins, a stable, and the main house; tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a windmill to draw water from the well, which was deepened another 100 feet. Beset by bills that weren't met by meager court funds for the childrens' upkeep, the Murrays began converting their spread into a dude ranch, hoping to draw traffic not only from Los Angeles, but from the new cross-country Route 66 a few miles west.

The High Desert, like much of the rest of the United States in the first half of the 20th century, was subject to de facto racial segregation. There were no explicit "Jim Crow"-style signs barring African-Americans from businesses or lodging in the Victorville area, at least until the arrival of black troops in the area during World War Two made some white business owners nervous. Before then, the unspoken exclusion was just as effective. Though none of the towns nearby seem to have been "sundown towns," older residents quite clearly recall that African-American customers were made unwelcome from white-owned restaurants, taverns and hotels in Victorville and Apple Valley. Black families traveling cross-country found few friendly venues for food and lodging; Victor Green's best-selling Negro Traveler's Green Book was able to list a large percentage of hospitable businesses nationwide in just 90 pages, with ads, as late as 1956. When Green started publishing his listing in the middle 1930s, the hospitality landscape was even more limited.

It was in this landscape that the Murrays decided to launch their dude ranch as a desert oasis for the black traveler in the high desert. Despite having what was essentially a monopoly on the African-American tourism market in the high desert, business started off slowly. It was only in 1937, when heavyweight champion Joe Louis visited the ranch in the company of photographers from Life Magazine, that the Murrays' success was assured.

Within just a few months, the Murrays' ranch -- dubbed by Nolie Murray "The Overall Wearing Dude Ranch" -- became a favored vacation spot for the African-American glitterati. Aside from Joe Louis, who returned to the ranch on several occasions, guests included performers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Hattie McDaniel, Nina Mae McKinney and Lena Horne, as well as architect Paul Williams and other notables of color. In 1938, producers Richard Kahn began to use the ranch for a series of "Negro Westerns" starring actor and singer Herb Jeffries.

Embedded here is the 1939 film The Bronze Buckaroo, co-produced with Jed Buell (best known for his all little-people exploitation western "The Terror of Tiny Town"). Though some of the movie -- to put it delicately -- has not aged well, especially in scenes involving Lucius Brooks' comic character "Dusty," the film does offer reasonably clear glimpses of Murray's Ranch, including the aforementioned windmill, stables, and the main house.

It wasn't all Hollywood notables at the ranch, though. The Murrays played host to people of more modest means as well. Historian Richard Thompson relates the text of a letter received by the Murrays early on:

Thompson continues:

The ranch's kitchen, operated by chef Malcolm Keyes, was popular among locals of all ethnicities, but with the exception of one unnamed white writer, who Thompson says was subsequently "blacklisted" from white-owned ranches in the area, there were no white overnight guests in the early years of the dude ranch. That changed, however, when the Murrays were featured in an article in 1945 that was first published in a Southern California union newspaper and then saw wide reprinting in periodicals from Negro Digest to the Daily Worker. Lela Murray, who handled booking for the ranch, began to get inquiries from potential white guests. Thompson again:

Lela Murray died in 1949, aged 58. For a time a disconsolate Nolie attempted to sell the ranch without success. Eventually remarried to a Los Angeles schoolteacher named Callie Armstrong, who dug into ranch work by his side for a few years, Nolie eventually sold most of the ranch to the wildly popular singer Pearl Bailey, who had visited in 1943 on a USO tour, and her husband Louis Bellson. On the remaining five acres, he and Callie built a motel which they operated until his death in 1958 at age 70.

Bailey and Bellson kept the place for a decade or so and got involved in local life, until people Bailey later referred to as "Hollywood freeloaders" prompted them to sell the land. By 1988, the ranch had been abandoned for some years, and rumors of a brown recluse spider bite -- almost certainly untrue -- prompted the owners to ask the Apple Valley Fire Department to use the remaining buildings for training. They were burned down shortly thereafter.

And so the physical legacy of Nolie, Lela and Callie Murray was wiped from the face of the desert. All that remains are photos in yellowing magazines and graying microfiche, and copies of Jeffries' film -- long thought lost, and rescued almost by accident from a storage barn in Texas. But the ranch still persists in the living memory of those who were there as a sanctuary from the American apartheid of the 1930s and '40s, and the dream of a couple who just wanted to get out into the clean desert air and make the world a little better in the process.

More in this Series
- African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Homesteading in the Mojave
- African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Coachella Valley
Chris Clarke is an environmental writer of two decades standing. Author of Walking With Zeke, he writes regularly at his acclaimed blog Coyote Crossing and comments on desert issues here every week. He lives in Palm Springs. Read his previous posts here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Murray's Ranch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Though the history of African-Americans in the California desert contains more than its share of privation, backbreaking toil and discrimination, it wasn't all as bleak as the desert's dry lakes. At places like Murray's Dude Ranch in Apple Valley, in fact, the history of African-American people in the desert mainly involved kicking back, enjoying a break from the grind of mid-20th-century city life, and drinking in that clean, high-desert air.

# data[].attributes.headline
1920’s and 1930’s: Establishment of racial covenants

# data[].attributes.subject
1920’s and 1930’s: Establishment of racial covenants

# data[].attributes.body
“Said premises shall not be rented, leased, or conveyed to, or occupied by, any person other than of the white or Caucasian race."

# data[].attributes.headline
1930s Filipino communities driven out (CA) 

# data[].attributes.subject
1930s Filipino communities driven out (CA) 

# data[].attributes.body
Anti Filipino racism forces families to leave the Inland Empire.

# data[].attributes.headline
1930s: Mass deportation of Mexican-Americans (US)

# data[].attributes.subject
1930s: Mass deportation of Mexican-Americans (US)

# data[].attributes.body
About 60 percent of the hundreds of thousands of people deported were US citizens.

# data[].attributes.headline
Incarceration of Japanese Americans at Manzanar concentration camp

# data[].attributes.subject
Incarceration of Japanese Americans at Manzanar concentration camp

# data[].attributes.body
The U.S. Government incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans at the Manazanar Concentration Camp during WWII from March 1942 to November 1945. It is located in the Owens Valley at the foot of the  Sierra Nevada mountains. Manzanar was offically closed on November 21, 1945. It was the sixth camp to be closed. Camp officials gave each person $25 and a one-way bus or train fare. They also gave meals to people that had less than $600. Although some people left the camp voluntarily, many people refused to leave because they had no place to go after having lost their homes.

# data[].attributes.body
Establishes the Wildlife Conservation Board, baking in mechanisms for land acquisition in the name of conservation and habitat protection

# data[].attributes.body
Following activism from black Americans, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled racial covenants unenforceable, however the language remains to this day.

# data[].attributes.headline
1953: Termination of all California Indian tribes (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
1953: Termination of all California Indian tribes (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
In 1953, House Concurrent Resolution 108 declared that all recognized tribes in California were terminated.

# data[].attributes.headline
1962: Palm Springs burns down Black neighborhood (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
1962: Palm Springs burns down Black neighborhood (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
1,000s of residents of Section 14  downtown were summarily evicted and their homes deliberately burned by city officials

# data[].attributes.headline
Expanded: 1962: Palm Springs burns down Black neighborhood (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
Expanded: 1962: Palm Springs burns down Black neighborhood (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
1,000s of residents of Section 14  downtown were summarily evicted and their homes deliberately burned by city officials

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Coachella Valley

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Prejudice against African-Americans can still be found, and the wealthier cities in the West Valley are almost as segregated as they were when such discrimination was still legal, but without pioneers like Nobles and Crossley the divisions might have r...

# data[].attributes.body
65% of California voters approve initiative allowing housing discrimination on the basis of race. Struck down in 1966 as unconstitutional by the California supreme court, decision upheld by SCOTUS in 1967.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
California Proposition 14 was a November 1964 ballot proposition that amended the California state constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act, thereby allowing property sellers, landlords and their agents to discriminate on ethnic grounds when selling or letting accommodation, as they had been permitted to before 1963. The proposition became law after receiving support from 65% of voters. In 1966 the California Supreme Court. declared it unconstitutional, in a decision that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 1967 in Reitman v. Mulkey.

Political science research has tied white support for Proposition 14 to " racial threat theory", which holds that an increase in the racial minority population triggers a fearful and discriminatory response by the dominating racial majority.

In 1948, the United States Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer precluded judicial enforcement of racially restrictive housing covenants. Prior to 1948, the California Real Estate Association (the eventual sponsor of Proposition 14) routinely promoted and enforced racially restrictive housing covenants to prevent family homes from ending up in the hands of minorities, particularly Negroes.

Shortly following the 1948 court decision in Shelley, an item appeared in the California Real Estate magazine, a publication of the California Real Estate Association (the organization is currently named the California Association of Realtors) advocating an amendment to the United States Constitution that would overturn Shelley and constitutionally guarantee the legal enforcement of racially restrictive covenants throughout the United States.

In advocating support for a federal constitutional amendment guaranteeing the legal enforcement of racially restrictive covenants, the California Real Estate Association publication stated that "millions of home owners of the Caucasian race have constructed or acquired homes in areas restricted against occupancy by Negroes. The practice of surrounding homes in such areas with the security of such restrictions has become a traditional element of value in home ownership throughout this nation."

The publication further stated: "The recent decisions of the Supreme Court abovementioned have destroyed the values thus secured. The threat of occupancy by Negroes of property in such areas depreciates the value of all home properties and constitutes a direct deterrent to investment in the construction or acquisition of homes of superior quality whether large or small. The experience has been uniform that whenever and wherever Negroes have occupied homes in such areas this has not only depreciated values of the properties which they own, but has depreciated the values of all surrounding properties."

In further support of the constitutional amendment, the publication stated: "Moreover, the prices of homes in such areas are well within the purchasing power of vast numbers of Negroes. These circumstances greatly aggravate the hazard to which such home owners are exposed. ... Additionally, the insistence of some Negroes upon moving into areas previously restricted exclusively to the occupancy of Caucasians will necessarily create racial tensions and antagonisms and do much harm to our national social structure."

The federal constitutional amendment effort was unsuccessful, but the reasons for pursuing such an amendment provided insight into the underlying reasons for pursuing a future and similar protective state constitutional amendment in California.

Despite the court decision in Shelley, segregation in California continued. As an example, an insidious form of segregation known as blockbusting occurred in East Palo Alto. In 1954, a white resident sold his house to a black family. Almost immediately, agents of the California Real Estate Association began warning of a "Negro invasion" and even staged burglaries to panic white homeowners to sell at below-market prices. Those properties were then sold to Negroes at higher-than-market prices with real estate interests profiting from the transactions.

The tipping point for the California Real Estate Association to pursue a state constitutional amendment in California was the enactment of the Rumford Fair Housing Act in 1963. In the minds of California Real Estate Association leaders, the Rumford Fair Housing Act directly threatened the financial interests of the real estate industry who came to see "the promotion, preservation, and manipulation of racial segregation as central -- rather than incidental or residual -- components of their profit generating strategies."

Similar to Proposition 14, there have also been subsequent efforts by the real estate industry to promote ballot measures in California to generate more profits. Examples include the unsuccessful 2018 California Proposition 5 and 2020 California Proposition 19, which has been criticized for not helping first-time homeowners who are disproportionately minorities and for reinforcing racial inequity within California's tax system.

The Rumford Fair Housing Act was passed in 1963 by the California Legislature to help end racial discrimination by property owners and landlords who refused to rent or sell their property to "colored" people. It was drafted by William Byron Rumford, the first African American from Northern California to serve in the legislature. The Act provided that landlords could not deny people housing because of ethnicity, religion, or national origin (later the law would be extended to apply to sex, marital status, physical handicap, or familial status) Future Governor Ronald Reagan opposed this and other legislative attempts to enact fair housing, and the Rumford Fair Housing Act was signed into law by Governor Pat Brown.

In 1964, the California Real Estate Association (currently named the California Association of Realtors) sponsored an initiative constitutional amendment to counteract the effects of the Rumford Act.

The initiative, numbered Proposition 14 when it was certified for the ballot, was to add an amendment (Cal. Const. art. I, § 26) to the constitution of California. This amendment would provide, in part, as follows:

Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses.

In California, housing segregation was rampant as a result of decades of racially discriminatory housing policies explicitly aimed at keeping people of color confined to urban ghettos and out of the expanding suburbs. Proposition 14 attempted to re-legalize discrimination and associational privacy by landlords and property owners.

The ballot argument in favor of Proposition 14 stated that the constitutional amendment "will guarantee the right of all home and apartment owners to choose buyers and renters of their property as they wish, without interference by State or local government." The argument further stated that "most owners of such property in California lost this right through the Rumford Act of 1963. It says they may not refuse to sell or rent their property to anyone for reasons of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry."

The ballot argument against Proposition 14 stated that Proposition 14 "would write hate and bigotry into the Constitution." The argument further stated that Proposition 14 "would legalize and incite bigotry. At a time when our nation is moving ahead on civil rights, it proposes to convert California into another Mississippi or Alabama and to create an atmosphere for violence and hate."

Following much publicity the proposition gained the endorsement of many large conservative political groups, including the John Birch Society and the California Republican Assembly. As these and other groups endorsed the proposal it became increasingly more popular and the petition to have the proposition added to the ballot garnered over one million signatures. This was more than twice the 480,000 signatures that were required.

Los Angeles Times Endorsement

In endorsing Proposition 14, the Los Angeles Times stated: "One of man's most ancient rights in a free society is the privilege of using and disposing of his private property in whatever manner he deems appropriate." The editorial further stated: "But we do feel, and strongly, that housing equality cannot safely be achieved at the expense of still another basic right." According to the Los Angeles Times, the ability to discriminate against home buyers or renters by race, color, and creed was considered a "basic property right."

In a letter-to-the-editor response to the Times' endorsement of Proposition 14, then- California Attorney General Stanley Mosk stated: "I oppose the segregation initiative. I oppose it because it sugar-coats bigotry with an appeal to generalities we can accept, while ignoring the specific problem that confronts us."

The Proposition 14 campaign was heated and included several controversial comments from Edmund Brown who was the Governor of California at the time. Governor Brown stated that passage of Proposition 14 would put into California's Constitution "a provision for discrimination of which not even Mississippi or Alabama can boast." Previously, Governor Brown had likened the campaign for Proposition 14 to "another hate binge which began more than 30 years ago in a Munich beer hall." In a letter to the editor response to several items published in the Los Angeles Times relating to Proposition 14, Governor Brown wrote: "I submit that it is not the Governor who is inflammatory. It is Proposition 14. And I submit that it is not the opponents of Proposition 14 who encourage the racists and bigots in this state, but those who support Proposition 14."

Martin Luther King Jr. visited California on multiple occasions to campaign against Proposition 14, saying its passage would be "one of the most shameful developments in our nation's history."

Proposition 14 appeared on the November 3, 1964 general election ballot in California. The ballot proposition passed with 65.39% support, receiving 4,526,460 votes in support and 2,395,747 votes against.

Results by county

The final election results by county for Proposition 14 from the Statement of Vote were as follows:

A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review found that white voters in areas which experienced massive African-American population growth between 1940 and 1960 were more likely to vote for Proposition 14. Political scientists have taken this as evidence for " racial threat theory", which holds that the rapid increase in a minority population triggers fears among the majority race population, leading the majority to impose higher levels of social control on the subordinate race.

Soon after Proposition 14 was passed, the federal government cut off all housing funds to California. Many also cited the proposition as one of the causes of the Watts Riots of 1965.

With the federal housing funds cut off and with the support of Governor Pat Brown, the constitutionality of the measure was challenged soon afterward. In 1966, the California Supreme Court did not consider whether Proposition 14 was unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection and due process provisions of the California Constitution; instead, it held that Proposition 14 violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Gov. Brown's stance proved controversial; later in 1966, he was defeated in his bid for re-election by Ronald Reagan. However, Reagan opposed both Proposition 14 and the Rumford Act, and stated that Proposition 14 was "not a wise measure." Reagan labeled the Rumford Act as an attempt "to give one segment of our population a right at the expense of the basic rights of all our citizens."

However, the case continued. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the California Supreme Court's decision in Reitman v. Mulkey (1967), holding that Proposition 14 was invalid because it violated the equal protection clause. The proposition was repealed by Proposition 7 in the November, 1974 election.

Reitman established a significant precedent because it held that state assistance or encouragement of private discrimination violated the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1964 California Proposition 14 - Wikipedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California Proposition 14 was a November 1964 ballot proposition that amended the California state constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act, thereby allowing property sellers, landlords and their agents to discriminate on ethnic grounds when selling or letting accommodation, as they had been permitted to before 1963.

# data[].attributes.body
The most comprehensive civil rights legislation ever enacted by Congress. It contained extensive measures to dismantle Jim Crow segregation and combat racial discrimination.

# data[].attributes.headline
1965: Grape strike in Coachella Valley (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
1965: Grape strike in Coachella Valley (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
After decades of Anti-Filipino racism and fed up with working for $1.25 per hour or $1.10 per box, a group led by Filipino Larry Itliong called the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee

(AWOC) AFL-CIO, decided to strike.

# data[].attributes.body
Removed barriers to black enfranchisement in the South, banning poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures that effectively prevented African Americans from voting

# data[].attributes.body
August 11 to 16

# data[].attributes.body
Outlawed racial covenants altogether.

# data[].attributes.body
First environmental justice activism document: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. investigated an environmental injustice incident and advocated for better working conditions and pay for striking Memphis, Tennessee, garbage workers.

# data[].attributes.headline
November 1968:  “The California Desert, a Preliminary Study”

# data[].attributes.subject
November 1968:  “The California Desert, a Preliminary Study”

# data[].attributes.body
is published by CA BLM under Russ Penny’s leadership.

# data[].attributes.headline
Purepecha people begin to migrate from Mexico to Mecca

# data[].attributes.subject
Purepecha people begin to migrate from Mexico to Mecca

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the P'urhépechas Came to Southern California's Coachella Valley

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pierce Street sounds like an avenue in any city old enough to name a street after a nineteenth-century president. In the Coachella Valley, though, Pierce Street is a narrow blacktop running through sagebrush and desiccated palms, across alkali-crusted sand. Heading toward the Salton Sea a dozen mile

# data[].attributes.body
Passage of NEPA and CEQA

# data[].attributes.headline
1975: the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act (US)

# data[].attributes.subject
1975: the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act (US)

# data[].attributes.body
1975 directs the U.S. federal government to assure the maximum participation of Indigenous people in programs affecting Indigenous communities, and to support tribes in developing strong tribal governments.

# data[].attributes.headline
October 21, 1976 Federal Lands Management Policy  Act

# data[].attributes.subject
October 21, 1976 Federal Lands Management Policy  Act

# data[].attributes.body
Established the California Desert Conservation Area in Sec. 601.

# data[].attributes.headline
December 1980: Final Desert Plan adopted (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
December 1980: Final Desert Plan adopted (CA)

# data[].attributes.headline
1983: Tillie Hardwick v. United States (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
1983: Tillie Hardwick v. United States (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
Reversed terminations of 17 small California rancherias, starting wave of similar suits

# data[].attributes.headline
Morongo Indian Reservation opened bingo hall.

# data[].attributes.subject
Morongo Indian Reservation opened bingo hall.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1983, the path of Morongo’s future changed when tribal members started a modest bingo hall. From this building evolved one of the oldest and most successful Indian gaming facilities in California. The present $250 million destination which opened in late 2004, the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, is one of the largest tribal gaming facilities in the nation.

# data[].attributes.headline
February 1986: Desert Bill introduced (US)

# data[].attributes.subject
February 1986: Desert Bill introduced (US)

# data[].attributes.body
First version of the Desert Bill introduced in Senate

# data[].attributes.headline
Expanded: 1988: African-American Neighborhood bulldozed in Indio (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
Expanded: 1988: African-American Neighborhood bulldozed in Indio (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
Middle-class African-American neighborhood (Nobles Ranch) in Indio bulldozed for failed development project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
African-Americans Shaping the California Desert: Coachella Valley

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Prejudice against African-Americans can still be found, and the wealthier cities in the West Valley are almost as segregated as they were when such discrimination was still legal, but without pioneers like Nobles and Crossley the divisions might have r...

# data[].attributes.headline
1988: African-American Neighborhood bulldozed in Indio (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
1988: African-American Neighborhood bulldozed in Indio (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
Middle-class African-American neighborhood (Nobles Ranch) in Indio bulldozed for failed development project

# data[].attributes.headline
Rodney King Verdict -Jury Acquits 4 LAPD officers in savage beating of Rodney King, causing permanent brain damage. LA County uprisings, including much smaller events in  Riverside and San Bernardino. King ultimately moves to Rialto, and passed away in 2012.  Many families ultimately move from LA to surrounding areas. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Rodney King Verdict -Jury Acquits 4 LAPD officers in savage beating of Rodney King, causing permanent brain damage. LA County uprisings, including much smaller events in  Riverside and San Bernardino. King ultimately moves to Rialto, and passed away in 2012.  Many families ultimately move from LA to surrounding areas. 

# data[].attributes.body
1992

# data[].attributes.headline
October 31, 1994: CA Desert Protection Act signed (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
October 31, 1994: CA Desert Protection Act signed (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
President Clinton signs the CA Desert Protection Act.

# data[].attributes.body
Massive increase in arrests and prolonged incarceration time

# data[].attributes.headline
First Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

# data[].attributes.subject
First Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The inaugural Coachella Festival was held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California on October 9 and 10 th 1999 and featured a musical who's who of the 90s.

Headliners included Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Tool, Morrissey and Moby. As well, Perry Farrell, of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros, played a solo set on opening day. The headliners were joined by about 50 others acts over the two days of the festival.

Moby performs at Coachella 99

A Los Angeles Times article from October 11, 1999 described the scene this way:

"the festival grounds were dotted with art exhibits, such as murals and bizarre mechanical sculptures, including some ominous-looking contraptions that gobbled up shopping carts."
Los Angeles Times

Coachella was founded by Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen of music promoter Goldenvoice who modeled it after overseas events such as Britain's Glastonbury Festival.

Although the first festival largely got positive reviews, it failed to attract the 70,000 attendees that Goldenvoice needed to turn a profit. They only managed to sell about 25 thousand tickets over the two days.

Coachella 99

Part of the problem could have been the weather. Coachella Valley was hit by what media called "a freakish heat wave" with temperatures in the triple digits. Concert-goers may have also been scared off by the disaster that took place at Woodstock '99 three months earlier.

Woodstock '99, which was held to mark the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock, was plagued by poor planning, high prices for food and water and a bad location. The result was a chaotic nightmare which included, riots, fires and sexual assaults.

The first Coachella on the other hand was a mostly peacefully event with no major problems. And organizers went out of their way to keep fans comfortable with trailer home restrooms, cooling-mist tents, clean-up crews and free water at the gate.

But there was one major issue for organizers, because of low ticket sales, the first Coachella was not profitable and as a result the festival was cancelled in 2000. In 2001 they decided to give it one more try, and Coachella has charted an upward course ever since. In fact, it is now considered the unspoken gold standard of music festivals.

By 2012, Coachella had grown so popular that Goldenvoice decided to add a second weekend and the festival now includes up to 160 acts, attracting upwards of 125,000 people per day!

While the location at the Empire Polo Field has remained the same throughout the years, the cost to attend Coachella has skyrocketed. In 1999 tickets were $50 a day. Twenty years later, in 2019 tickets were $429 for general admission and almost $1,000 for VIP passes. Despite the cost Coachella is known to sell out within minutes of tickets opening up.

Coachella 2020, which was set to be headlined by Frank Ocean, Rage Against the Machine, and Travis Scott was cancelled because of COVID but the festival is expected to resume in April 2021. The lineup has yet to be announced.

For more stories from the 1990s, make sure to check out my podcast "History of the 90s" on ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Google Play and anywhere else you stream audio. You can also listen at http://www.curiouscast.ca

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The First Coachella in 1999 Was Almost the Last - History Of The 90s Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The inaugural Coachella Festival was held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California on October 9 and 10 th 1999 and featured a musical who's who of the 90s. Headliners included Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Tool, Morrissey and Moby. As well, Perry Farrell, of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros, played a solo set on opening day.

# data[].attributes.headline
1999 Duroville established on Torres Martinez rez 

# data[].attributes.subject
1999 Duroville established on Torres Martinez rez 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Duroville is the nickname for the former Desert Mobile Home Park located in Thermal, California. It was infamous for its poor living conditions, substantial poverty, predatory packs of wild dogs and rampant waste. Duroville garnered a great deal of attention, and which resulted in some aid to its residents. Conditions in Duroville were reported in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. It is one of several hundred trailer parks, both licit and illicit, catering to the same demographic of migrant farm workers in the region.[citation needed ]

The trailer park sat on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation, and is nicknamed for property owner Harvey Duro, Sr., a member of the tribal council. Duro set the park up after several other sub-standard trailer parks in the area were closed by authorities in Riverside County, and residents had no place to live. Duro was unable to obtain Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) approval for a lease for the site of Duroville, and received no financial or other assistance from the BIA in licensing or setting up the facility. The BIA channeled its efforts into an action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, asking that the trailer park be closed.

The trailer park, established in 1999, was adjacent to a smouldering dump, which is closed and has been subject to recurrent fires. About 4,000 migrant Mexican farm workers live in several hundred dilapidated mobile homes on 40 acres (16 ha). The condition of the park, with its unsafe trailers, dangerous electrical wiring, faulty septic systems and predatory packs of wild dogs, has been the subject of national attention in recent years. An estimated 65% of residents, about 2,000 people, are Purépecha, an indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacán, many from the town of Ocumicho.

Litigation brought by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to have the park closed and its residents relocated was unsuccessful. In a decision rendered on May 1, 2009 U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson ruled for benefit of the tenants, claiming that relocating them "would create one of the largest forced migrations in the history of this state." He went on to compare the resulting migration to Japanese-American relocations to Manzanar after the United States' entry into World War II. The court recognized the deficiencies at the park, removed Duro from its management and appointed a receiver. The federal district court retains jurisdiction and continues to review the matter.

The district court judge, now retired, continued his interest by sometimes visiting the community. The court-appointed receiver, speaking in 2010, reported considerable progress in mitigating conditions, for example, 400 dogs were neutered or spayed and 145 adopted. Efforts by the community with outside assistance have greatly improved conditions, however, raw sewage still drains directly from a system of plastic pipes into an open lagoon. Riverside County plans to use federal and state redevelopment funds to facilitate better mobile home facilities nearby, collapsed in 2012 due to loss of funds resulting from the 2008-12 California budget crisis. California redevelopment agencies, which sometimes used funds for unnecessary projects[which? ] but also for badly needed housing,[who? ] had been shut down. Plans for relocation are further complicated by the illegal status of some of the workers and reluctance by the Purépecha people to break up their community.

Duroville was closed on June 30, 2013 by court order. Only the mobile-home park's owner, Harvey Duro, and his family members can stay. Many of the former residents are now settled in Mountain View Estates, a 181-unit mobile home park six miles away that was built as replacement housing for Duroville. Mountain View Estates was funded by $26 million in state, federal, private and county redevelopment money to build the park and buy the mobile homes. Other Duroville residents moved to subsidized or market-rate apartments, houses or mobile homes. Most of the mobile homes left at Duroville have been demolished.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Duroville is the nickname for the former Desert Mobile Home Park located in Thermal, California. It was infamous for its poor living conditions, substantial poverty, predatory packs of wild dogs and rampant waste. Duroville garnered a great deal of attention, and which resulted in some aid to its residents.

# data[].attributes.body
Salton Sea became an undeniable health hazard especially to local communities;

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), signed in 2003, defined the rights to a portion of Colorado River water for San Diego County Water Authority, Coachella Valley Water District, Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The QSA came in response to California consistently using more than its annual Colorado River entitlement of 4.4 million acre-feet. Additionally, the water needs of six other Colorado River Basin states had grown, making the river's shared use increasingly crucial.

In order to reduce its reliance on the river, California agreed to a water transfer of as much as 200,000 acre-feet a year from the water-rich Imperial Valley to coastal San Diego for up to 75 years. It became the largest agricultural to urban water transfer in the United States.

This video explains the Colorado River 4.4 plan and the Quantification Settlement Agreement that was part of it.

The QSA created a Joint Powers Authority comprised of the Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley Water District, San Diego County Water Authority and the state of California to pay for environmental mitigation of the Salton Sea.

The Quantification Settlement Agreement confirmed:

the Imperial Irrigation District's Colorado River annual allotment at 3.1 million acre-feet

the Coachella Valley Water District's Colorado River annual allotment at 330,000 acre-feet

The Quantification Settlement Agreement also established:

the IID-San Diego County Water Authority water transfer

A transfer of 105,000 acre-feet annually between IID and Metropolitan

A transfer of as much as 103,000 acre-feet annually between Imperial and the Coachella Valley district

Quantification Settlement Agreement and the Salton Sea

The Salton Sea has played a key role in the Quantification Settlement Agreement.

The sea, which straddles Imperial and Riverside counties, provides important habitat for fish and migratory birds, attracting some 400 different bird species. But it has been in a long decline due to salt build up and diminished water supply. The receding shoreline and exposed lake bed have also created air quality problems from toxic dust.

The transfer of water from farming in the Imperial Valley reduced the amount of fresh water that runs off fields into the sea. This has hastened the sea's shrinkage and increased its salinity.

In response, the Imperial Irrigation District and the San Diego County Water Authority agreed to send fresh water to the Salton Sea to replace Colorado River water diverted under the QSA. The deal expired in 2018.

In 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown created the Salton Sea Task Force, directing agencies to develop a comprehensive management plan for the sea to meet a short-term goal of building 9,000 to 12,000 acres of habitat and dust suppression projects, and a longer-term goal of up to 25,000 acres.

In 2017, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted a 10-year plan calling for 29,800 acres of ponds, wetlands and dust-suppression projects on portions of exposed lake bed. The plan includes annual targets for completion, ramping up to 4,200 acres in 2028. The agreement further commits the state to creating a long-term plan beyond the initial 10 years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Quantification Settlement Agreement - Water Education Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), signed in 2003, defined the rights to a portion of Colorado River water for San Diego County Water Authority, Coachella Valley Water District, Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The QSA came in response to California consistently using more than its annual Colorado River entitlement of 4.4 million acre-feet.

# data[].attributes.headline
2003: Establishment of ICE Detention Centers (CA)

# data[].attributes.subject
2003: Establishment of ICE Detention Centers (CA)

# data[].attributes.body
CA currently has 7 centers including one in Adelanto.

# data[].attributes.body
2008: California State Rep. De La Torre introduced a bill that would have removed deeds' racist language every time a home was sold.. It passed in the legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger because of the paperwork and “headaches” it would cause.

# data[].attributes.headline
2009-2016: Solar PEIS and DRECP designate eastern Riverside County as solar development zone 

# data[].attributes.subject
2009-2016: Solar PEIS and DRECP designate eastern Riverside County as solar development zone 

# data[].attributes.body
2009-2016: Solar PEIS and DRECP designate eastern Riverside County as solar development zone despite fierce opposition from tribes

# data[].attributes.headline
Lawsuit launched against Lancaster and Palmdale of racially-charged biases against Section 8 housing recipients

# data[].attributes.subject
Lawsuit launched against Lancaster and Palmdale of racially-charged biases against Section 8 housing recipients

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Elected leaders in Lancaster and Palmdale have waged an "unrelenting war" against low-income blacks and Latinos who receive public assistance in a campaign to drive them out of the historically white Antelope Valley, civil rights lawyers alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

As many as 200 local minority families have lost their federal housing assistance each year, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and unnamed victims of the alleged harassment.

Most of the families have been cut off following surprise "compliance checks" by housing authorities and police, aimed at rooting out fraud in the federal housing assistance program known as Section 8.

Civil rights advocates say the crackdowns amount to racial discrimination, as 85% of the Section 8 households are black or Latino. Residents have also complained that the inspections often involved armed Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, which they said adds a level of intimidation to the checks.

The lawsuit says the crackdown has created a climate of fear among minorities in the Antelope Valley and may have influenced vigilante attacks and hate crimes.

Palmdale's First African Methodist Episcopal Church was firebombed in August, and garages and other property of Section 8 renters have been vandalized with graffiti including racial slurs, swastikas and "I hate Section 8." One mother of four reported in the complaint that a carload of white youths shouted racial epithets at her children and threw a bag of urine at them.

"The level of hostility in these cities as expressed and enforced by authorities is astonishing," said Catherine Lhamon, a lawyer for Public Counsel, the public-interest law firm representing the plaintiffs. Council members in the two cities "have no shame ... in expressing their racial hostility."

City leaders defend their actions, saying that they stepped up the inspections in response to public concerns about crime.

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said there is evidence that crime in Lancaster tends to "cluster around Section 8 housing." Since Lancaster began its stepped-up enforcement, crime stemming from Section 8 housing units has "dropped dramatically," Parris said.

He could not provide statistics, and officials at the Sheriff's Department said they could not immediately comment on whether there is more crime among Section 8 tenants.

Parris and other officials also said they feel inundated by the county's poor and ill-prepared to handle their needs.

"What the [county] housing authority is attempting to do is move their poor up to the suburbs so they don't have to provide them any services, such as medical or rehabilitation services," Parris said "It's a systematic conspiracy. Do I think there is racism involved? Absolutely. But I don't think it's from our end."

Palmdale Mayor James C. Ledford Jr. was equally adamant that his city's tough Section 8 enforcement practices weren't racially motivated.

"The allegation is absurd," Ledford said. "Our population demographics are quite diverse. Diversity is something that we're celebrating, not discouraging."

Palmdale recently renewed the contract for its special investigator for Section 8 fraud, whose work over the last two years has resulted in a termination of benefits for one in 12 residents in the housing assistance program. In Lancaster, which also hires its own enforcer for the federal program, one in 21 beneficiaries was cut off in 2009. The two cities accounted for 51% of terminations in L.A. County.

Sean Rogan, executive director of L.A. County's Housing Authority, would say only that the agency that administers the Section 8 program "takes very seriously all issues raised ... and is reviewing the lawsuit with its counsel to investigate its allegations."

Tony Bell, assistant chief deputy for County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, said the county agreed to provide enhanced funding for investigative services in the Antelope Valley cities "to protect the integrity of the Section 8 program so that eligible recipients receive the service and fraudulent applicants are identified."

Those who claim to have been unjustly terminated contend that the two cities are trying to drive out Section 8 tenants and that the county rubber-stamps the cutoff requests.

Shanna Blackburn, who was unaware of the NAACP legal action, was receiving housing assistance in 2008 when the Palmdale enforcer showed up at her door with armed sheriff's deputies. They raided the home in search of evidence that her 17-year-old son had gang affiliations.

"They said there were some gang members at his school causing trouble and they thought he could have been with them. But the only association was that he's black. My son was a straight-A student and never in any kind of trouble," recalled Blackburn, who said she lost her benefits even though nothing was found in the raid.

Pharaoh Mitchell got housing aid after suffering a back injury in the Army that has left him unable to return to construction work. He said his family of eight was rousted in a compliance check by a dozen armed deputies last year. Mitchell, who praises the housing assistance program for giving the poor a chance to escape crime-ridden inner city projects, attributed the fruitless six-hour raid to a neighbor who called authorities reporting vague suspicions.

Many black Section 8 renters in the Antelope Valley complain that they feel unjustly branded as security threats, and have taken their concerns to the Community Action League, a local civil rights group that is a plaintiff in the suit along with the NAACP.

"This city has made the words 'Section 8' almost something that if you are connected with it, you're a criminal," V. Jesse Smith, an NAACP spokesman, said of Lancaster.

carol.williams@latimes.com

ann.simmons@latimes.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Suit accuses Lancaster and Palmdale of racial bias in Section 8 crackdown

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elected leaders in Lancaster and Palmdale have waged an "unrelenting war" against low-income blacks and Latinos who receive public assistance in a campaign to drive them out of the historically white Antelope Valley, civil rights lawyers alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

# data[].attributes.headline
2011: Jerry Brown Executive Order establishing Tribal consultation

# data[].attributes.subject
2011: Jerry Brown Executive Order establishing Tribal consultation

# data[].attributes.headline
2011 Mecca waste incinerator poisons neighborhoods

# data[].attributes.subject
2011 Mecca waste incinerator poisons neighborhoods

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The EPA has taken action to close a Mecca, CA waste processing facility after months of complaints from neighbors that the facility has emitted foul odors, often sickening them. The Mecca facility, operated by Western Environmental, Inc. (WEI) and its owner Waste Reduction Technologies (WRT), accepts contaminated soil, treated sewage sludge, soy whey, and other organic compostables for "remediation and reprocessing."

The facility has been a source of contention in Mecca since December 15 of last year, when students at the nearby Saul Martinez Elementary School were forced to shelter in place by a cloud of unidentified gas coming from the site a mile and a half away. Several students fell ill, and paramedics were summoned on that day and on two subsequent occasions as well. Between December and April more than 200 separate odor complaints were recorded, and inspectors from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) traced the odors to the site on 25 occasions. The offending smells were variously described as resembling rotten eggs, human waste, raw sewage, burnt motor oil, and petroleum. According to Monday's EPA order:

Mecca is a modest agricultural town in the east Coachella Valley, its residents predominantly Latino with a median income below $26,000/year. The WRT facility is cheek-by-jowl with a small residential area, a date processing and packing plant, and small farms growing a variety of produce, including date orchards.

WRT's web site states the facility, in operation for the last seven years, accepts soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, coal tar, chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides and heavy metals. According to the EPA the site has received 165,000 tons of such contaminated soil since January 2009. A large amount of that soil is stockpiled on site in a long series of mounds reaching 40 feet high.

As odor complaints mounted, WRT shut down its soy whey pond and a water-oil separation pond on the property after SCAQMD fingered those sites as the source of some of the worst of the emissions. Still, as increasing documentation of the problem by regional and state agencies seemed not to prompt any action to stop the problem, residents' comments wondering over how long it would be before the EPA took action grew more and more anxious. Late last week, US Senator Barbara Boxer -- a resident of Rancho Mirage, 25 miles from the WRT site -- addressed a rather pointed letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson asking when the agency would take action on the Mecca facility. "Please let me know in detail what immediate steps the EPA will be taking," Boxer's letter concluded, "because this situation is intolerable." The WRT facility was shut down within two business days. State officials set up a surprise checkpoint at the entrance to the facility on Monday, and any trucks hauling hazardous waste were turned away by the California EPA. Under the terms of the order issued Monday by EPA, Western is forbidden from accepting any more contaminated soil without approval from the agency. The company has 15 days to tarp the at-present uncovered soil mounds, and must eventually remove them.

Many Coachella Valley residents have speculated that the delay in environmental law enforcement stems from jurisdictional issues. The WRT facility is on land belonging to the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. WRT, whose lease of the site was approved by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, has maintained that it doesn't need state permits to operate on Indian land. That issue may be resolved in court. Two weeks ago, at a meeting at Saul Martinez Elementary called by SCAQMD to discuss the air quality issues surrounding WRT, residents appealed directly to Cabazon Tribal Chairman David Roosevelt to close the plant. Roosevelt responded that the tribe had been working with WRT to close the soy whey pond and contain oily wastewater. "Give us time," he told those in attendance, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. "There has been a rapid response. We are doing what we can as fast as we can."

Toxic waste dumps are no strangers to tribal lands in the Coachella Valley. The Valley's checkerboarded Indian lands, home to modest communities of for the most part working class folks, have long been the prize in the eyes of landfill developers, toxic waste brokers, and other such industrialists whose operations would be less welcome in more affluent communities.

The nearby lands of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla are an especially notorious example. From 1989-1994, at least 200,000 tons of sewage sludge from southern California cities were illegally dumped on the Torres-Martinez reservation, creating a fifty-foot waste pile locals nicknamed "Mount San Diego." Shutdown and subsequent indictment of the sludge dumpers didn't change much. From 1992-2006 an illegal waste dump on Torres-Martinez lands at Pierce Street and Avenue 69 in Thermal repeatedly caught fire, sickening neighbors and firefighters. The "Lawson dump" -- the largest illegal dump in the state of California -- was finally shut down in 2006, and its operators were fined more than $50 million in cleanup costs and punitive damages. At least 26 illegal toxic dumps were known to be in operation on the Torres-Martinez reservation in 2007.

During the 1990s, the Torres-Martinez Tribal Council repeatedly spoke out against the dumping on its lands, most of which was carried out without approval of the BIA. Small tribes like the Torres-Martinez and Cabazon -- the latter with fewer than 50 members at the last counting -- often don't possess the resources to take action when a member agrees to have waste dumped illegally on his or her land, as happened with the Lawson Dump and Mount San Diego. In 2006 the EPA, state agencies and the Torres-Martinez tribal council created the Torres Martinez Solid Waste Collaborative, whose aim was to close and clean up illegal waste dumps on the reservation. With community initiatives such as the Desert Mirage High School- created documentary "The Contaminated Valley," shown below, the Collaborative was able to make some real changes. Within two years the known illegal dump sites had been closed, and the collaborative continued to work to educate locals about the dangers of dumping.

Whether a similar initiative might help protect residents of the Cabazon Band's reservation from future outbreaks of environmental injustice remains to be seen. It took a mass public outcry to get the ball rolling on the Torres-Martinez reservation, and it may take the same for Cabazon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The EPA has taken action to close a Mecca, CA waste processing facility after months of complaints from neighbors that the facility has emitted foul odors, often sickening them. The Mecca facility, operated by Western Environmental, Inc. (WEI) and its owner Waste Reduction Technologies (WRT), accepts contaminated soil, treated sewage sludge, soy whey, and other organic compostables for "remediation and reprocessing."

# data[].attributes.headline
September 2016: Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan

# data[].attributes.subject
September 2016: Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan

# data[].attributes.body
Standing Rock protests around DAPL 2016-17

# data[].attributes.headline
2018 Decision by state water board decides not to continue filling up the Salton Sea

# data[].attributes.subject
2018 Decision by state water board decides not to continue filling up the Salton Sea

# data[].attributes.body
Water was diverted to coastal communities instead

# data[].attributes.headline
March 2019: Designation of the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area

# data[].attributes.subject
March 2019: Designation of the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area

# data[].attributes.headline
November 2019: ECV EJ activists and public lands activists defeat Paradise Valley development

# data[].attributes.subject
November 2019: ECV EJ activists and public lands activists defeat Paradise Valley development

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The push to change racially offensive place names has reached the birthplace of western movies: the high-desert badlands of gullies, canyons and outcroppings at the foot of Mt. Whitney known as the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area.

The 18,600 acres of rough and rocky hills on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, along Highway 395 and about 140 miles north of Los Angeles, have appeared in more than 700 movie and television productions since the silent 1920 western "The Round Up," starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

It was named by Southern sympathizers in the Owens Valley after the Confederate warship Alabama had sunk the Union man-of-war Hatteras off the coast of Texas on Jan. 11, 1863.

That fact didn't generate much interest or concern a year ago when the scenic area was formally established under a sweeping conservation bill co-sponsored by elected officials including California's Democratic U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris and Rep. Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley).

Now, with protests for racial justice sparked by the police killing of George Floyd spreading to white Eastern Sierra communities once more known for skiing, rock climbing and trout fishing, the name "Alabama Hills" has come to be regarded as contaminated by racist beliefs.

On Monday, Wendy Schneider, executive director of the nonprofit environmental group Friends of the Inyo, stood on a heap of boulders that portrayed part of northern India for the classic 1939 movie "Gunga Din" and said, "Everyone should feel welcome here because this amazing land belongs to everyone."

"We're going to formally begin the process of renaming this place at our next meeting," added Schneider, an attorney who has participated in lobbying efforts on behalf of Al Gore and for gun control. "It may ultimately require an act of Congress, but I don't think it will take long to get that. There will be a lot of support for this."

Protesters across the nation have been toppling statues and demanding new names for buildings, memorials, military bases and geographic locations honoring Confederate warships, generals and political leaders as a way of declaring commitment to the values that define our society today.

The Western U.S., including California, is peppered with old, racially insensitive place names, many of them holdovers from the Gold Rush. Close to Sacramento, a group has petitioned to alter the name of Folsom Lake State Recreation Area's Negro Bar area, triggering debate over whether the title is "old-fashioned" or related to the location's historical past.

The name of a mountain peak in Nevada's Great Basin National Park that honored Confederate President Jefferson Davis was restored in 2019 to its Shoshone name, Doso Doyabi. And in California's Alpine County, changing the name of a another Jeff Davis Peak is under discussion.

A year ago, Inyo County officials agreed to rename an Alabama Hills campground memorializing Jose C. Pires, a Lone Pine town character with a reputation as a local Robin Hood who would steal turkeys from ranches to give to needy families at the holidays. The campground formerly named "Portagee Joe," a slur adopted from a Portuguese character in John Steinbeck's 1935 novel "Tortilla Flat," was renamed "Portuguese Joe."

This month, NASCAR banned Confederate flags from its races and events.

"I plan to speak with Congressman Cook and Sen. Harris, the co-sponsors of the desert bill, about our options," Feinstein told The Times.

Cook was not available for comment. But Serena Baker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages the Alabama Hills, said, "The BLM supports diversity and inclusion and is looking into this."

In an interview, Anthony Kronman, former dean of Yale Law School, said the controversy is part of "a national reckoning with the question of names that remain like thorns in our sides."

"What is remarkable about all this," he said, "is that what was until recently a smoldering, sporadic question has swept the nation like a prairie fire. It has become a prism through which so many issues of race and reconciliation are now focused and bear so much weight.

"I do think all of this has been accelerated by the deep divisions within the nation," he added, "that President Donald Trump has managed to produce within four years."

At a political rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, Trump described activists who topple statues and rename memorials as an "unhinged left-wing mob" that is "trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments."

"They want to demolish our heritage," he said, "so they can impose their new repressive regime in its place."

Opponents of the effort to rename the Alabama Hills include Kevin Mazzu, spokesman for the nonprofit Alabama Hills Stewardship Group, which helped lead a decade-long campaign to have the range just west of the community of Lone Pine designated a national scenic area.

The designation solidified the region's role in film and television productions, shoring up the local economy. Movie, TV and commercial productions generated an estimated $10 million in fees, sales and taxes in Inyo County in 2018, officials said.

"Are we going to let people cut our nation's history in half by getting rid of anything that was named because of the Confederacy? That would be ridiculous!" he said.

Inyo County Supervisor Matt Kingsley, whose district includes the Alabama Hills, was not sure what to think.

"This is a surprising issue in some ways," he said. "But given the climate that has swept the country since what happened to George Floyd, this could end up being more of a federal issue than a local one.

"I look forward to seeing how this issue develops," he said.

In the meantime, the full story behind the naming of the Alabama Hills is on display at the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine.

After sinking the Hatteras, the Confederate raider Alabama spent nearly two years destroying merchant vessels carrying American goods throughout the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

In 1864, the Alabama was attempting to dock in Cherbourg, France, when the U.S. warship Kearsarge appeared outside the harbor. The Alabama sailed out to duel with the Union ship. An hour and a half later, the Alabama lay at the bottom of the English Channel.

After Union backers in California got word of the outcome of that battle, they named a Sierra peak about 16 miles north of the Alabama Hills to honor the Kearsarge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Confederate warship haunts California's Alabama Hills National Scenic Area

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The push to change racially offensive place names has reached the birthplace of western movies: the high-desert badlands of gullies, canyons and outcroppings at the foot of Mt. Whitney known as the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area.

# data[].attributes.headline
Death by hanging of Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch in high deserts

# data[].attributes.subject
Death by hanging of Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch in high deserts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The only sign of life in this place of death were the girls shrieking. All around them, clothes were strewn about and a portable toilet smelled as if it hadn't been emptied in weeks, but the girls giggled with glee as they slid down a grassy hill on pieces of cardboard, sheltered from the Tuesday afternoon high desert sun by the shade of trees.

Malcolm Harsch was found dangling from one of these trees.

On the last morning of May, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were summoned to a homeless encampment outside Victorville's library. Harsch had been strung up, his girlfriend said. The 38-year-old Black man died at the scene.

Now, I'd like to believe that most Americans, knowing there have been nonstop protests over police brutality in recent weeks, would think: "You know, that seems an awful lot like a lynching. Perhaps we should investigate."

But not our local law enforcement agencies.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department initially wrote Harsch's death off as a suicide, saying that foul play was not suspected. It's the same story the L.A. County Sheriff's Department offered about Robert Fuller, yet another Black man, who was found hanging from yet another tree - this one mere steps from Palmdale City Hall.

"A suicide in public, or a hanging in a public place, is not, uhm, unheard of. They do occur," L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner Jonathan Lucas insisted at a news conference on Monday morning.

"And, uhm, I think initially, [long pause] there wasn't any evidence, uhh, or information that led, uhh, us to believe that there was anything other than a suicide, but that that was, uhh, that change very - I should say we, we felt better that we should look, uhm, into a little more deeply and carefully just considering all the circumstances at play."

L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva doubled down on that during a "community conversation" on Monday afternoon.

"We're not going to jump to a conclusion or act on a rumor," he said, pivoting to spread rumors and offer unfounded conclusions about Fuller's mental health. "The facts that we have today don't point to anything other than a suicide."

Do they really believe this?

It's the sort of explanation that I'd expect from a sheriff's department in Indiana, not California. For during my decade of Hoosier cosplay, I was often unsure whether some of the people I met were genuinely ignorant or whether they were racist and merely feigning ignorance about something that seemed obvious - e.g., yes, Black people do get sunburned and, no, it's not OK to use the word "colored" anymore. Yes, for real.

So I wanted to hear what residents of Victorville and Palmdale had to say. Why, I asked in an anonymous informal poll, do you think local law enforcement agencies tried to classify these cases as suicides rather than homicides?

The answers were predictable and yet somehow still surprising.

In Victorville, I talked to a white woman who grew up in the city at a time when racial tensions were rising because Black people were moving in from L.A. She theorized that it was easier for police to say it was a suicide than to "do the paper work" of investigating a homicide.

"The more the protesters show up, the more it will push the cops to investigate and do something," she said, as people lined up to speak at a City Council meeting, a few miles from the library where Harsh died.

A group of teenagers, all of them Black, agreed that the official response was designed to avoid calling attention to the hanging of a Black man at a time when protests are happening nationwide over racial injustice.

"They don't like it when we stand up for ourselves," one said, recounting how he had been recently harassed by police. Glancing at the half-dozen Victorville officers glowering at us from across the parking lot, I couldn't help but agree.

An older Black woman admitted she thinks what happened to Harsch might have been a suicide, though his family has released a statement saying otherwise. Her question was why the Sheriff's Department and Victorville officials weren't more forthcoming about what happened, given the national reckoning that's underway on racism.

"It is suspicious because no one heard about it until after the hanging in Palmdale," she said. "Where's the transparency?"

At a protest some 50 miles away in Palmdale, a white woman speculated that, with Fuller's death, maybe the deputies were trying to hide something - a Nazi flag or some other symbol denoting white supremacy. As we spoke, Black person after Black person got up to vent about the city's entrenched racism, the Confederate flags and racial slurs.

"Even if it was true what they're saying," she said of Villanueva and his deputies, "why would anyone out here believe them?" And this was before deputies killed Fuller's half-brother, Terron Boone, during a shootout on Wednesday afternoon in Rosamond, another high desert community about 20 miles north of Palmdale.

On Tuesday, a young Black man told me he wasn't at all surprised about how the department had handled Fuller's death. His friend agreed.

"The cops thought they could just sweep it under the rug like Malcolm," he said. "They didn't think anyone would notice."

I asked whether it was possible the deputies might not have made the connection to lynching. I brought up - admittedly halfheartedly - the four teachers at Summerwind Elementary School who were put on leave last year after a photo of them smiling and holding a noose surfaced on social media. An official investigation found they had no knowledge of the racial hatred a noose symbolizes.

"They knew," the friends said almost in unison.

In the end, the general public will probably never know for sure why both sheriff's departments of San Bernardino and Los Angeles tried to close both cases as suicides - even with parallel investigations by the FBI and State Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra's office. But what is abundantly clear is that it doesn't really matter.

There are huge problems in California's high desert, ones that rival those in parts of the Midwest and Deep South.

It was only five years ago, for example, that Los Angeles County settled with the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations that deputies systematically harassed and discriminated against Black people and Latinos in Palmdale, including with military-style sweeps of federally subsidized Section 8 housing.

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to traffic stops, racial profiling is also a thing, which - and I'm just spitballing here - might be one reason so few Black men and women want to become deputies and patrol the high desert. Villanueva was complaining about this very thing on Monday, when a Palmdale resident called into the community conversation to press him about the lack of diversity on his force.

It's an awful cycle of systemic racism that has led to where we are today.

Either the departments, if the sheriffs are to be believed, have deputies who are so ignorant that they can't see why a Black man hanging from a tree would be evidence enough to start a homicide investigation.

Or, if we are to believe residents, we have deputies who believe Black lives are expendable. And since no one will notice when they are gone, why spend money and energy investigating a possible murder that will only rile up Black people and possibly shine a light on longstanding racist practices?

No wonder people at Tuesday's protest were calling Palmdale a "sundown town" - something else I haven't heard since my days in Indiana.

"My brothers and sisters, do not be outside after dark," a Black woman pleaded into the microphone across from City Hall. "We are in a war zone."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Column: All the stupid excuses for not investigating hangings of Black men in the high desert

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The only sign of life in this place of death were the girls shrieking. All around them, clothes were strewn about and a portable toilet smelled as if it hadn't been emptied in weeks, but the girls giggled with glee as they slid down a grassy hill on pieces of cardboard, sheltered from the Tuesday afternoon high desert sun by the shade of trees.

# data[].attributes.headline
Death by hanging of Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch in high deserts

# data[].attributes.subject
Death by hanging of Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch in high deserts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The only sign of life in this place of death were the girls shrieking. All around them, clothes were strewn about and a portable toilet smelled as if it hadn't been emptied in weeks, but the girls giggled with glee as they slid down a grassy hill on pieces of cardboard, sheltered from the Tuesday afternoon high desert sun by the shade of trees.

Malcolm Harsch was found dangling from one of these trees.

On the last morning of May, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were summoned to a homeless encampment outside Victorville's library. Harsch had been strung up, his girlfriend said. The 38-year-old Black man died at the scene.

Now, I'd like to believe that most Americans, knowing there have been nonstop protests over police brutality in recent weeks, would think: "You know, that seems an awful lot like a lynching. Perhaps we should investigate."

But not our local law enforcement agencies.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department initially wrote Harsch's death off as a suicide, saying that foul play was not suspected. It's the same story the L.A. County Sheriff's Department offered about Robert Fuller, yet another Black man, who was found hanging from yet another tree - this one mere steps from Palmdale City Hall.

"A suicide in public, or a hanging in a public place, is not, uhm, unheard of. They do occur," L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner Jonathan Lucas insisted at a news conference on Monday morning.

"And, uhm, I think initially, [long pause] there wasn't any evidence, uhh, or information that led, uhh, us to believe that there was anything other than a suicide, but that that was, uhh, that change very - I should say we, we felt better that we should look, uhm, into a little more deeply and carefully just considering all the circumstances at play."

L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva doubled down on that during a "community conversation" on Monday afternoon.

"We're not going to jump to a conclusion or act on a rumor," he said, pivoting to spread rumors and offer unfounded conclusions about Fuller's mental health. "The facts that we have today don't point to anything other than a suicide."

Do they really believe this?

It's the sort of explanation that I'd expect from a sheriff's department in Indiana, not California. For during my decade of Hoosier cosplay, I was often unsure whether some of the people I met were genuinely ignorant or whether they were racist and merely feigning ignorance about something that seemed obvious - e.g., yes, Black people do get sunburned and, no, it's not OK to use the word "colored" anymore. Yes, for real.

So I wanted to hear what residents of Victorville and Palmdale had to say. Why, I asked in an anonymous informal poll, do you think local law enforcement agencies tried to classify these cases as suicides rather than homicides?

The answers were predictable and yet somehow still surprising.

In Victorville, I talked to a white woman who grew up in the city at a time when racial tensions were rising because Black people were moving in from L.A. She theorized that it was easier for police to say it was a suicide than to "do the paper work" of investigating a homicide.

"The more the protesters show up, the more it will push the cops to investigate and do something," she said, as people lined up to speak at a City Council meeting, a few miles from the library where Harsh died.

A group of teenagers, all of them Black, agreed that the official response was designed to avoid calling attention to the hanging of a Black man at a time when protests are happening nationwide over racial injustice.

"They don't like it when we stand up for ourselves," one said, recounting how he had been recently harassed by police. Glancing at the half-dozen Victorville officers glowering at us from across the parking lot, I couldn't help but agree.

An older Black woman admitted she thinks what happened to Harsch might have been a suicide, though his family has released a statement saying otherwise. Her question was why the Sheriff's Department and Victorville officials weren't more forthcoming about what happened, given the national reckoning that's underway on racism.

"It is suspicious because no one heard about it until after the hanging in Palmdale," she said. "Where's the transparency?"

At a protest some 50 miles away in Palmdale, a white woman speculated that, with Fuller's death, maybe the deputies were trying to hide something - a Nazi flag or some other symbol denoting white supremacy. As we spoke, Black person after Black person got up to vent about the city's entrenched racism, the Confederate flags and racial slurs.

"Even if it was true what they're saying," she said of Villanueva and his deputies, "why would anyone out here believe them?" And this was before deputies killed Fuller's half-brother, Terron Boone, during a shootout on Wednesday afternoon in Rosamond, another high desert community about 20 miles north of Palmdale.

On Tuesday, a young Black man told me he wasn't at all surprised about how the department had handled Fuller's death. His friend agreed.

"The cops thought they could just sweep it under the rug like Malcolm," he said. "They didn't think anyone would notice."

I asked whether it was possible the deputies might not have made the connection to lynching. I brought up - admittedly halfheartedly - the four teachers at Summerwind Elementary School who were put on leave last year after a photo of them smiling and holding a noose surfaced on social media. An official investigation found they had no knowledge of the racial hatred a noose symbolizes.

"They knew," the friends said almost in unison.

In the end, the general public will probably never know for sure why both sheriff's departments of San Bernardino and Los Angeles tried to close both cases as suicides - even with parallel investigations by the FBI and State Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra's office. But what is abundantly clear is that it doesn't really matter.

There are huge problems in California's high desert, ones that rival those in parts of the Midwest and Deep South.

It was only five years ago, for example, that Los Angeles County settled with the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations that deputies systematically harassed and discriminated against Black people and Latinos in Palmdale, including with military-style sweeps of federally subsidized Section 8 housing.

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to traffic stops, racial profiling is also a thing, which - and I'm just spitballing here - might be one reason so few Black men and women want to become deputies and patrol the high desert. Villanueva was complaining about this very thing on Monday, when a Palmdale resident called into the community conversation to press him about the lack of diversity on his force.

It's an awful cycle of systemic racism that has led to where we are today.

Either the departments, if the sheriffs are to be believed, have deputies who are so ignorant that they can't see why a Black man hanging from a tree would be evidence enough to start a homicide investigation.

Or, if we are to believe residents, we have deputies who believe Black lives are expendable. And since no one will notice when they are gone, why spend money and energy investigating a possible murder that will only rile up Black people and possibly shine a light on longstanding racist practices?

No wonder people at Tuesday's protest were calling Palmdale a "sundown town" - something else I haven't heard since my days in Indiana.

"My brothers and sisters, do not be outside after dark," a Black woman pleaded into the microphone across from City Hall. "We are in a war zone."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Column: All the stupid excuses for not investigating hangings of Black men in the high desert

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The only sign of life in this place of death were the girls shrieking. All around them, clothes were strewn about and a portable toilet smelled as if it hadn't been emptied in weeks, but the girls giggled with glee as they slid down a grassy hill on pieces of cardboard, sheltered from the Tuesday afternoon high desert sun by the shade of trees.

# data[].attributes.headline
2020 The great “Awakening” around racial justice (US)

# data[].attributes.subject
2020 The great “Awakening” around racial justice (US)

# data[].attributes.body
The great “Awakening” around racial justice in the U.S. Murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black Americans killed at the hands of police sparked protests. Incident in NY’s Central Park where a Black birder was threatened by a white woman showed the nexus between race and the environmental communit

# data[].attributes.headline
Antelope Valley high school drops confederate mascot

# data[].attributes.subject
Antelope Valley high school drops confederate mascot

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
George Murdoch was a celebrated athlete at Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He competed in football, basketball and track as a Rebel, a nickname the school celebrated with a cartoon Confederate soldier and the Confederate flag as its mascot.

"I hated it," said Murdoch, who is biracial and is better known by his stage name "Tyrus" on Fox Nation's streaming talk show "Nuff Said With Tyrus." "Being called a Rebel didn't make sense to us. We're not in the South. We're in California. We just didn't get it."

Now those in authority agree with him. Last week, officials announced that after 56 years the school is ditching the mascot, known as Johnny Rebel. Earlier this month Flintridge Prep, a small private school in La Cañada Flintridge, quietly dumped its Rebel mascot as well, renaming its sports team the Wolves.

Quartz Hill hasn't chosen a new nickname, but the fact that it's axing the old one comes at a time of rising racial tensions in the Antelope Valley. On June 10, the body of Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old Black man, was found hanging from a tree outside the Palmdale City Hall, about 12 miles from the high school. The cause of death is still under investigation.

The following night the Rebel logo was brought up at an Antelope Valley Union High School District board meeting, and an online petition supporting the name change drew more than 5,400 signatures, the latest move in a years-long campaign to pressure the school to change the mascot, which has undergone several revisions through the years.
Last Thursday, Principal Zach Mercier relented. A committee will be formed, he told teachers, to choose a new mascot for the school.

"That, to me, felt like a new day," said English teacher Carmen Wisdom, who joined students in a four-mile Black Lives Matter march Saturday in scorching temperatures.

"Now I will finally be able to wear spirit gear," she added. "I haven't ever even uttered 'Quartz Hill Rebels' in the five years I've taught here."

Not everyone was in a celebratory mood, however, since the mascot change has already provoked a backlash against those who campaigned for it.

"It's a bittersweet moment," said Joshua Collier, the former Black Student Union president who has been working to get Johnny Rebel removed for two years. "We got something changed, not only for myself but for more students of color. But the sour part is people are defending the mascot and are not open to change."

Collier said his group's email account has received numerous racist messages in recent days.

"People just want to immediately attack us," he said.

Students and teachers say racial tensions are prevalent at the school, which once handed out Confederate flags at football games and assemblies. Three years ago, 80% of students surveyed said they wanted to keep the Rebel mascot, and last summer a video surfaced on social media of a white teenager, identified as a Quartz Hill student, getting painted in blackface as other students repeated racial slurs in the background.

Replacing the Rebel mascot, some students hope, will soften some of those views.

"The [mascot] change is a really good start to a better place at Quartz Hill," said Mia Ogebe, a sophomore tennis player. "The environment we have right now is unacceptable. Obviously it won't end all racism. But it will show that we do have a voice and we want to be heard."

The Antelope Valley's Black population has tripled since Murdoch went to school there, and with that has come repeated allegations of racist policies, including a U.S. Justice Department finding that officials worked to drive Black people out of public housing.

Five years ago, the Los Angeles County Housing Authority agreed to pay $2 million to victims of alleged discrimination, and some families who lost their housing assistance will have the chance to get it back.

At the same time, the Sheriff's Department agreed to pay $700,000 and implement policies aimed at preventing racial bias. The Justice Department launched an investigation in 2011 into allegations that people of color - particularly Black people - living in federally subsidized housing in Lancaster and Palmdale were being harassed and discriminated against by sheriff's deputies and county housing agency officials.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Then Fuller's body was found this month.

"Historically the Palmdale-Lancaster area has had many complaints from Black residents who feel they've been the victim of racism and destruction. It's been problematic for decades," said Najee Ali, a community organizer and activist from South L.A. who is among those calling for an independent investigation into Fuller's death.

Given that background, Murdoch, the Fox Nation talk show host and one of Quartz Hill's best-known graduates, said the school's association with Confederate symbolism was never appropriate and should have been changed long ago.

"I never understood supporting the losing team," said Murdoch, who favors a bovine-related nickname given the fact the high school abuts a farm. "I never understood why there was so much emphasis on the most un-American thing you could possibility do, which is leave the United States.

"Most young African Americans, when we see that flag we don't usually associate it with a good time," he said. "So I don't think it has any place in high school. Now people are starting to take responsibility and you're starting to see changes. There's never a better time to start."
Staff writer Hailey Branson and assistant sports editor Dan Loumena contributed to this report.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Antelope Valley high school's decision to drop Rebels mascot is long overdue, some say

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
George Murdoch was a celebrated athlete at Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He competed in football, basketball and track as a Rebel, a nickname the school celebrated with a cartoon Confederate soldier and the Confederate flag as its mascot.

# data[].attributes.body
Would authorize the department to also enter into agreements to preserve fish and wildlife habitat with a California Native American tribe, would authorize the board to make grants or loans to California Native American tribes for various purposes in connection with fish and wildlife habitats, and would exempt California Native American tribes from certain provisions around the sale or transfer of conservation lands

# data[].attributes.headline
2021: Imperial County has highest COVID death rate in California

# data[].attributes.subject
2021: Imperial County has highest COVID death rate in California

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
COVID-19 has now claimed more than 604,000 American lives. NBC 7 Investigates has been tracking death rates per county, and found a staggering contrast across California. Some counties reported nearly four times as many COVID-19 deaths as others.

According to the COVID-19 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), San Diego County has seen 132 deaths per 100,000 people. That's better than the average for California counties -- 164. Riverside County has reported 209 deaths per 100,000 people, and Imperial County has reported 323 deaths - the highest rate in the state.

Public health officials say there are several factors at play in the death rate disparities, such as the types of jobs people work in each county and public interventions, like stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, which San Diego County put in place in May 1, 2020.

"That's really effective intervention because if you do get sick, if you're wearing a mask, you get less virus and you get less sick," said Rebecca Fielding-Miller, MSPH Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, University of California, San Diego.

Bay Area counties reported significantly lower death rates. For example, San Francisco reported about 57 deaths per 100,000 people. "People are a lot wealthier in San Francisco," said Fielding-Miller. She says people who call the Bay Area home are more likely to work jobs in tech, meaning they could work from home.

That's not the case in Riverside and Imperial Counties. Both regions are home to frontline essential workers and farm workers who didn't have that luxury.

NBC 7 Investigates asked the California Department of Public Health about the death rate disparities. They told us, "Several factors, some of which are outlined in the California Department of Public Health's equity dashboard, affect COVID-19 outcomes among California communities. For example, death rates for Latino people are 21% higher than statewide. Other factors that affect health outcomes include vaccination rates, income and housing conditions. The California Healthy Places Index (HPI) is a helpful tool for comparing community conditions: in general, communities with lower HPI percentile have less favorable conditions and worse health outcomes."

Mixed Messages from Riverside County Officials

The Riverside County Department of Public Health tells NBC 7 Investigates the COVID-19 death toll is grim, but it makes sense given the number of agriculture jobs, lack of access to healthcare, and even lack of access to the internet - all of which makes getting public health messages through to everyone a challenge.

It's especially true when you're competing with other voices. The Riverside County Sheriff made national headlines when he posted a video online after the December statewide shutdown order. "Those closures and stay-at-home orders are flat out ridiculous," Sheriff Chad Bianco said in the video.

Some of those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 believe those mixed messages played a role in the death rate.

"When you have leaders that just don't show concern, that's wrong," said Cindy Mendoza-Collins. "I think it played a role in keeping people from taking it seriously and not wearing a mask."

Mendoza-Collins' brother, Morris Mendoza, was a lifelong activist in Riverside. A street is named after him in the Casa Blanca neighborhood where he fought for affordable housing. Morris Mendoza,72, died in January. Mendoza's friends and family say his death motivated many to get the vaccine. A Latino community leader, still leading, even in death. "He'll leave a big void. He still does and I think he always will," his sister said.

Imperial County Struggles to Contain the Virus

As of June 16, more than 2,000 people had died from COVID-19 in Imperial County. That's more than any other county, per capita, in the state. Jimmy Rios is among those deaths. He celebrated his 50th birthday not long before contracting the virus.

"He had recently received a kidney transplant so we all expected that he would be with us for a long time," his father, Jesse Rios, said.

Just five months after Jimmy received the transplant, both he and his father were hospitalized at El Centro Regional Medical Center with COVID-19. A few weeks later, the elder Rios learned his son would not be going home.

"It was like, I wanted to become God and say, 'Get up son,'" Rios said.

Rios and the other lives lost to the pandemic in Imperial County are memorialized in a mural recently painted in El Centro. A closer look reveals a few names, including Efren Coronel, an El Centro police officer who contracted the virus while on patrol.

"He loved his community, as a police officer he always wanted to help others," his widow, Sandra Coronel, said. "He always enjoyed life to the fullest."

County leaders tell NBC 7 Investigates they did everything they could to control the spread of the virus.

County Supervisor Luis Plancarte was chair of the board at the height of the pandemic. "We began to all of a sudden see that our care facilities, our services, our ambulances were taxed to the limit," Plancarte said.

"We weren't getting a few cases a day, we were getting hundreds of cases a day," said Janette Angulo, the county's public health director.

Angulo remembers the week in May 2020 that the pandemic completely overwhelmed the county's limited resources.

"Systems that we had in place, data systems that we did not have in place, just to give you an example - we were hand-delivering isolation orders," Angulo said\.

Angulo recalls reaching out to the state for help, but says they were hit with another setback pretty much on day one.

"We initially received assistance from the state for contact tracing and investigation. It was a bit challenging initially for us because we needed bilingual contact tracers and investigators because of the makeup of the community."

As local hospitals became saturated, the state took over patient transfers to other counties, as far north as San Francisco. Dr. Pedro Colio, who was on the frontlines at the hospital in El Centro, took issue with this strategy.

"So if you came in with a severe condition such as a heart attack and you needed a cardiac cath lab, but you also had COVID, we had to call the state line instead of transferring you to the nearest cardiac center," Dr. Colio said. "So our patients were sitting in the ER for up to 24 hours while their hearts were deteriorating with heart failure."

NBC 7 Investigates contacted the California Emergency Medical Services Authority for a response but they did not respond by the time this article was published.

Imperial County borders the city of Mexicali, which has a population of well over a million people, which is about six times more than the population of Imperial County. Health experts say what happened in Mexicali during the pandemic impacted the county.

"We all have family on the other side and they come to see us on a weekly or monthly basis and we do the same," said County Supervisor Plancarte.

Colio also correlates the county's high poverty rates to the high mortality rate. More people living in the same home accelerates the spread of the virus.

"Poverty also leads to chronic conditions like diabetes, heart failure, COPD, and these patients, unfortunately, are the ones that will get very ill because their immune [system] is low," Colio said.

And when the vaccines finally started rolling out in December, Colio wonders how many lives could've been saved had the distribution been handled differently by the state.

"It should've been distributed based on mortality rate rather than population size because even though our population is smaller here, our mortality rate was a lot higher, so I think we should've received more vaccines than we actually did."

In a statement, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) said, "CDPH and the Vaccination Task Force developed a strategy called The Blueprint For Safer Economy which created a vaccine equity metric. The objective was to increase vaccination in the state's hardest-hit communities. The initial goal of the metric was to deliver a minimum of 2 million doses to the hardest-hit quarter of the state as measured by the Healthy Place Index. We did get to that goal."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19 Death Rate Disparities: A Look at the Hardest Hit Communities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
COVID-19 has now claimed more than 604,000 American lives. NBC 7 Investigates has been tracking death rates per county, and found a staggering contrast across California. Some counties reported nearly four times as many COVID-19 deaths as others.

# data[].attributes.body
Simmons created a work that occupies a series of billboards on Gene Autry Trail, and its foundational ingredients are reverence, resistance, and the redistribution of tangible material resources. Because You Know Ultimately We Will Band a Militia engages American mythmaking through our visual consumption, production, and embodiment via the resistance structures and counter narratives that have always been crafted as radical responses alongside the continual production of these mythmaking narratives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"It is not that Indigenous or First Nations people or the Black descendants of American chattel slavery have never had the imagination for monuments," Xaviera Simmons says. "It's that white America, particularly as represented and enforced by local, state, and federal governments, has consistently attempted and often succeeded to terrorize the impulse of self-defining monumentality out of those groups - groups which my own ancestry rests." For Desert X, Simmons created a work that occupies a series of billboards on Gene Autry Trail, and its foundational ingredients are reverence, resistance, and the redistribution of tangible material resources. Because You Know Ultimately We Will Band a Militia engages American mythmaking through our visual consumption, production, and embodiment via the resistance structures and counter narratives that have always been crafted as radical responses alongside the continual production of these mythmaking narratives.

Xaviera Simmons' (New York, New York, 1974) work spans photography, performance, video, sound, sculpture, and installation. She defines her studio practice - rooted in an ongoing investigation of experience, memory, abstraction, and present and future histories specifically shifting notions surrounding landscape - as cyclical rather than linear. She is committed equally to the examination of different artistic modes and processes; she may dedicate part of a year to photography, another part to performance, and other parts to installation, video, and sound works, keeping her practice in constant and consistent rotation, shift, and engagement.

Because You Know Ultimately We Will Band A Militia
33.852444, -116.506083
Gene Autry Trail Between Via Escuela and Interstate 10, Palm Springs
On view 24/7

The artist and Desert X would like to thank the generous support of Kaeli Deane & Chris Beals and Dr. V. Joy Simmons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"It is not that Indigenous or First Nations people or the Black descendants of American chattel slavery have never had the imagination for monuments," Xaviera Simmons says. "It's that white America, particularly as represented and enforced by local, state, and federal governments, has consistently attempted and often succeeded to terrorize the impulse of self-defining monumentality out of those groups - groups which my own ancestry rests."

# data[].attributes.body
Black Lives Matter monument unveiled in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article251779093.html

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article251779093.html

# data[].attributes.headline
GM signs contract to mine lithium from Salton Sea

# data[].attributes.subject
GM signs contract to mine lithium from Salton Sea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
General Motors (GM) and Controlled Thermal Resources have reached a historic agreement to develop low-cost lithium at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field, the companies announced on Friday.

With this deal, GM becomes the first company to make a multi-million dollar investment in Controlled Thermal Resources Hell's Kitchen project, which is located near the Salton Sea. The agreement means that a significant portion of GM's future battery-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate could come from the Hell's Kitchen development.

Lithium is a metal crucial to GM's plans to make more affordable, higher mileage electric vehicles, the company stated in its announcement release.

Hell's Kitchen Lithium and Power development in the Salton Sea Geothermal Field is located in Imperial County and is the largest known geothermal resource in the world. The area is known as "lithium valley."

News Channel 3 morning anchor Angela Chen went in-depth on the lithium at the Salton Sea in part four of her special series "Troubled Waters: The Salton Sea Project."

"One of the single best locations, one of the largest geothermal reservoirs in the world is right at the Salton Sea," Jonathan Weisgall, Vice President of Government Relations for Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

As the first investor, GM announced it will have first rights on lithium produced by the first stage of the Hell's Kitchen project and included an option for a multi-year relationship.

"The relationship between GM and CTR is expected to accelerate the adoption of lithium extraction methods that cause less impact to the environment. A significant amount of GM's future battery-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate could come from CTR's Hell's Kitchen Lithium and Power development in the Salton Sea Geothermal Field, located in Imperial, California. With the help of GM's investment, CTR's closed-loop, direct extraction process will recover lithium from geothermal brine," reads a statement by GM.

Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) issued a statement applauding the agreement.

"Our efforts to galvanize a thriving, robust lithium economy in our Salton Sea region are becoming a reality more and more each day. With the ability to meet one-third of the global lithium demand, our Imperial County, Salton Sea area, can take center stage in the future of our domestic lithium supply chain. This strategic agreement between Controlled Thermal Resources and General Motors marks the first major investment in actualizing that vision," said Garcia, who serves as the Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on California's Lithium Economy.

On May 26, 2021, Rod Colwell, CEO of CTR, provided testimony at Garcia's first California's Lithium Economy Select Committee hearing. Colwell presented slides with an overview of their local project and lithium recovery technology.

"After years of laying the groundwork, we are ready to move forward pedal to the metal on our cleaner air, electric vehicle, and climate goals while utilizing these economic development opportunities to bring vital resources, improve public health, and uplift overall circumstances in our region. More than ever, we must continue to elevate our community engagement efforts to ensure local stakeholders and residents are in the driver's seat as we set this new course. Our work last year (AB 1657, E. Garcia) to establish the Lithium Valley Commission will help ensure that," Garcia said.

Last year, Garcia passed AB 1657 creating a Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in California (Lithium Valley Commission) to bring together industry experts and community stakeholders to review, analyze, and report recommendations to advance lithium extraction opportunities.

A final report is due to the California State Legislature by October 1, 2022.
Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D. issued a statement on the historic agreement:
"General Motors' investment in renewable energy development at the Salton Sea presents an incredible opportunity for clean energy job creation in our Desert," Ruiz said."With the lithium deposit at the Sea, our region can become a global leader in manufacturing for the batteries that will power our clean-energy future. I have long advocated for the renewable energy potential at the Sea, and I look forward to working with GM to develop a supply chain that prioritizes sustainability, public and environmental health, and local job growth."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
GM reaches historic agreement to invest millions in lithium project at the Salton Sea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
General Motors (GM) and Controlled Thermal Resources have reached a historic agreement to develop low-cost lithium at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field, the companies announced on Friday . With this deal, GM becomes the first company to make a multi-million dollar investment in Controlled Thermal Resources Hell's Kitchen project, which is located near the Salton Sea.

# data[].attributes.body
Forcible assimilation of indigenous children + mass burial graves found; investigation continues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
RENO, Nev. - The Stewart Indian School in Carson City may come under federal review following U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's announcement that the government will investigate its past oversight of Native American boarding schools.

Last month, Haaland, who is a member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, outlined the national initiative while addressing members of the National Congress of American Indians during its midyear conference.

The initiative stemmed from the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children, all uncovered on the site of what was once Canada's largest Indigenous residential school. The Kamloops Indian Residential School is one of many institutions that held Indigenous children taken from families across the nation and in the United States.

The Nevada school housed thousands of students during its 90 years of operations, and local tribe members recall family members who repeatedly ran away from the school after being forcibly cut off from their families, culture and languages.

The Nevada Indian Commission has been collecting information on the history of the former Stewart Indian School, said the commission's executive director, Stacey Montooth.

Montooth said the Nevada Indian Commission has not yet received direction from the U.S. Department of Interior. Still, the state agency is "committed to following the lead of our alumni and our tribal leaders on how they want to pursue outcomes," she said.
Mass grave of 215 children in Canada: Marieval Indian Residential School: Groups report discovery of 751 bodies at Indigenous school in Saskatchewan A stark reminder of the dark history of Native American boarding schools in US
"The news that has grabbed the world's attention about the findings in Canada at their residential school, it's not surprising to Native American people," Montooth said. "But the lack of surprise doesn't make this any easier to deal with."

Haaland previously said the investigation will help "uncover the truth about the loss of human life and lasting consequences of the institutions."

The unprecedented initiative will include compiling and reviewing decades of records to locate past boarding schools, unearth known and possible burial sites at or near those schools, and identify the students' names and tribal affiliations.

Earlier this week, Montooth spoke with other tribal leaders from other parts of the country who have been working to identify missing students from boarding schools.

The discovery in Canada prompted a national discussion about atrocities against Native American communities in the U.S., Montooth said.

A look back at the Stewart Indian School

The Stewart Indian School opened Dec. 17, 1890, shortly after the first Indian boarding school in the country was established in Pennsylvania. It initially had three teachers and 37 students from the local Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone tribes. The school sat 3 miles southeast of Carson City and encompassed 240 acres.

Montooth said the U.S. waged wars against Native American communities following a failed treaty period.

"They basically tried to kill all of the Indians, and that didn't work," she said

The next approach involved assimilation. Montooth said the school, which stayed open for 90 years, was operated like a military academy, with the goal of assimilation.

The campus opened with a capacity for 100 students. It included a Victorian-style wood-framed dormitory and schoolhouse. As enrollment increased, new buildings were added to including a place for training, a recreation room and a hospital.

According to the cultural center's website, a railroad stop was established in 1906 to deliver supplies and transport students to and from the school. By 1919, 400 students attended the school. Vocational training remained the school's focus until it shifted to academics in the late 1960s.

"In 2021, we would call that kidnapping," Montooth said. "Federal representatives of the government would physically, harshly take children and rip them from their mothers' arms and bring them to boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking their language."

She recalled hearing a story from a local elder who described several attempts at escaping Stewart Indian School.

The woman told Montooth the school matrons cut her hair every time they brought her back to the school.

"Hair to Native people is just absolutely sacred," Montooth said. "She said she looked like a boy because it kept getting chopped and chopped."

Budget cuts and earthquake safety issues eventually forced the school's closure in 1980.

The state acquired the campus in the '90s, and it is now being used by the state for classes, training and agency offices.
Contributing: USA TODAY; the Associated Press
The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California founded the Stewart community on much of the former school's land, according to the cultural center's website.

Meanwhile, the school has since been listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places. The cultural center and museum is in the former administration building.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Feds may investigate Native American boarding school in Nevada after discovery of Canadian mass graves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
RENO, Nev. - The Stewart Indian School in Carson City may come under federal review following U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's announcement that the government will investigate its past oversight of Native American boarding schools.

# data[].attributes.headline
2021: Newsom approves funds for relocation of residents from Oasis Mobile Home Park

# data[].attributes.subject
2021: Newsom approves funds for relocation of residents from Oasis Mobile Home Park

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on a $30 million request from Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, to relocate residents of the troubled Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal.

The park, located on Torres Martinez tribal land, is home to more than 1,000 people and has been repeatedly cited by the EPA for arsenic in its water. Residents also have complained about overflowing trash and lack of maintenance on the aging mobile homes.

The Riverside County Housing Authority has helped relocate several Oasis families, but many mobile home park residents are still struggling with limited access to safe drinking water and sanitary conditions. Newsom's signature on Senate Bill 129 acts as the final approval for amendments in the California budget framework to include the funds for relocation.

"When we talk about the $30 million, we know that the Riverside County Housing Authority is working with a couple of affordable housing nonprofits and existing and permitted mobile home parks to take a look at which projects may be ready to go for purposes of relocating of families," Garcia said in an interview.

He added that the funding also makes building new housing feasible, thoughthat would require "anywhere from six to 12 months in terms of developmental processing."

Garcia said that a lack of money for infrastructure - such as water and sewer - has made construction in the general vicinity challenging. Therefore, he also advocated for - and won - $7 million to support a Coachella Valley Water District water infrastructure project along Avenue 66 in Mecca.

According to Garcia's office, the total project cost is approximately $28.8 million and CVWD is in the process of completing the first phase of this project at a total cost of $3.9 million.

"We know (the funds) will open up development for affordable housing in that area. When you put those pots together, not only do we see these families of Oasis Mobile Home Park benefiting, but we also see great opportunities for other families, benefiting from these efforts," he said.

The approval of funds comes on the heels of a response letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs last month to an investigation request from U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, who questioned the bureau's handling of persistent problems at Oasis.

The BIA acknowledged that the mobile home park did not have a business lease, which was supposed to be registered with the agency. BIA said it "sent correspondence" to the owners of Oasis on separate occasions last year, "requesting meetings to provide technical assistance" to draft a lease. But it failed to explain why the agency had not sought out the lease sooner, or why it has taken no action to improve living conditions for Oasis residents since an initial site visit 13 years ago.

Ruiz said the letter"raises serious concerns about the ability of local BIA officials to enforce the law and protect the health and safety of my constituents."
Eliana Perez covers the eastern Coachella Valley, including the cities of Coachella and Indio. Reach her at eliana.perez@desertsun.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsom OKs $30 million for Oasis Mobile Home Park resident relocation in state budget

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on a $30 million request from Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, to relocate residents of the troubled Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal. The park, located on Torres Martinez tribal land, is home to more than 1,000 people and has been repeatedly cited by the EPA for arsenic in its water.