GHOSTBUSTERS WHO'S WHO 3
From History of Black Americans in Santa Clara Valley, Volume 1 Garden City Women's Club 1978.
After the 1849 gold rush Southern slave owners wanted California a slave state. White abolitionist Rev Starr King almost single-handedly made California a free state, touring the state speaking and rescuing blacks from slave owners. California entered the Union in 1850 a free state to which many blacks fled slavery. Black freedman were safer in California far from the slaveholding South. California gold helped win the Civil War and keep the country united. Since the 1860s black churches, instruments of protest against racism and sexism, appeared in large cities everywhere with large black populations. They and black barbers served as an underground network for coded news reports of anti-black legislation. Violence against black churches continues today.
Affluent northern blacks started the American Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, Bethel in Philadelphia and Zion in New York. The Third Baptist church was started by less affluent southern blacks. White ministers still preached black subjugation in California's first religious services. Blacks migrating to California having already established independence in religious matters organized their own churches to respond to black community needs. Black housekeepers and custodians taking orders from white employers all week found acceptance in Sunday school and choirs. San Jose's first AME Zion church, standing for years at Fourth and San Antonio Streets, was incorporated in 1883 on land donated 20 years earlier.
Antioch Baptist Church opened August 2, 1893 with 7 members. Early meeting minutes survive, recording new members, baptisms and church business. Rev C C Laws was its first pastor at $10 a month and board, increased as the church grew in size. The church, incorporated in 1905, dedicated its first building, custom built, in 1908. $500 was paid when the roof was built, the rest when the building was completed. W A Magette served for the longest period, 19 years, purchasing a new building for the growing church. Late 1939 Rev T M Davis became pastor, immediately forming the senior choir. At Davis' death in 1946 C W Washington became pastor. Born in Mississippi he studied at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville then Washington School of Art in Washington DC, a degree in philosophy and psychology from San Jose State University, and a master's degree from Berkeley Baptist Divinity School. In 1948 Washington joined the board of the local Red Cross chapter and the Board of Education, elected to represent them at the national School Board Convention in Chicago. Washington and 9 others received the Distinguished Citizens Award in 1960. Washington also served on the local Council of Churches Race Relations Committee, the Council for Civic Unity and the NAACP. His wife Thelma sang in the senior choir and served in the church's Mission Department. His daughter Earline accompanied the Youth Choir. His son Charles sang for the youth and senior choirs and the men's chorus. Washington and local NAACP president Emmitt Dollarhyde posed with San Jose mayor Clark L Bradley at the 1962 signing of the proclamation of Negro History Week.
Work on the present Antioch Church began in 1959. Three lots were purchased and paid for. The new church, stucco with flagstone and redwood trim, has in addition to its sanctuary and chapel a dining room, kitchen and classrooms. Its first service was held on Easter. Sister Ella Davis, Antioch's oldest remaining member, cut the ribbon. Antioch serves senior lunches five days a week. Its members are actively involved in community affairs, sponsoring the 192-unit San Juan Bautista housing project in east San Jose. In 1971 Antioch honored Rev and Mrs. Washington for 25 years of service with a banquet at Lou's Village. The church paid off its mortgage in February 1973. Rev Washington died 4 days earlier, leaving Antioch pastorless for 16 months. Rev Eddie Porter served the interim until Rev M Samuel Pinkston arrived at Antioch Nov 1, 1974, officially installed Sunday, Dec 8. Church clerk Inez C Jackson, for whom the local NAACP library is named, carefully kept minutes for 30 years. Included are members deceased, contributions to the NAACP, and details of the Garden City Women's Club, local chapter of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Early Antioch rules were strict. Members were assessed dues, their names removed from the rolls if dues weren't paid. Deacons reported delinquent members at each business meeting. Members were not allowed to leave meetings without permission from the chair. Unchristian conduct was also reported, such as dancing, gambling, and missing church services and business meetings.
Born in Fayetteville WV, 36 degree Mason Theodore Moss settled in San Jose in 1906, the county's first black plumber. A member of Antioch for 60 years he served in the 1940s as President of the local NAACP chapter. One of his many plumbing apprentices was Henry Ribbs, later one of the Valley's most successful plumbers. Moss died Jan 28, 1976 at 93 and received Masonic and Antioch burial services.
You don't grow up black in white society and turn things around by being timid, today or when Inez Jackson raised her 6 children and forced San Jose gently but firmly to face largely unadmitted racism. No quick easy job, still unfinished, it may never be finished. Inez Jackson's dream was to work for a better world. At 18 in Texas she wrote in Terell High School's Salutorian, "to accomplish something worthwhile is reachable if we turn small opportunities into big ones."
The Jacksons, in California for a better life, found things no different. They heard California wasn't supposed to be segregated and it wasn't. They eliminated a whole group of people. Inez tried to make California live up to expectations. Wanting a promised land she found a city worse than the South, where at least people talked about segregation. Instead of moving she made it better. Jackson made San Jose see her and other local blacks, prevailing against odds wilting the less determined.
Leon Jackson came West in 1942 to build ships in Richmond. He was offered jobs scrubbing floors instead. Inez Jackson had a degree in math from Langston University in Langston Oklahoma and was teaching in Shawnee Oklahoma's segregated schools when Leon Jackson sent for her and their 6 children in 1944. They bought a small house in East San Jose. Oakland didn't sell homes to blacks in those days. Leon could commute to the shipyards but Inez couldn't teach. San Jose didn't hire black teachers in 1944. Eager to teach math in integrated San Jose schools, Inez, told that blacks weren't hired for anything else, picked prunes and worked the canneries until President Truman in 1945 ordered the Post Office to hire blacks. Passing the civil service exam Inez Jackson became San Jose's first black postal clerk, working there 24 years before retiring. In 1949 hers was one of the first 3 black families to move onto a white street.
Before Inez Jackson San Jose's black community was largely invisible. 1940 census: 515 blacks in San Jose. San Jose with no legal discrimination discriminated against blacks more subtly by pretending they didn't exist. Those few inconsiderate enough to live there were told good jobs and housing weren't for them, they weren't qualified. One of the first things Jackson noticed was never seeing blacks in any public capacity. No black waiters, clerks, bank tellers, teachers. No classroom pictures of blacks. Historically small, today only 5% of San Jose's people are black.
Denied teaching jobs Inez said believing was important if change was to come. Determined to be visible she visited her children's schools, keeping a professional eye on their teachers. She joined the PTA, The NAACP, Antioch Baptist Church and the Garden City Women's Club. She was a familiar sight at City Council and County Supervisors' meetings, telling them and whoever else would listen that blacks existed and would be treated as equals as was their right. At Jackson's first City Council meeting she was stopped at the door. This meeting open to citizens? Inez asked. What do you want? security asked. I own a house in San Jose, I'm a registered voter, I work at the post office. I'm a citizen? Jackson replied. She attended that meeting and many more, a role model to fight discrimination. Only 2 black families sent their kids to college because there were no role models. Inez became one herself. 1960 - 1966 Jackson served on the Human Relations Commission, organized by Ben Avrech in 1960. She was also a transit commission member and San Jose YWCA's first black president.
Jackson, supporting SJCC counselor Owens as NAACP president, often told him about when she came to San Jose. He didn't want what happened to her to happen to other blacks. The NAACP helped blacks get jobs and housing. Blacks were typically told a house was sold or rented, although signs were still up. Black doctors couldn't rent offices. Jackson briefed them on similar cases, here's what to look for, what to do, expecting less prejudice when whites saw Blacks fight. Some settled quietly with owners, the NAACP and Jackson. Others sued. Jackson inspired other blacks to become realtors and make sure blacks were rented to.
A strict parent, Jackson made her children help with the housework. They also picked fruit every summer to earn money for school clothes. Sundays they had to attend church if they wanted to go to movies afterwards. She put all her kids through college, working to change things so they could go. Her oldest daughter taught at Sacramento High School. Jackson held 3 or 4 meetings a week in her living room. Neighborhood children played there. The lively house was always full of people including Jackson's many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Mary Ann Smith, San Jose's third black USPS clerk, met Jackson 1949. She went with Jackson to night meetings and thus got involved. Needing a place for her home, Smith was only shown two lots. One was on Race St by the railroad tracks. The other, on 34 th St, needed fill dirt. Smith, told these lots were all they had despite much vacant land, didn't know blacks could live anywhere and remained on 34 th St. Jackson also helped Mary Ann Smith get her realtor's license.
1950s Elks held fundraising blackface minstrel shows in San Jose's civic auditorium. Jackson and Smith, having seen these shows before, bought the best seats in house, saying, "They'll run us off then we'll run." The show was horrible. Actors in blackface acting stupid and using bad English made people nervous. Never again, Jackson thought, and persuaded the Elks to end these shows.
All her life Inez Jackson fought for civil rights, winning hundreds of awards and plaques. If there was a need she tried to fill it. During her much-dreamed of 1975 trip to Africa she brought clothes and other needs to people there. The old fire station at 6th and Julian Sts downtown had been closed for years. Jackson asked for and got the place for $1 a year, for an African-American cultural center. Mary Smith volunteered at the center. Its library opened in 1981 so blacks could know their past, remembering the sacrifices and achievements of their parents and grandparents.
NAACP member Anna Stokes McCall, born in Georgia 1879, was a charter member of the Garden City Women's Club from 1900 to 1910. W E B Du Bois sponsored San Jose's NAACP chapter and spoke at the GCWC. When McCall died in 1949 the GCWC established a scholarship in her honor. During World War II Mary Tanner was the Women's Army Corps first black, finding even more discrimination outside San Jose. After the war Tanner returned to San Jose. Her husband, San Jose's first black police officer, served 21 years.