"Alison Rose Jefferson documents a world I knew little about before reading her new important book. . . . Her book is a credit and an homage to the Black folk who toughed it out, bearing the indignity of police surveillance, arson, and financial and psychological violence so that their descendants could prosper."—Eisa Nefertari Ulen, Los Angeles Review of Books
"This work persuasively highlights the importance of public history and memory to combat the erasure of Black and local history. With the research from this book also being used to support campaigns to recognize African American leisure sites, like Bruce’s Beach, via plaques, site renaming, and through public education, Jefferson simultaneously demonstrates the more practical application of public history."—Jeanelle K. Hope, Western Historical Quarterly
"Jefferson’s book is a recommended read not only for public historians, but for the general public interested in understanding how easily local history can be lost, and how crucial the work to reclaim these overlooked narratives is in better understanding the past, present, and future of our nation."—Melissa A. Esmacher, Public Historian
"Going forward, this book should continue to shape and inform how communities, in Southern California and beyond, remember and learn from their pasts."—Andrew W. Kahrl, Southern California Quarterly
"In Living the California Dream, Jefferson recognizes and responds to the urgency to collect and preserve the diverse geography of race embedded in Californian leisure sites during the Jim Crow Era."—Azariah M. Reese, Journal of Geography
"Jefferson's work is simultaneously a powerful indictment of white racist practices, an inspiring revelation of Black entrepreneurial courage, and a much-needed call for a more robust public history of African American self-determination."—Reynolds J Scott-Childress, Journal of American History
“Jefferson brings the multi-decade campaign for black access to leisure areas into the long civil rights movement and reminds us that recreation and racial justice propelled black Southern California’s desire to enjoy the beaches, lakes, and valleys of the region.”—Quintard Taylor, Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History (emeritus) at the University of Washington, Seattle, and founder of BlackPast.com
“This is an important book. It brings to life those Southern California places fundamental to the construction of an African American California Dream. And it does so by thoughtfully considering the lives of those people whose tough struggles for a piece of the California sun were marked by inspirational courage.”—William Deverell, director of the Huntington–USC Institute on California and the West
“In this meticulously researched work of historical reimagining, Jefferson offers a southern California leisure world of African American place-makers and community builders during the Jim Crow era. Seaside recreation, black-owned businesses, and a refusal to give up. What’s here is new and important.”—Krista Comer, professor of English at Rice University and author of Surfer Girls in the New World Order
“From Bruce Beach in Manhattan Beach to Eureka Villa in the San Clarita Valley, Jefferson’s book unearths a fascinating and forgotten—if not willfully obscured—history of African American leisure sites in the Golden State. This remarkable study broadens our understanding of black life, leisure, and struggles for integration in early twentieth century California, underlines the complex relationship between the promise of the American West and the realities of Jim Crow, and emphasizes the need to protect more diverse African American sites that have been heretofore underappreciated.”—Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, National Trust for Historic Preservation
