My Grandma

I grew up in the San Joaquin (or Central) Valley in California. It’s incredibly rural and feels like you have dropped a Southern or Midwestern state in the middle of SoCal, the Bay area, the ocean, and some ridiculously tall mountains. 

I learned to drive on all the back roads connecting the rural towns, mostly with my grandma. She would sit in the passenger seat, not allowing the radio to be on because it was a distraction, and then tell me not to drive above 40 miles an hour on the 55-mile-an-hour roads. She told me stories about her life, which I loved to listen to.

My grandma told me about the time she lived in Allensworth in the 1960s and how local authorities planned to demolish the town because of arsenic in the water in 1966. She told me Allensworth was founded at the turn of the century by a Black man for Black people.

Colonel Allen Allensworth 

The man who founded Allensworth was named Allen Allensworth. He was an American chaplain, colonel, city founder, and theologian. Born into slavery in Kentucky in 1842, he escaped during the American Civil War by joining the 44th Illinois Volunteers as a Union soldier. After being ordained as a Baptist minister by the Fifth Street Baptist Church on April 9, 1871, he worked as a teacher, led several churches, and was appointed as a chaplain in the United States Army. In 1886, he gained appointment as a military chaplain to a unit of Buffalo Soldiers in the West, becoming the first Black American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. He served in the Army for 20 years, retiring in 1906.

Allensworth 

Allensworth is a town in Tulare County established by Allen Allensworth in 1908. The town was the first in California to be founded, financed, and governed by Black Americans. Allensworth's restored buildings in the original townsite now occupy Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

On June 30, 1908, clergyman Colonel Allen Allensworth and Denison University graduate Professor William Alexander Payne established the California Colony and Home Promoting Association. Allensworth and Payne were the chief officers, with the other constituents being miner John W. Palmer, minister William H. Peck, and real estate agent Harry A. Mitchell (all of whom were Black men). The Association purchased 20 acres of land from the Pacific Farming Company to establish a town for Black soldiers. The land was situated at the then-extant Santa Fe rail line stop, "Solita." The land was divided into individual parcels, forming "a colony of orderly and industrious African Americans who could control their own destiny."

By 1914, the town had established a schoolhouse, becoming California’s first Black American school district. It also had a courthouse, a Baptist church, a hotel, and a Tulare County library.

The town experienced hardship after the Santa Fe rail system moved its railroad stop from Allensworth to Alpaugh in 1914. In September of that same year, Colonel Allensworth died in Monrovia, California, where he was struck by a motorcycle while crossing the street before he had a chance to secure water rights for the town and establish a technical college to retain the next generation. Coupled with severe drought due to water being redirected from the town, causing decreased crop yields, the town faced losses, and many moved away following World War I.

The town was later memorialized as a state park in 1974. The area around the park is inhabited, but it hosts seasonal events to preserve its history, which garners thousands of visitors from around the state. Historic buildings from 1908-1918 have been restored in the town center, and I was finally able to return to celebrate Juneteenth in Allensworth with my grandma so she could show me the town she was talking about on our long drives on the backroads.

Check out the vlog I made about the experience below.