Homes for All: Richmond's 1950s Attempt at Integrated Housing

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2022

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A group of Black ministers convinced a local Richmond developer to build homes that would be available to all Americans, including Black Americans, in the early 1950s long before the Fair Housing Act. We trace the history of that activism and the fate of the community over the decades. Additional Reading: Homes for All: Richmond's 1950s Attempt at Integrated Housing To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963 An Exploration of Our History: The Story of North Richmond Sign up for the Bay Curious newsletter Read the transcript here Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Ariana Proehl. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From K-QED. This is Bay Curious. I'm Olivia Allen Price. Let's start today Area to join the war effort.
0:20.0	They've come for good paying jobs, building and loading ships, working in our coastal defense, or fighting on the front lines.
0:28.0	But when the war ends, all those soldiers fighting in the Pacific come flooding back into the area and everyone
0:34.1	needed a place to live. We had a big problem. One that's going to sound
0:38.0	really familiar, there wasn't enough housing. Six rooms deluxe plus garage.
0:44.4	Eight thousand dollars.
0:46.1	Most new housing developments like West Lake and Daily City
0:49.6	only accepted white buyers.
0:52.3	Three hundred dollar down payment for veterans includes closing costs and landscaping on all plans.
0:59.0	The thousands of black Americans who had uprooted their lives to join the war effort had nowhere to go.
1:05.1	But one suburban development was advertising something different.
1:10.4	Presenting a home community for all Americans.
1:17.0	When it opened in 1950, Parchester Village in North Richmond advertised itself as an integrated community, the first of its kind in Richmond and one of very few in the region.
1:30.0	Parchester Village, California's newest suburban community with all the city
1:35.2	advantages. Spacious lodge with landscape front yards,
1:39.4	choice of plan.
1:40.4	Made up of a few square blocks tucked between Point-Panoel Regional Park and the Richmond Parkway,
1:45.4	this community had a chance to make history.
1:49.6	Today on the show, we explore the promise and reality of one of the first neighborhoods
1:55.0	intended for all Americans, regardless of race, to live together.
2:00.1	Integration long before it was the law of the land. We'll be right back.
2:10.5	Support for Bay Curious is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, still family owned, operated, and argued over.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.