For 34-year-old Stephán McGrue and his family, the historic Altadena area has been a haven for decades. McGrue’s relatives – some from Haiti, some from Oklahoma – were drawn to Altadena because of its breathtaking scenery and comfortable living, an opportunity to be surrounded by nature at an affordable price.
“What got our Black families there was being able to feel comfortable and feeling like you are living on top of a hill,” McGrue said. “It was just a comfortable place where we were able to raise generations of families in a way that most people dream of.” McGrue and his family all lived within one mile of each other, forming a “rectangle”, he said.
But, like dozens of Black families in the area, McGrue and his relatives lost their homes last week in the deadly California wildfires. Nine of McGrue’s family members, who lost a total of four homes, spent the weekend sheltering at a local AirBnB, sorting through donated clothing and determining how best to rebuild their lives. The high cost of repair threatens Altadena’s Black community and the town’s longstanding Black history.
Altadena, a quiet, tight-knit town bordering the Echo mountains, has long been a home for Black families who migrated west in the 1960s and 70s, as redlining laws prevented them from purchasing homes elsewhere in the state. From 1960 to 1970, Black homeownership ballooned from 4% to 27%, according to the non-profit Altadena Heritage. As of 2023, 81% of Black residents in Altadena owned their homes – nearly double the national average.
But Altadena was one of the areas hardest hit by the Eaton fire, which has burned since 7 January and destroyed thousands of homes. As of Friday afternoon, more than 14,000 acres (2,833 hectares) were burned in the Altadena area and 7,000 structures were damaged. At least 16 people have died in the Eaton fire, including several people who lived in Altadena.
The sweeping destruction of Altadena means that generations of Black families no longer have their longstanding homes, a key way that residents have managed to build generational wealth. Eighteen percent of Altadena’s 42,846 residents are Black, a notable drop from 30% in 2000, though many Black families still remain in the town. “I’m just trying to get a grip and take it all in,” said 72-year-old Jacqueline Charles, a retired adult caretaker who lost her home in the blaze. “If you was up here and looking at it, you would think it was a war zone. I can’t believe it myself, all the devastation that I see around me.”
Several of the homes razed in the fires had functioned as “generational homes”, said residents, often passed down from relative to relative. At the time of the fire, Charles had been living in a home first purchased by her father, referred to as “Daddy’s house” by the family. “This is where I grew up, you know?” Charles said. “This is where I had planned to live my last days at, on that property.”
Historically, Black Americans have struggled to build generational wealth via homeownership due to discriminatory housing policies. Redlining, deed restrictions – which prohibited people of color from buying certain properties – and lending discrimination have stifled Black homeownership rates in the US, further exacerbating the racial wealth gap.
Altadena’s high percentage of Black homeownership was a rarity, allowing families to accumulate wealth through ownership. “It was what made Altadena unique, as far as the Black community,” said 45-year-old Julian Perry, who lost his late mother’s home in the blaze. “Our parents fought to own their properties and [did] the best they could to protect them [for us].” Cousins had been living in the house when the Eaton fires hit.
Black residents came to Altadena for myriad reasons, said the Altadena historian Michele Zack. Some people relocated from Pasadena, a town directly south, after being forced out by redevelopment and the construction of a new highway. “They destroyed and condemned the biggest, Black neighborhood in Pasadena [amid construction],” said Zack. “So a lot of middle-class Black people were pushed out.”
Others migrated to Altadena from all across the US. Charles’s family relocated in the 1960s from Georgia and Florida; relatives who moved included the mother of baseball player Jackie Robinson, who was Charles’s cousin. Doris and Everard Williams Sr, who are both 85, are longtime Altadena residents who came in 1970 at the suggestion of friends. They lost their home in the fire. “We had Black friends who lived in Altadena, and they had recommended this as a very lovely place to be,” said Doris. “We have found it to be that.”
Altadena’s picturesque and affable environment also drew notable Black creatives and leaders. The science-fiction author Octavia Butler, the artist Charles W White, the Black Panther party leader Eldridge Cleaver and the actor Sidney Poitier – the first Black man to win an Academy award – all resided in Altadena. Butler and Cleaver are buried in Altadena’s Mountain View Mortuary and Cemetery, which sustained minimum damage.
Escaping from the fatal fire was a traumatizing experience, said residents, many of whom have mobility issues. Neighbors were the ones who alerted their fellow homeowners that they should evacuate, several people told the Guardian, adding that they never received an alert notification from the town as the fire quickly spread. Many had to flee through plumes of thick smoke, downed trees and power lines as the fire inched closer to their homes. “When people think of embers, they only think of a campfire and a little glow,” said 31-year-old Taylor Williams, a photography producer whose family has lived in Altadena for generations. “But these were grapefruit-size particles of fire being thrown [around].”
Even amid the danger, Williams said, several neighbors and friends stayed to save their houses. The night they evacuated, Taylor and her father returned to Altadena to try to save their home using hoses they purchased from a local Home Depot. “When we got there, the whole backyard was engulfed in flames,” she said, through tears. “We tried to attach the hose and do our best to save our own home, [but] we couldn’t.”
As firefighters work to contain the Eaton fires, residents are still surveying their personal losses. The extent of damage suffered to Altadena’s historic Black sites, such as Butler’s home, are also in the process of being accounted for, said Zack. Many people doing that work have lost their homes.
For Black residents who have lost everything, so much personal history is gone. “I lost my husband’s wedding ring, his gold necklace,” said Charles. “Those are memories, pictures and everything, that I’ll never be able to replace, because my father’s family is all gone.”
The Perrys similarly lost family heirlooms: a grandfather clock and a sewing table used by her grandmother, who worked as a seamstress on Star Trek, I Love Lucy and other iconic shows. “These are things that you can’t get back. You just keep them. The next generation, they have it, and it’s tangible proof of your legacy and your history,” said Angelika Perry, Julian’s relative. “But the fire doesn’t discriminate in that way.”
Still, residents have a commitment to rebuild. Many have launched GoFundMe campaigns to raise necessary funds or are beginning the process of seeking insurance coverage. An online campaign has also started to warn residents of developers seeking to profit from the catastrophe; the NAACP has filed a lawsuit on behalf of some Black homeowners in the area.
Part of the drive to rebuild comes from a love of Altadena, of wanting to return to one’s roots. But for McGrue’s family, rebuilding means a chance to “build an even bigger, create even bigger generational wealth for our future families to come”, said Angelique McGrue, Stephán’s sister.
“[We want to] own that land. Physically, mentally, spiritually and keep it in the family,” said McGrue. “The rate of Black families in Altadena and in Pasadena have tremendously dropped, and it is important for us to continue that legacy of [bringing] Black families into the home. It would almost be foolish to live anywhere else.”
