Join the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles and our Scholar in Residence, Alison Rose Jefferson, M.H.C. | Ph.D. for a symposium with invited guest speakers to discuss and respond to the context of American history and culture in relation to Belmar History + Art, a public history and art project in Santa Monica, California
The Belmar History + Art, project is a Santa Monica, California civic commemorative justice initiative, featuring emotionally resonating multifaceted education, inspirational and remembrance programming. This project reconstructs, reclaims and reinserts a more complex American story about the erased historical Black life in the South Santa Monica Beach neighborhoods which contributed to making the bay city’s development and cultural life from the 1900s to the mid-twentieth century.
Underpinning the content of Belmar History + Art programming are the stories of people, places and events that are an outgrowth of Dr. Jefferson’s research from her recent book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era and new research done for the project.
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A third generation Californian, Alison Rose Jefferson, M.H.C, Ph.D. is a historian and heritage conservation consultant. She reconstructs the stories of the African American experience which have been left out or marginalized in the telling of American history as a tool in the struggle for social justice.
She is currently working on Applied History projects dealing with the African American experience during the Jim Crow era. Working with Santa Monica’s Belmar History + Art project and the Central Avenue heritage trail with Angels Walk L.A, Jefferson is drawing on her research to guide and enrich these public programs at these Southern California locales that feature historical significance as well as contemporary consequence. Both projects are arriving for the public to experience in early 2021. In 2021, Dr. Jefferson adds to her activities, Scholar in Residence with the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles at Occidental College. In virtual campus and public programs she will share her work to re-center the African American experience in local history and heritage conservation efforts.
Also in 2021, she joins the new Advisory Council for The Trust for Public Land’s Black History and Culture Program. Her recent book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era (University of Nebraska Press) was honored with the 2020 Miriam Matthews Ethnic History Award by the Los Angeles City Historical Society for its exceptional contributions to the greater understanding and awareness of Los Angeles history. Here work has been noted in KCET-LA programming, LAIST.com, Los Angeles Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, CBS LA, KTLA and ABC LA news TV programs, among other media outlets. Learn more about Jefferson’s work at: www.alisonrosejefferson.com.
