Turn to Tomorrow: Tom Bradley’s 50th Anniversary of his Inauguration as Mayor of Los Angeles, Photographs by Harry Adams and Guy Crowder. © Adams Family and Tom and Ethel Bradley Center. On July 1, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Tom Bradley’s inauguration as Mayor of Los Angeles. In 1973, Bradley became the first African American mayor of a large city—LA was the third largest city in the nation, after New York and Chicago. Bradley was sworn in as Mayor by Earl Warren, retired U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and former governor of California. You can see more images of Tom Bradley in our Digital Collections. 

Acclaimed Chicano playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez came to CSUN last March 15 to discuss, with Theatre professor Jorge Huerta, Valdez’s career and his new book, Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being. The event was moderated by Carmen Ramos Chandler. Students, professors, members of the community, and friends and family of the Bradley Center had an opportunity to talk to Luis Valdez, whose energy was felt among the 400 people who attended the event. Thanks for coming and you can watch a video with highlights from the event here. You can watch more videos of the Farmworker Movement Collection, documenting the experiences of participants of the Farmworker Movement, by going to our YouTube channel's Farmworker Movement Collection playlist. 

 

In addition are the collections of Edward Alfano; David Blumenkrantz, documenting various regions of Africa; Herb Carleton, covering the San Fernando Valley; Emmon Clarke, containing extensive documentation of the United Farmworkers organization and César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Gibert Padilla, Luis Valdez and other leaders of the union and its members; and Richard Cross, that documents the wars in El Salvador and Honduras, the Afro-Columbian community Palenque de San Basilio (near Cartagena), Cuba, the Masai and the Maya refugee camps in Mexico.

The Bradley Center has a Border Studies Collection that examines the issues surrounding the border between the United States and Mexico. Through photographic collections, oral histories, manuscripts, videos, newspaper archives and guest lectures issues such as immigration, human rights, globalization, and economic violence are examined.

New Additions

The Bradley Center and University Library have added over 5,000 images to the Charles Williams collection online!

Photographer Charles "Chuck" Williams worked for the Los Angeles Sentinel, California Eagle and other publications. His career spans from the mid-1940s to 1980s. Williams covered people and event in the African American community, Civil Rights Movement, and night clubs including The Plantation, The Down Beat, The Cobra Room and many others. He established and taught at The California School of Photography and employed young professions of all backgrounds. Councilman Gordon Hahn appointed Williams as his field deputy and he became the official photographer of Hahn. Due to his involvement with Hahn and Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, his documentation of the City Council, council members, and activities is especially rich. Later, Williams opened the first black advertising agency on the West Coast and added the "Charm Centre," a fashion and model school.

The Bradley Center is completing a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, digitizing over 17,000 images from photographers Charles Williams, Harry Adams, and Guy Crowder. The images document the African American community in post-World War II Los Angeles and will be made available online through the CSUN University Library’s Digital Collections.

Los Angeles: Displacement in Utopia

This mini documentary examines the history of how racial restrictive covenants developed, who fought against them, and how they were legally struck down in Los Angeles California and eventually the nation. 

Featured Oral History Clip:

Clip from interview with Civil Rights activist and former executive secretary for the Western Christian Leadership Conference Gwen Green. Mrs. Green worked with Dr. King, Hosea Williams, Harry Belafonte, Andrew Young and Sammy Davis Jr. In this segment she discusses the power of nonviolent protest and the fear that accompanies it.

As part of our NEH grant to digitize the collection, the Bradley Center is conducting interviews with community members about growing up and living in Los Angeles during the Civil Rights Movement. We will be posting clips from these interviews as they are available.