Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to African Americans and recreation, travel, and leisure activities.
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
Black Recreation: A Historical Perspective by Jearold Winston Holland
Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship Before the Civil War by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
Overground Railroad: the Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
Light in the Darkness: African Americans and the YMCA, 1852-1946 by Nina Mjagkij
Meet Me at the Theresa: the Story of Harlem's Most Famous Hotel by Sondra K. Wilson
Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites During the Jim Crow Era by Alison R. Jefferson
West of Jim Crow: the Fight Against California's Color Line by Lynn M. Hudson
A Special Place for Special People: the Defremery Story by Dorothy W. Pitts
Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle Over Segregated Recreation in America by Victoria W. Wolcott
To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History edited by Dianne D. Glave and Mark Stoll
The Color of Culture: African American Underrepresentation in the Fine Arts and Outdoor Recreation by Daniel H. Krymkowski
Black Woman in Green: Gloria Brown and the Unmarked Trail to Forest Service Leadership by Gloria D. Brown
Historically African American Leisure Destinations Around Washington, D.C. by Patsy Mose Fletcher
An American Beach for African Americans by Marsha Dean Phelts
Pathfinders Travel: the Travel Magazine for People of Color [Magazine]
Selected Archival Collections
Joshua Rose Papers. The Joshua Rose Papers document Joshua Rose's (1906-1987) life and contributions to the Oakland community as an executive for the Oakland YMCA and as a member of the Oakland Recreation Commission and the first African American to serve on the Oakland City Council.
In 1939, Rose and his family moved to Oakland, where he worked to raise funds for the establishment of a branch of the Oakland YMCA to serve the African American community. The Northwest Branch, as it was eventually called, opened at a temporary location at 36th and San Pablo and then moved to 3265 Market St. in the early 1940s. Rose inaugurated many new programs, including summer day camps which combined the traditional elements of arts and crafts and sports with outdoor excursions and a camping trip to Yosemite. Through the YMCA's programs, Rose worked to provide many Oakland youth with constructive activities and summertime employment. He retired in 1967 as Associate General Secretary of the Metropolitan Branch.
In 1947, Rose was selected over Claude O. Allen to become the first African American member of the Board of Playground Directors. Later re-named the Oakland Recreation Commission, the board studied the recreation needs of the city and provided recommendations for new developments and improvements to existing facilities. During his tenure as a member between 1947 and 1964, the commission convinced the City of Oakland to establish eight new recreation centers and to improve athletic facilities at ten existing sites. Rose served as chairman of the commission from 1961-62.
Shades of North Oakland Photograph Collection. Shades of North Oakland was a neighborhood photograph collecting project conducted by the African American Museum & Library at Oakland and the Oakland Public Library in July 1999. The project was an outgrowth of a statewide photograph project, Shades of California, that sought to document the daily lives of diverse communities in California including a variety of recreation and leisure pursuits.
Leisure Arts Club Scrapbook. The Leisure Arts Club was founded on January 31, 1941 at the home of Althea Clark. Its purpose, as outlined in its constitution, was to "develop self culture, to study the arts, to do charitable work, and to cooperate with groups interested in racial betterment."
Ambrosia Wysinger Jones Papers. Ambrosia Wysinger Jones (1905-1999), granddaughter of the noted civil rights activist, Edmond Wysinger, operated the first Black travel agency in Oakland, Charm Travel Agency. The agency catered to African Americans looking to vacation in Africa and the Caribbean. A majority of the papers are family photographs of the Jones and Wysinger families and Jones’ beauty school and travel agency businesses.
Harrison Family Home Movie Collection. The Harrison Family Home Movie Collection includes five 8mm color home movies recorded by the Harrison family of Richmond, California documenting the family’s barbeque business, Harrison’s Bar-B-Que, and daily life for African Americans in Richmond, California during the 1960s. The home movies total 107 minutes and include footage of a road trip the family made through Denver, Colorado on their way to visit family in rural Texas.
Frank and Diane Davison Home Movie Collection. The Frank and Diane Davison Home Movie Collection consists of 23 color and b&w, 8mm home movies documenting the family life of the Davison family during the 1960s. The home movies include 63 minutes of footage of the family camping, skiing, at the beach, dancing “The Twist”, and celebrating Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and birthdays of friends and family members. The majority of the footage appears to take place in Alaska and Pacific Northwest with footage of family trips to Atlantic City, New Jersey, Oakland, California, and Panama.
Eunomic Club Collection. The Eunomic 13 Club, an African American men’s social organization, was created on September 15, 1933. Over the course of its 61 years the Eunomic Club hosted a variety of outings, including picnics, barbecues, trips to national parks, and many different parties and galas. Most of these outings were in the Bay Area. The club would continue to host these events up until 1994, when the organization was dissolved.
Lasartemay Family Papers. Eugene Pasqual Lasartemay (1903-1993) was active in a number of civic, religious, and historical organizations in Berkeley and Oakland. He was a co-founder of many Black organizations in the East Bay including the East Bay Negro Historical Society, Berkeley Branch of the East Bay Lodge #44, Men of Tomorrow, Inc., Colonel Allensworth State Historical Park, and Berkeley Branch of the NAACP. He was also an active member of the Acorn Camera Club and the Boy Scouts, serving as a Neighborhood Commissioner and Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop #43 and was awarded the scout’s highest honor - the Silver Beaver Award.
Annette Starr Bruce Hudson Papers. Annette Starr Bruce Hudson (1920-2002) taught charm and etiquette classes at DeFremery Recreation Center in West Oakland beginning in 1950. In 1954, she opened a charm and modeling studio, Annette's Studio of Transformation, in Berkeley, California, which trained hundreds of graduates each year in personality development, voice and diction, wardrobe, modeling, makeup, hairstyling, figure control, visual poise, and social grace.
Ruth Beckford Papers. Dancer, teacher, and author Ruth Beckford (1925-2019) directed the first recreational modern dance program in the country teaching dance classes for the Oakland Recreation Department at DeFremery Recreation Center. She would lead the dance program for twenty years while also performing with Anna Halprin and Welland Lathrop dance companies. Beckford toured with her dance company, taught classes at her dance studio, and directed the Oakland Recreation Department’s Modern Dance Program until she retired from performing dance and disbanded her dance company in 1961 and retired from the City of Oakland in 1967. She continued teaching at her two dance studios until closing both in 1975.
Also included in the Beckford papers are oral history interviews with William H. Golden, Scout Master, and M. Robinson Baker, Oakland Y.M.C.A. director. Topics discussed by Golden include Boy Scouts camps at Joaquin Miller Park, Diamond Oak Camp, and Los Mochos, the Boy Scout troop at North Oakland Baptist Church, integrated Boy Scout troops, and many other subjects. [Listen online] Topics discussed by Baker include his joining Y.M.C.A. staff in 1937, Y.M.C.A programs during the Great Depression, the hiring of Joshua Rose, Lionel Wilson's participation with Y.M.C.A., and many other subjects. [Listen online]
Royal E. Towns Papers. Royal E. Towns (1899-1990) worked as a City of Oakland firefighter, photographer, director of public relations for the Free and Accepted Masons of California, and as an amateur historian. Towns also served as scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop at Taylor Memorial Church that included Sam Golden, first African American fire chief in Oakland. View online
Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park Advisory Committee Audio Recordings Collection. Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park was California’s first state historical park designated to African American pioneers. The Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park Advisory Committee audio recordings collection consists of 22 audiocassette of regional meetings, public hearings, and oral history interviews with the townspeople of Allensworth. Listen online
Richard D. Larsen Photograph Collection. The Richard D. Larsen photograph collection consists of 55 photographs of an Arbor Day tree planting ceremony in Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland, California on March 7, 1978. Many of photographs show California Governor Jerry Brown speaking to a crowd at the event, the California National Guard Historic Music Fifes and Drums of Old Calaveras performing in historical costume, and members of the Oakland National Guard assisting in the planting of tree saplings.
Oakland Black Cowboy Association Records. The Oakland Black Cowboy Association was established in 1976 as part of the preparation for the Oakland Black Cowboy Parade. The mission of the association is to “educate all the citizens of Oakland and the Bay Area about the role played by Black cowboys and other pioneers in the settling of the American West.” Since 1977, the Oakland Black Cowboy Association has funded and planned the parade each year. The parade has traditionally been held in October each year and the parade route begins and ends in DeFremery Park in West Oakland.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Selected items include:
- Unpublished research on Colonel Charles Young, first African American national park Superintendent at Sequoia and General Grant National Parks
- Menus of Baldwin's Tallac House Lake Tahoe (1902) and the Cliff House Inn (1937)
- Ephemera and programs of the Oakland Recreation Department, including material related to Mosswood and DeFremery Recreation Centers
- Brochures on Charles Lee Tilden Regional Park, Joaquin Miller Park, and others
- Juneteenth histories and celebration flyers
- Various civic, social, and fraternal clubs including the American Woodmen of San Francisco and the McGee Avenue Baptist Church Boy Scouts of America
- Documents related to the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation including the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park feasibility study (1971)
- Flyers from the opening of Afram World Travel Service Inc., "Northern California's most complete Black travel service" (1970)
- and many others
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
