The Pain of Altadena Burning

The Fight to Preserve Black History Amid California Wildfires

Kenneth Snowden, left, surveys the damage to his fire-ravaged property with his brother Ronnie in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire Friday, Jan. 10, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The air was thick with smoke and grief, an unholy marriage that clung to the man’s skin, and as he coughed, I knew it had filled his lungs with something heavier than ash. This Black man had to be about seventy-years-old, and as he stood at the edge of what used to be his front yard, his chest heaving, his knees buckling beneath the weight of what he was seeing. The flames danced cruelly, mocking him, devouring the house he said his father had built with hands calloused by decades of labor. His soul calloused by a decades of America’s anti-Blackness. This was the house where his mother had taught him to read at the kitchen table.

“Why God!” he screamed to the heavens as he remembered his mother. As he explained what was being consumed by fire in Altadena, California.

He cried without restraint, the kind of tears that weren’t just salt and water but a lifetime spilling out all at once. And so I followed suit and cried along with him as I watched him speak with the news anchor.

He pressed a hand against his chest, as if to keep his heart from breaking open, but the sobs came harder, choking him, stealing his breath like the fire had stolen his home. His other hand gripped the small fence post in front of his home, now blackened and brittle in his grip.

“I tried,” he repeated over and over, the words tumbling out in pieces, barely audible over the crackling inferno. He didn’t seem to know whether he was talking to the house, to himself, or to his parents who were now ancestors. He had tried to hold onto the history his parents had handed down to him, tried to make it mean something for his kids. But now it was gone, all of it, unraveling into the night sky as sparks and embers, disappearing into the same air he was struggling to breathe.

All that remained was the fire, bright and consuming, and the man, who cried an ocean of tears that were still not enough to put out the flames stealing Black history.

Firefighters are silhouetted against a home engulfed by fire while keeping the flames from jumping to an adjacent home on Glenrose Avenue in Altadena. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

I didn’t know much about Altadena until watching that interview and then stumbling upon a few videos on TikTok. Fleeting things—thirty, forty seconds long—shots of houses swallowed by flame, of dark plumes smearing the sky, of voices trembling as they described a place they loved, now unrecognizable. At first, I thought it was just another tragedy among so many. Another town lost to a world burning faster than most care to admit. But then I heard how the voices cracked in urgency as they tried to tell the story of the Black history being lost. So, I began to do some research.

What I found was a place brimming with history, with a legacy built brick by brick, song by song, prayer by prayer—a Black community that had carved out its space against the relentless tide of history. So as I watched the flames devour what had stood for generations, I understood my role was not just to mourn, but to bear witness—to carry forward the story of Altadena, ensuring that its legacy does not vanish with the smoke.

Because Altadena was more than a collection of streets and homes; it was a testament to what resilience can look like.

Altadena’s history is etched into the broader narrative of Black struggle and resilience in America, a place where hope flourished against the odds. Nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Altadena became a beacon for Black families in the early 20th century, offering a rare promise of freedom and opportunity. It was not just a place to live—it was a sanctuary, a declaration: We are here. We belong.

In the 1920s and 1930s, during the Great Migration, Black families left the South in droves, fleeing the pervasive violence of Jim Crow and seeking better lives in the North and West. Many landed in California, lured by the promise of good jobs and the hope of escaping segregation’s chokehold. Altadena became a haven for Black professionals, artists, and working-class families. Unlike neighboring Pasadena, where discriminatory housing practices like racial covenants and redlining were strictly enforced, Altadena offered pockets of opportunity for Black homeownership, even as systemic racism sought to limit it.

An African-American family leaves Florida for the North during the Great Depression. MPI/Getty Images

The 1940s and 1950s saw the community flourish. Black families built homes, churches, and businesses, creating a cultural and economic ecosystem that sustained them in a world often intent on their exclusion. These decades were marked by a growing sense of pride and progress, with Altadena emerging as a hub for Black excellence. Churches like the historic Metropolitan Baptist Church, founded in 1943, were not just places of worship but centers for activism and education, embodying the spirit of resistance that defined the era.

Altadena’s significance wasn’t just local—it was part of a broader national story. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Altadena served as a stronghold for Black organizing in Southern California. Families hosted community meetings, and churches provided safe spaces for discussions on voting rights, education, and housing equity. Black residents of Altadena weren’t just witnesses to history; they were active participants in shaping it. They carved out a life of dignity in a country that routinely sought to deny it.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Altadena continued to thrive despite mounting challenges. As redlining persisted in Los Angeles County, Black families in Altadena fought to hold onto their homes, even as gentrification began encroaching. The community became a testament to Black resilience, a living example of what could be built even when denied access to the resources held by white counterparts.

But Altadena’s story is also one of fragility. By the 1990s and 2000s, systemic forces began chipping away at the foundation of the community. Rising property taxes, gentrification, and the economic fallout of the 2008 recession pushed many long-standing Black families out, echoing a pattern seen across the country. The homes that had once been symbols of resistance were now symbols of displacement. Still, Altadena endured, its streets lined with the echoes of jazz, gospel, and the laughter of children, the vestiges of a community built against the odds.

Denise Jones (left) and Adonis Jones visited the remains of their Altadena home, destroyed by the Eaton Fire. Photo courtesy of Rochele Jones.

The loss of Altadena is not an isolated tragedy; it is a mirror held to America’s face, reflecting a truth it refuses to confront. What does it mean to lose a place like Altadena? A place where Black families created sanctuary from the jagged edges of history, where they built homes, legacies, and lives in defiance of the forces that sought to deny them the right to exist? What does it say about this nation, that spaces born of resilience are so easily consumed—by fire, by neglect, by the unyielding march of gentrification and greed? The ashes of Altadena join a long and bitter trail of loss, from Tulsa’s Greenwood District in 1921, razed by white mob violence. It is the story of Seneca Village in the 1850s, destroyed to make way for New York’s Central Park. It is the story of Detroit’s Black Bottom in the 1960s, demolished under the guise of “urban renewal.”

And yet, even as I’ve watched firefighters silhouetted against the flames, I could not help but think of what other forces they were fighting. The fire before them was not merely the result of a spark or a dry season—it was born of negligence, systemic disregard, climate destruction, gentrification, calculated indifference, and all of the issues that disproportionately imperil Black lives. Making places and spaces such as Altadena so important.

We cannot afford to surrender Altadena to the fire—not this fire nor the many others that smolder beneath it. For to lose Altadena is not simply to lose homes or histories; it is to lose a piece of ourselves, to forfeit the proof that something beautiful and enduring can rise from the worst of circumstances. This place, and others like it, are a map of what was and what could still be.

The question, then, is not just what does the fire take, but what do we do in its wake? Do we let the history of Altadena unravel into sparks and embers, as so many have before it, or do we decide, at long last, that these losses are no longer inevitable? Do we choose to fight—not only for the preservation of Black spaces but for the right of Black communities to flourish without the constant specter of erasure?

The story of Altadena cannot end here, in the choking air and the brittle silence of what was. It must become a rallying cry, a testament to what we will no longer allow to burn. If the fire has taught us anything, it is that preserving these spaces is not just an act of memory but an act of defiance, an insistence that what was ours will remain ours—and that from the ashes, something stronger will rise.

Altadena deserves more than our mourning; it deserves our commitment. I’ve donated $500.00 to a GoFundMe recovery fund for Black residents in Altadena and Pasadena. I hope you’ll consider supporting as well.

Donate: https://gofund.me/d142a24b

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