SOME CALL IT THE “MINORITY TAX.” These are the unreasonable expectations placed upon people of color to do the extra work wherever they may be. I have witnessed this firsthand in academia. The women, especially, are often expected to perform service way outside the requirements and responsibilities of their positions. A Forbes article from two years back addresses how these expectations can ultimately end up being deadly.
In my research on African-American women of Los Angeles’ Great Migration, I see Black women doing the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping their history alive. So much of the work we cultural historians do relies on the efforts made by relatives and private organizations to preserve stories of people and their times. Quite often these history keepers are history makers as well. Thus is the case with Dale Lya Pierson. So here I want to share a bit of her story, as well as the myriad stories she has kept in the daylight.
Dale Lya Pierson grew up in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles in the 1940s and ‘50s. Like many of the other stories I’ve already shared, Central Avenue and music were central to her life. Early on Pierson saw that she, her family, and neighbors were living history and would go on to perform tasks large and small in order to preserve and publicize that history for others. One of the tasks that she undertook was the founding of Build Crenshaw Arts, at one time a local arts-advocacy organization meant to preserve the history of LA’s jazz scene. This scene happened to include her father and grandfather, both musicians.
In 2004 Pierson told a reporter for LA Weekly that she also wanted to erect a memorial at Crenshaw and Washington Boulevards, the site of the old Parisian Room. “It’s like an Indian burial ground of jazz,” she said. “I’m trying to construct concrete memory… But I’m also documenting Black culture. Recognizing the contributions of these artists is my way of fighting the racism of their time.”
The Parisian Room was located at La Brea and Washington and stayed open all the way through the 1980s. There is apparently a post office there now, at 4960 W. Washington Blvd, named after Ray Charles. At the beginning of this year the Community Coalition of South LA posted on Instagram: “The Historic South Los Angeles Black Cultural District is officially getting a monument recognizing the legacy, culture, and movement that’s been built right here in our community for generations. Now the question is: where should it go? Should it stand on Central Avenue, where jazz legends made history? In Leimert Park, the heart of Black arts and culture? Near Exposition Park? Or somewhere along Crenshaw that holds its own deep roots?” It looks like Pierson will eventually get her wish and that others see this documenting as important, too.
Pierson’s name shows up regularly as a photo credit for archival images of LA’s Black history. She worked hard to collect and donate materials, much in the same way that Mollie Wilson Murphy did with those letters she received from her Japanese friends in internment camps. Both of these women knew the importance of saving and disseminating these complicated and oft-marginalized histories.
Pierson also contributed an entry to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas about John Marshall Robinson, a physician, civic leader, and co-founder and president of the Arkansas Negro Democratic Association (ANDA). It seems he was the first husband of her famous grandmother – who I will be telling you about shortly. The couple was later divorced but Pierson thought him important enough that his story be recorded. And then, with the intentionality of a trained archivist, Ms. Pierson took to collecting and researching her famous grandmother’s papers.
Fay M. Jackson was born in 1902 in Dallas and came to Los Angeles with her family when she was sixteen. This makes her one of many during the Great Migration who came to LA from the state of Texas. Jackson grew up to be a pioneering African-American women, a journalist who founded the first Black west coast news magazine, Flash, in the 1920s; and then became the first Black Hollywood correspondent for the Associated Negro Press. (There were apparently other Black news magazines called Flash at the time, produced in east coast cities like New York and Baltimore). Jackson later founded the California News in the 1940s.
One of her journalistic assignments was to cover the coronation of King George the VI, in 1937. While at the London ceremony Jackson said she wanted to provide a “Black slant,” so she interviewed attendees such as Haile Selassie, Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker. In her reporting, she even called out the notorious diamond mining trade of South Africa.
Ms. Jackson was achieving so much even as she lived in a city and a time where segregated pools and racial housing covenants were the norm. Jackson’s granddaughter believed it was important that people knew about her grandmother, such that it became her “mission,” as she told the LA Times in 1988. Notably, at the time of her interview, Ms. Jackson was the events coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Los Angeles. No grass grew under her feet!
A bit more on the journal, Flash, which contained serious and even controversial journalism: For instance, Jackson wrote about the stereotypes that Black Hollywood actors were forced to contend with. And we know this to be the case from last week’s profile of actress Evelyn Preer. Jackson also addressed what she called the “color fad,” wherein famous white people were flocking to LA’s Black entertainment venues as a sort of adventure. This trend was happening on both coasts, with performers at times feeling more like exhibits than artists.
Clearly not intending to keep these stories to herself, after organizing her grandmother’s papers — years of writings and observations, especially on Black film – Ms. Pierson handed everything over to the curatorial staff at the William Grant Still Community Arts Center. (The Center was named after the late Dr. William Grant Still (1895-1978), a highly acclaimed African-American composer who lived in the West Adams neighborhood). Pierson’s hopes were that the collection ultimately is housed at a university or museum, for “public education.”
Pierson also did a perhaps smaller task, by hanging a sign on her grandmother’s house, located at 1325 S. Van Ness Avenue. It simply read, “FAY M. JACKSON.”
Pierson wanted people to know that this is where the fabulous Ms. Jackson once lived. And maybe, had they had not heard of her before, they would wonder who that was and then find out her accomplishments. This happened to be the house that Ms. Pierson grew up in, along with her grandmother and grandmother’s sister, a beautician named Annie who apparently passed for white. Pierson continued to live in the house after the matriarchs had passed on.
Ms. Pierson should be eighty-eight years old at this point. I am unable to find any current information on her or her work. This seems, unfortunately, par for the course, apropos of what I referenced at the beginning of this piece. It seems Ms. Pierson spent most of her in the foregrounding of stories of other African Americans while her story (and even image) remains more in the shadows. We are so fortunate to have the interviews and materials that she has shared; they provide us insight into so many things, including the life and times of her incredibly brave and committed grandmother, Fay M. Jackson.