How Black culture and history became collateral damage in the Altadena fire

I spent my adolescence and teenage years in Altadena, California. 

My parents bought their first home on a cul-de-sac on Alegre Lane in 1982. This was the first place that didn’t feel small or had neighbors in every direction, like the apartment complex we’d left on Hardy Street in Inglewood. My room was painted sunshine yellow, facing the front yard, a view I cherished. I had plenty of space — for my extensive Barbie (and of course, Christie) collection as a kid.

As a tween, I wallpapered my walk-in closet with posters of New Edition and the Jacksons. Our back yard was expansive because the previous owner used to keep horses there, and my parents had a massive swing set and jungle gym built. Descending into my mini canyon of a yard gave me the room to get lost in my dreams.

Decades later, that house is now burned to the ground, along with every house that dotted the horseshoe shaped street.

Today, I live in Brooklyn. But as the fire in January spread throughout Eaton Canyon, about 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles, I watched in horror as the flames curled like beach waves through my old stomping grounds. I would learn from loved ones that Loma Alta — the elementary school where I excelled and felt welcome, but was teased by mean boys for covering my hair as a young Muslim girl — found no refuge from the fire despite being nestled in the mountains.

My childhood mosque, founded by a Black Muslim family, was gutted. Some of my family members had to evacuate. Their homes survived, but between the ever-present smell of smoke and contaminated water, they were uninhabitable.

As we celebrated Juneteenth recently, it wasn’t lost on me that Black families torn apart by fire now face the same displacement and separation our forebears did after word of the Emancipation Proclamation began to travel west.

Six months on, the world has witnessed the catastrophic devastation of January’s Southern California wildfires, which ravaged Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and the historically Black, now racially diverse, enclave of Altadena. Given the amount of lives and structures lost, the Eaton fire caused the most damage. In Altadena, that amounted to 14,021 acres of scorched earth and more than 9,400 structures reduced to ashes, resulting in at least 18 fatalities, some of which have come under public scrutiny and sparked legal action.

World renowned bassist, composer and educator John Clayton also learned of the Eaton fire’s wrath from New York City. On January 8, he was the recipient of the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award from the Jazz Congress for his lifelong contributions to the genre. Just before taking the stage, he learned that both his and his daughter’s homes in Atladena had been completely destroyed.

Clayton’s home studio, library of compositions, collection of instruments and vinyl — all lost. Among cherished and irreplaceable items were his music book from his time as a teenage classical student, the piano he would rest music pages on, and an irreplaceable piece of history for Black music, the NFL and America: the original composition for Whitney Houston’s enthralling rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” performed at Super Bowl XXV in 1991.

“Black culture is a communal, collective way of existing.”

In 1985, Clayton purchased a foreclosure to fix up. He told Andscape what attracted him to the area was that “there were no sidewalks; there were trees, grass, and it was the vibe of the people, too. Progressive and felt good.”

He built a rehearsal space that was also “a place to store my music, instruments and to compose and practice,” Clayton said. “I’d write a piece and I’d give it a number, and I’d store it there. That original manuscript I wrote for Whitney is gone. All of that was lost in the fire.

“My teacher wrote ‘long tones!’ on the front of my music book. Fifty years later, I’d see that message and be inspired. Because Abe Luboff did that, I’m feeling good to pass that on to my students. I was forced to let go of these things, but the importance of them as things were that they led to action and emotions.”

Though he was still grappling with the enormity of his loss, Clayton is hopeful about one thing: “The beauty of music is that the sound has been preserved, so I can find the recordings I made and I can transcribe the music from the sound,” he said.

In January, Clayton didn’t have much confidence in the leadership beyond the city and state.

“We’ve already seen how the House of Representatives were reacting to our dilemma, talking about ‘if we’re going to give them any money, we need to make sure that they jump through these hoops,'” he said. “I hate to be cynical, but I am reminded that politics is local, and I don’t think that anybody outside of California, in Florida or Iowa is going to have empathy for our situation that people locally will. My jazz community reached out to support me, but I think the people of California get it. Everyone knows someone who was touched by this.”

Initially, media reports highlighted which A-listers were rendered homeless, pushing empathy out of reach for tens of thousands of low-income, middle class, working families and retirees who’d lost everything they’d saved to build, worked to maintain, and sought to pass on to generations after their own.

Knowing the roots and the foundation of Altadena first-hand, I longed to preserve the pieces and stories of Black culture consumed by the Eaton Fire’s indiscriminate destruction. I ached for some hope to be able to hold for people to resist gentrification and to rebuild, because the people of Altadena are my people.

Music producer and MC Romye Robinson, founding member of legendary Los Angeles rap group The Pharcyde supports Clayton’s assertion. Robinson’s mother, Zetta Mary Robinson, a retired nurse, lost her West Altadena home, a place that saw the genesis of his career as a musician. He was in grade school when she purchased the house.

“She worked three jobs to be able to move there from LA, and the realtor didn’t even show her East Altadena,” he said.

Robinson ran track and played football in high school, but was drawn to music.

“The music thing was definitely inspired by her house, and by music classes in school,” he said.

Songs he wrote, like “Passin’ Me By” and “Pack the Pipe” have Altadena roots.

“My style has always been jazzy and melodic. I was doing production, listening to the records in my dad’s collection.” he recalled.

As early as the week before the fire, Robinson would go there and garden all day to decompress and find creative inspiration.

Robinson’s mom was the keeper of photo albums, recipes and crafts for the family, and all those items are now gone. The fires have halted a generational transfer of heirlooms. It has made Robinson more intentional about hearing his mother’s stories about the family, so he can pass them on to his daughters.

“Her attitude about it is, ‘God has a new season for me,’” he said. “Our street was very close with one another, and out of the six people on our block, everyone is saying they’re going to rebuild. When I was saying ‘Altadena’ in my raps, people didn’t understand. Families here owned the block, not just one house. Eyes have been opened up to what Black Altadena is.”

Black culture is a communal, collective way of existing. Gathering, celebrating and providing intergenerational connections between community members outside the home is vital. The heavily debated ‘cookout’ invitation is coveted for this reason. Houses of worship meet this need in ways unique to the Black community.

Kameelah Waheed Wilkerson and her childhood friend, Jihad Abdul-Shakoor, are lifelong members of the congregation of Masjid Al-Taqwa, a mosque established in the late 1970s by several Black Muslim families. The Lake Avenue location was claimed by the Eaton Fire, leaving a gaping hole in the culture of an historically Black community, which prayed, celebrated holidays and carried on traditions for decades. After the fire, the mosque held Friday prayers in Altadena’s First AME Church, a testament to the allyship across faiths within the Black community.

Abdus-Shakoor is the founder of the community outreach nonprofit, Reconstructing Everyday Basic Outcomes Under New Direction (R.E.B.O.U.N.D.), and lost multiple buildings, including his parents’ family home, their real estate office Shakoor Realty & Finance, and two rental properties.

“In one word, family defines Black culture in Altadena,” Abdus-Shakoor said. “There is no such thing as six degrees of separation. There’s one degree. Somebody that you know is related to the next person, or you’re related to them. It’s a close-knit place, and that’s why the pain is so deep.”

Abdus-Shakoor is also the chair of the mosque’s relocation committee.

“We would have weddings, events, and nightly Iftar, the Eid prayer,” he said. “It will be difficult; we’re dealing with a lot of dynamics, from folks being underinsured, to the population percentages changing. We don’t anticipate we can return immediately. We will rebuild Masjid Al-Taqwa in the same location.”

“The main thing that has survived is the establishing families building community — and that has endured,” said Wilkerson, who is a longtime board member of the mosque. “That is what attaches people to Masjid Al-Taqwa. The community wants the masjid to be rebuilt because they want to maintain that community spirit. They are worried if we are too displaced for too long.”

Wilkerson has watched gentrification encroach on the town where she was born and raised long before the fire.

“This is the big test because Black culture has been slowly but sure disappearing from Altadena,” she said. “I grew up when it was predominantly Black, but now, my son is one of two in the neighborhood Little League. His neighborhood school is now a French immersion school.”

In the wake of the fires, Wilkerson is particularly concerned about the elders who’ve lost everything and are not tech savvy.

“Where are the elderly retired couple who lived across the street from us going to go? She grew up on that block. This is a hassle for them! They will have to go out of the city to survive and I don’t know if they’re gonna make it back in. Unless you’re very well-resourced, you’re not going to make it back in,” Wilkerson said.

According to Data USA in 2022, the median household income of Malibu was $186,905. In contrast, the median household income of Altadena was $123,869. With Altadena real estate property value being 3.52 times the national average at $991,200 in that same year, not accounting for present day inflation, it will be an uphill battle for many Altadena residents to keep from being priced out of their own neighborhood if they don’t rebuild.

According to a study on the Eaton Fire conducted by the Ralph Bunche Center at UCLA, of the 61% of Black households located in the fire’s perimeter, 48% were destroyed or severely damaged — and 57% of homeowners are 65 and older. These staggering numbers mean that Altadena’s rise out of this far-reaching tragedy will be the restoration of heritage and legacy.

The study also notes that “the wildfire’s differential impacts can be at least partially attributed to the legacies of historical segregation and redlining” on maps dating back to 1939 that labeled homes west of Lake Avenue as “definitely declining.”

“‘Historical’ gives the impression of something in the past, but it’s still ongoing, and still a Black community,” said Clayton. “The question is: Does the community come back together and reclaim the land?”

According to Abdus-Shakoor, that answer is a resounding yes.

“Across the board people want to hold the line,” he said. “We’re looking at a long road to recovery.”

Architect Scott Alan Rivers, who specializes in luxury home design and fire rebuilds, agreed. There is no outrunning climate change, but there are ways to protect homes from the ground up, without sacrificing the aesthetics unique to Altadena.

“The Spanish Colonial, Craftsman, and even the Victorian styles can be achieved using today’s fire resistant materials. There is landscaping that can help protect a home’s perimeter,” Rivers said.

There are even fire vaults that can be installed, or fireproof basements worth considering to preserve anything of value going forward. But all of these choices will come after what he expects to be six to 12 months of debris removal, and a bureaucratic process that is more complex than that of a build unrelated to natural disasters.

Rivers recommends homeowners assemble a team of professionals who understand the cultural impact of their loss and the features they may want that are a reflection of their Black heritage.

As for the music collections, the art on walls, the family portraits, crafted cookbooks, quilts, vases and furniture passed down through the decades, their existence will be measured by the resilience of the memory of those who once fashioned, touched and experienced them.

No matter the change in climate, demographics or complexion, for Black residents and businesspeople, the imperative to restore Altadena is to do so for the culture.