Madera fue fundada y poblada por primera vez por blancos. El primer residente afroamericano registrado de Madera fue Dexter Hunt, un portero de 31 años que trabajaba para el Capitán Russel Perry Mace en su hotel. Llegó aquí en 1880.
Durante los siguientes 20 años, Madera continuó creciendo, de 217 residentes en 1880 a 2.500 en 1900. En comparación, la población afroamericana de Madera creció de ese único individuo en 1880 a 42 en 1900. Durante las siguientes dos décadas del siglo XX, la afluencia de residentes negros a Madera se mantuvo como un goteo, hasta la Gran Migración hacia el Oeste de los años 40, 50 y 60. Fue entonces cuando la dirección de la migración negra cambió del Norte al Oeste, y fue entonces cuando se formó la base de la comunidad afroamericana de Madera.
La investigación sobre la comunidad afroamericana de Madera revela tres patrones distintos en la vida de los residentes negros de la ciudad. Los años de 1900 a 1940 pueden describirse como la etapa de “Jim Crow”. Aunque Madera logró evitar los linchamientos que asolaron el sur, aquí sí existió una mentalidad de Jim Crow.
Living in that portion of the southeast quadrant of town, which was referred to as “Colored Town,” Blacks tended to stay “in their place,” filled the need for manual labor, and entertained the white majority by conforming to the caricature of the compliant, happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care “Steppen-fetchit,” which was forced on them through the newspapers, and from the Opera House.
By 1940, however, change was in the air. Black soldiers were returning from WWII only to discover they were still second-class citizens. That was just as true in Madera as anywhere.
The Madera City Pool was closed to Black patrons. Black students were discouraged from using the Madera High School swimming pool. The Madera High School baseball team was refused service in a restaurant because one of its players was an African-American.
The all Black drill team had to march behind the band in parades. Several restaurants in town posted signs indicating that Black patronage was not welcome.
At the same time that the South was engaged in the fight to maintain its Jim Crow culture, Madera was gearing up to resist racial discrimination. Led by the ACLU, a group from Berkeley held a protest against Madera’s attempt to segregate its city pool. Cries of injustice were raised when racial discrimination raised its ugly head at the County Hospital. Then in 1959, the Rev. Naaman N. Haynes moved to Madera to pastor the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He involved himself in the community like few before him had. He threw himself into the struggle for civil rights, an effort that even took him to the streets of Birmingham to march beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When he left Madera in the late seventies, the second phase in the formation of the African-American community in Madera was plain to see. Madera had passed from the Jim Crow era to the Civil Rights stage. Now the Black community was prepared to enter its third stage to sing with a host of Black leaders, “We Have Overcome.”
This brief overview of Madera’s African-American community in its formative stages has become the heartbeat of a Madera Method project, which seeks to tell the story of Madera’s Black populace. Two eighth grade classes, one at Eastin-Arcola School and the other at La Vina School, have researched its history and are publishing their findings in two parts.
The first has been entitled, “Madera’s Journey from Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Journalistic Record.” The second will be named, “Madera’s Journey from Jim Crow to Civil Rights: Personal stories of Courage.”
Led by their teachers, Scott Gandy (Eastin-Arcola) and Samuel Colunga (La Vina), the students have analyzed articles out of the archives of the Madera Mercury and the Madera Tribune as well as personal narratives provided by some of those who were part of Madera’s evolution from Jim Crow to civil rights.
In “The Journalistic Record,” the reader will find newspapers articles from 1903 to 1966. Each article was chosen because it reflects some aspect of the Jim Crow mentality that once existed in Madera. The articles are arranged chronologically, and preceding each one is an introduction.
As one follows this journalistic trail left by local newspaper reporters from years past, Madera’s journey from Jim Crow to civil rights unfolds. The record shows that from 1900 to the late 1930s, Madera made no attempt to hide its Jim Crow mentality. The articles reflect an attitude of condescension and at times outright hostility toward African-Americans.
By the 1940s, however, the tone of the articles begins to change. By that time, Blacks had begun to stand up against racial discrimination, and that shift dominates the news as it relates to African-Americans.
Then by the late ‘50s, the push for civil rights becomes stronger until in the late 1960s, it becomes obvious that Madera’s Black community has “overcome.”
The teachers and students state this book is only the beginning of an attempt to fill some of the blank pages in the history of Madera’s African-Americans. Its sequel, Personal stories of Courage,” will no doubt enhance the project by allowing leaders of the Black community to speak for themselves.