Tom and Ethel Bradley house among Black heritage sites in L.A. designated cultural monuments
'It was the very first time that a Black family moved into Leimert Park,' said Lorraine, explaining the immediate historic significance of the home, and adding that her parents were brave people who believed integration was essential to equality. 'My parents understood the implications of that. They were willing to sacrifice themselves in many regards.'
For the first year, white children on the street wouldn't play with Lorraine or her 5-year-old sister, but that slowly changed and the family became accepted in the neighborhood. It helped that Tom was a police officer, said Lorraine.
Tom and Ethel explained to their children that, 'unless people understood and lived with you, they would only look at you racially and not as a person,' said Lorraine.
The 1,282-square-foot home — where the Bradleys lived until 1977, when Tom became the first Black mayor of Los Angeles and moved the family into the 10,000-square-foot Getty House — is among six buildings of deep importance to Black heritage in L.A. that have been designated Historic Cultural Monuments as part of a project led by the Getty in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles' Office of Historic Resources.
'We are thrilled for everyone to recognize the courage that my parents took to move to that neighborhood,' said Lorraine. 'Somebody had to, so my dad and mom decided it was them.'
The additional sites to receive landmark status are Stylesville Barbershop & Beauty Salon in Pacoima; St. Elmo Village and Jewel's Catch One in Mid-City; the California Eagle newspaper in South L.A.; and New Bethel Baptist Church in Venice.
The designations are the culmination of ongoing work done by African American Historic Places, Los Angeles, which was launched by the city and Getty in 2022 with the goal of identifying, memorializing and protecting the city's Black heritage and history.
Each site will receive its own plaque. Celebrations are set for later this month at the Bradley residence, St. Elmo Village and Jewel's Catch One. Stylesville is planning a party for a later date.
AAHPLA hosted a kickoff event at St. Elmo Village in 2023, but work to create the project began in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd when many cultural organizations, including Getty, began reevaluating the ways they were highlighting and interacting with Black history, art and heritage, said Rita Cofield, associate project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute and AAHPLA project leader.
Getty soon decided to implement an initiative focused on African American heritage in L.A. and began looking for partners in the community who could help best identify each unique location.
In some cases, unless you have roots in a particular community, you won't have the depth of understanding to realize that even though a particular building looks commonplace — or isn't built in high architectural style — that it's actually extremely important, said Cofield.
The plaques, in conjunction with the program, will help further establish the locations and their history in the popular imagination — and also serve to protect the sites from harm or demolition.
'If you see a plaque with the date and the importance of it, you'll get some sense of just what this neighborhood was — what this building was or still is,' said Cofield. 'So you connect with it on your own. You can investigate on your own at any time and it's accessible.'
Angelenos and visitors to the city can now make a day out of touring the sites. In the process, they will learn about how the California Eagle — established by John J. Neimore in 1879 — was home to one of the oldest and longest-running Black-owned and operated newspapers in the country; how St. Elmo Village is still a thriving arts community and center for community activism; how Stylesville barbershop is the oldest Black-owned barbershop in the San Fernando Valley; how Jewel's Catch One was the oldest Black-owned disco in the U.S., as well as one of the city's first gay nightclubs to open its doors to LGBTQ+ people of color; and how the establishment of New Bethel Baptist Church marked the early days of Black migration to the Oakwood neighborhood.
Moving forward, AAHPLA will continue to seek out sites that would benefit from landmark status, while also investing in Pacoima, Oakwood and the Central Avenue corridor — famous for its vibrant jazz and music scene — in order to develop better cultural preservation strategies.
'We really want to celebrate intangible heritage too,' said Cofield. 'How do we do that? Do we do it through schools, through murals? So we're really working with those neighborhoods, to think of strategies to celebrate and highlight African American heritage.'
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Brooklyn's Black church choirs persist amid attendance decline, gentrification
NEW YORK (RNS) — On Sunday mornings in Brooklyn, nicknamed the borough of churches, the muffled sounds of choir singers, hand‑claps and Hammond organs can be heard from the sidewalks. The borough still has a church on nearly every block, but over the years, the number of people in the pews has thinned. Many church choirs in the heart of Brooklyn, however, have kept singing — despite boasting fewer singers than in years past as neighborhoods face gentrification and organized religious affiliation decreases. Standing in front of the gospel choir at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Jessica Howard, 25, led the gospel standard 'God Is' on a Sunday in July. Dressed in a powder-pink floral dress, she called out lines naming God as 'joy in sorrow' and 'strength for tomorrow.' Some choir members wiped away tears as the song stoked emotions from around the room.' As a Black Christian person, as a descendant of slaves, I think when I sing, I feel really connected to my ancestors,' said Howard, who grew up in Virginia and now sings as a soloist at Concord, where she's been a congregant for six years. 'I really feel sometimes like it's not just me singing, it's my lineage singing.' ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. ___ Founded in 1847, Concord Baptist Church is Brooklyn's oldest historically Black congregation. At the time, a nearby neighborhood known as Weeksville, now considered part of central Brooklyn, was the second-largest free Black community in the United States before the Civil War, said Amanda Henderson, collections historian at the Weeksville Heritage Center. Louise Nelson, a Brooklyn native and church historian of the Berean Baptist Church in Crown Heights, said music was the foundation of the early church, and that remains true for churches in the borough today. "The songs that uplifted us and kept us going through the midst of our misery — music is who we are,' Nelson said. 'I don't think you can have a church today without the music because it brings unity in that idea that we can all do it together.' According to Pew Research Center data, between 2019 and 2023, Black Protestant monthly church attendance fell from 61% to 46% — the largest decline among major U.S. religious groups. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend, and its impact is visible in the thinning choir stands. Glenn McMillan, Concord's director of music ministry and a musicology teacher at the City University of New York, who has worked in New York City church choirs since 1994, recalls a time when historically Black churches in Brooklyn regularly had multiple choirs at each parish. 'In the last 20 years, the members of church choirs started getting older because this generation does not see church as important as it was back in the day,' McMillan said. The choir at Concord has shrunk from about 50 voices before the pandemic to 30 today, McMillan said. Back in 2006, the choir featured 100 voices. According to research published by in June, Black Protestants attended church on Zoom more than other denominations during the pandemic, and they have been the slowest to return to in‑person worship. 'The internet has taken over and streaming has taken over,' McMillan said. 'People don't goin to the building as much as they are streaming it.' McMillan said that when in-person services first resumed, it took a long time for the choir to rebuild because many members were still staying home for health reasons. Recently, though, he's seen more people showing up. 'I'm begging people my age to come to Concord,' said Howard, the youngest member of the gospel choir, adding that only a handful of people around her age attend the church. Gwen Davis, a senior member of Berean Baptist Church and a choir soloist for more than 40 years, recalled Easter services in the mid‑1960s, when over 400 people filled the pews and four separate choirs led the congregation in song. 'It was a lot of energy,' Davis said. 'Your ear got trained really well.' Today, Davis said, a typical service attracts approximately 150 people, and roughly 100 virtually. Over time, Berean's choirs have consolidated into a single mass choir with approximately 20 singers. A professional soloist who has been singing at different churches across Brooklyn throughout her adult life, Davis said she believes one reason for choirs thinning out is the decline of music education in New York City Public Schools. 'When I was in high school, I had music every day,' said Davis, who attended high school in the 1970s in central Brooklyn. 'I don't think the children are learning notes and sharps and clefs. I mean, that was like general knowledge for us at the time.' During the 1970s fiscal crisis, the city of New York eliminated thousands of teaching positions, including art and music teachers, and converted music rooms into other classrooms, narrowing arts access in schools in low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods. 'For me, singing is not just singing, it's ministry,' Davis said. 'Some of these old hymns were composed years and years ago, and those old hymns have sustained a people — many people.' Gentrification is another force reshaping Brooklyn. Between 2010 and 2020, Crown Heights lost nearly 19,000 Black residents while gaining about 15,000 whites, according to 2020 Census data. More than 75% of Bedford-Stuyvesant residents in 2000 were Black, while in 2020, around 41% were Black. Those demographic shifts have hit historically Black Catholic parishes hard. St. Teresa of Avilain Crown Heights, which was the first church in the nation to hold Mass in Creole, will close by the end of the year. The anticipated closure demonstrates a wider pattern of Catholic churches that serve people of color closing, often attributed to declining attendance. For Mike Delouis, 38, St. Teresa's longtime cantor and a son of Haitian immigrants who was baptized at the church, the loss is personal. 'Singing for me is not about performance but about participation,' said Delouis, who juggles three services most Sundays between St. Teresa and the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights. 'St. Augustine said singing is praying twice.' Delouis is part of a group fighting to keep the parish open, hoping to preserve a piece of their history in a rapidly changing Brooklyn. 'Even through the process of gentrification, there are people that hear the music and they come in,' he said. In June, from his place in the choir loft, Delouis heard the priest announce the church's closure. The words hit hard. 'It was actually kind of hard to finish,' he said. 'We only had the closing hymn to do, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, no — we can't let this happen.'' Jesteena Walters, 55, has been part of Bedford Central Presbyterian Church in Crown Heights since she was an infant. She began singing at age 6 in the junior choir, and when she turned 18, she transitioned to its Gratitude choir, which her older siblings also joined. 'It was the young hip gospel choir of the church,' Walters said. Today, Gratitude no longer exists in the same way. Its members are older and often reunite only for special occasions, such as singing at funerals. 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'A choir is a community within the church community, and whenever you have a really consistent and strong choir, they grow with one another.' Howard said she hopes to become a choir director one day, and she credits McMillan and the gospel choir for encouraging her toward the role. 'I'd like to follow in that tradition,' she said.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
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Brooklyn's Black church choirs persist amid attendance decline, gentrification
NEW YORK (RNS) — On Sunday mornings in Brooklyn, nicknamed the borough of churches, the muffled sounds of choir singers, hand‑claps and Hammond organs can be heard from the sidewalks. The borough still has a church on nearly every block, but over the years, the number of people in the pews has thinned. Many church choirs in the heart of Brooklyn, however, have kept singing — despite boasting fewer singers than in years past as neighborhoods face gentrification and organized religious affiliation decreases. Standing in front of the gospel choir at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Jessica Howard, 25, led the gospel standard 'God Is' on a Sunday in July. Dressed in a powder-pink floral dress, she called out lines naming God as 'joy in sorrow' and 'strength for tomorrow.' Some choir members wiped away tears as the song stoked emotions from around the room.' As a Black Christian person, as a descendant of slaves, I think when I sing, I feel really connected to my ancestors,' said Howard, who grew up in Virginia and now sings as a soloist at Concord, where she's been a congregant for six years. 'I really feel sometimes like it's not just me singing, it's my lineage singing.' ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. ___ Founded in 1847, Concord Baptist Church is Brooklyn's oldest historically Black congregation. At the time, a nearby neighborhood known as Weeksville, now considered part of central Brooklyn, was the second-largest free Black community in the United States before the Civil War, said Amanda Henderson, collections historian at the Weeksville Heritage Center. Louise Nelson, a Brooklyn native and church historian of the Berean Baptist Church in Crown Heights, said music was the foundation of the early church, and that remains true for churches in the borough today. "The songs that uplifted us and kept us going through the midst of our misery — music is who we are,' Nelson said. 'I don't think you can have a church today without the music because it brings unity in that idea that we can all do it together.' According to Pew Research Center data, between 2019 and 2023, Black Protestant monthly church attendance fell from 61% to 46% — the largest decline among major U.S. religious groups. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend, and its impact is visible in the thinning choir stands. Glenn McMillan, Concord's director of music ministry and a musicology teacher at the City University of New York, who has worked in New York City church choirs since 1994, recalls a time when historically Black churches in Brooklyn regularly had multiple choirs at each parish. 'In the last 20 years, the members of church choirs started getting older because this generation does not see church as important as it was back in the day,' McMillan said. The choir at Concord has shrunk from about 50 voices before the pandemic to 30 today, McMillan said. Back in 2006, the choir featured 100 voices. According to research published by in June, Black Protestants attended church on Zoom more than other denominations during the pandemic, and they have been the slowest to return to in‑person worship. 'The internet has taken over and streaming has taken over,' McMillan said. 'People don't goin to the building as much as they are streaming it.' McMillan said that when in-person services first resumed, it took a long time for the choir to rebuild because many members were still staying home for health reasons. Recently, though, he's seen more people showing up. 'I'm begging people my age to come to Concord,' said Howard, the youngest member of the gospel choir, adding that only a handful of people around her age attend the church. Gwen Davis, a senior member of Berean Baptist Church and a choir soloist for more than 40 years, recalled Easter services in the mid‑1960s, when over 400 people filled the pews and four separate choirs led the congregation in song. 'It was a lot of energy,' Davis said. 'Your ear got trained really well.' Today, Davis said, a typical service attracts approximately 150 people, and roughly 100 virtually. Over time, Berean's choirs have consolidated into a single mass choir with approximately 20 singers. A professional soloist who has been singing at different churches across Brooklyn throughout her adult life, Davis said she believes one reason for choirs thinning out is the decline of music education in New York City Public Schools. 'When I was in high school, I had music every day,' said Davis, who attended high school in the 1970s in central Brooklyn. 'I don't think the children are learning notes and sharps and clefs. I mean, that was like general knowledge for us at the time.' During the 1970s fiscal crisis, the city of New York eliminated thousands of teaching positions, including art and music teachers, and converted music rooms into other classrooms, narrowing arts access in schools in low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods. 'For me, singing is not just singing, it's ministry,' Davis said. 'Some of these old hymns were composed years and years ago, and those old hymns have sustained a people — many people.' Gentrification is another force reshaping Brooklyn. Between 2010 and 2020, Crown Heights lost nearly 19,000 Black residents while gaining about 15,000 whites, according to 2020 Census data. More than 75% of Bedford-Stuyvesant residents in 2000 were Black, while in 2020, around 41% were Black. Those demographic shifts have hit historically Black Catholic parishes hard. St. Teresa of Avilain Crown Heights, which was the first church in the nation to hold Mass in Creole, will close by the end of the year. The anticipated closure demonstrates a wider pattern of Catholic churches that serve people of color closing, often attributed to declining attendance. For Mike Delouis, 38, St. Teresa's longtime cantor and a son of Haitian immigrants who was baptized at the church, the loss is personal. 'Singing for me is not about performance but about participation,' said Delouis, who juggles three services most Sundays between St. Teresa and the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights. 'St. Augustine said singing is praying twice.' Delouis is part of a group fighting to keep the parish open, hoping to preserve a piece of their history in a rapidly changing Brooklyn. 'Even through the process of gentrification, there are people that hear the music and they come in,' he said. In June, from his place in the choir loft, Delouis heard the priest announce the church's closure. The words hit hard. 'It was actually kind of hard to finish,' he said. 'We only had the closing hymn to do, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, no — we can't let this happen.'' Jesteena Walters, 55, has been part of Bedford Central Presbyterian Church in Crown Heights since she was an infant. She began singing at age 6 in the junior choir, and when she turned 18, she transitioned to its Gratitude choir, which her older siblings also joined. 'It was the young hip gospel choir of the church,' Walters said. Today, Gratitude no longer exists in the same way. Its members are older and often reunite only for special occasions, such as singing at funerals. Over the decades, Walters has also watched the congregation itself shift demographics. "When I first went to Bedford Central, it was primarily a white church, and so we were in the minority at the time,' Walters said, referring to the early 1970s. 'In the years that would come, itwas primarily a Black church.' It later became home to a large West Indian population, and today includes many members of Guyanese heritage. 'To be honest, I couldn't break down the history of Brooklyn in a way that says who came first,' Walters said. 'At the end of the day, I believe in people coming together, if we can truly connect, feel each other's pain and celebrate each other's joys.' McMillan emphasized that choirs continue to play a central role in Black church life, even as congregations decline in membership. 'Choir singers are some of the most faithful churchgoers,' McMillan said. 'A choir is a community within the church community, and whenever you have a really consistent and strong choir, they grow with one another.' 'I'd like to follow in that tradition,' she said.
