For almost the entirety of the 20th century (1901–2000), black people in California have slowly but surely been squeezed out of Bay area cities like Oakland, San Francisco, and Richmond, and into Central Valley metros like Sacramento, Stockton, and Fresno.
I myself grew up in Stockton, a port city with a strong civil rights history attached to it; Stockton has even been deemed as America’s “most diverse city” by a few different measures. Growing up, most of the people that I knew and interacted with were either black or otherwise non-white.
However, when we moved to Modesto in the early 2000s, I immediately noticed a drastic difference. There were far more white people here, and far less black people. I definitely found this odd, but it was my reality, so I adapted.
As an adult, though — I started to find the entire situation to be suspicious. It doesn’t make sense that Stockton, Sacramento and Fresno would have such different demographic outcomes when compared to Modesto. So, I looked into it a bit more…..
Modesto has roughly 214,000 people, and about 10,000 of them identify as black. That comes out to about 4.5–5% of the population, which is a sizeable number of people. Stockton, however, which is just 31~miles away, has about 311,000 people and a black population of about 36,000 — about 11.7% of the population.
If that difference doesn’t seem significant to you, it should. Stockton has nearly 3x more black people in its population than Modesto does, even though one might expect a similar percentage given the cities’ closeness to one another.
To me, it really just didn’t make sense that such a huge metro area wouldn’t have a black community with at least some sort of historical presence or footing.
After doing some more digging, I found my answer — racially restrictive housing covenants.
The screenshot above is an excerpt from a local historian’s newsletter; according to their research, Modesto reserved nearly half of the city for whites-only home purchases by 1948. This is a staggering figure, especially given Modesto’s size at the time. More importantly, though, I think that the extensive use of these covenants throughout Modesto plays a role in the rather low percentage of black people here when compared to places like Stockton.
From 1910 until the tail-end of the 60’s, every major to medium city in California (including Stockton) made use of these restrictive covenants. However, some communities relied on them more extensively than others.
Modesto is a great example of such a community, as the city made use of racist zoning ordinances quite early in its history. It is considered the first American city to use a zoning ordinance as a method of racial segregation against an Asian population.
On trend with a fervent period of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. (the late 1800s), Modesto used a zoning ordinance to mandate that all laundries (which were overwhelmingly owned by Chinese immigrants) be situated west of the city’s main railroad tracks — segregating them from white businesses and residences. This occurred just 15 years after the founding of the town.
From 1885 to 1917, segregation in the United States was often enforced by various municipal zoning ordinances. In 1885, Modesto was the first city in United States to use a zoning ordinance to effectively segregate its Chinese residents. Though the Chinese were not mentioned by name, the ordinance mandated that laundries, nearly all Chinese owned, must be located west of the railroad tracks and south of G Street, in an area already known as Chinatown. Non-Chinese laundry owners were given an exemption. Historians see this as the first use of a city ordinance to mandate segregation.
This was especially ironic considering Chinese immigrant men had just completed construction of the railroad tracks that helped to establish the Central valley, specifically Modesto, as a bustling economic region.
Another fantastic and surprisingly recent resource on Chinese history in Modesto can be found here, and also mentions another disturbing racial trend that is oft-hidden from California/American history: the systematic burning of Chinatowns and expulsion of Chinese populations in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s.
Just roughly 40 years later, internment camps would pop up in the nearby Central valley towns of Turlock, Stockton, and Merced, imprisoning thousands of Asian Americans in California (many of whom were Chinese or otherwise non-Japanese).
Though the histories of the black and Asian populations in California (and more broadly, the U.S.) are quite distinct, there are similar features in the types of discrimination and oppression that they faced from whites. The laws that were eventually used to prohibit black people from moving into restricted residential areas have their origins in these anti-Chinese zoning ordinances. It’s also worth noting that in many cases, these housing clauses excluded all groups of people considered not to be ‘of the Caucasian race’.
Despite the fact that race-based zoning ordinances were eventually made illegal, the attitudes and sentiments that brought them to life were not as easily struck down.
In Modesto’s case, racist legislation also resulted in the creation of Monterey Tract Park. This rural stretch of land in the Stanislaus County dairy lands was hurriedly occupied by black families after the state of California purchased their Modesto homes in order to destroy them to make room for CA State Highway 99. The tract was under-funded and essentially not represented in the local legislature, leaving the residents to struggle with providing clean water and stable building ground for themselves.
Local black author and historian Charlie Crane briefly mentions the not-so-distant history of race relations in Modesto in his book “Image of a Black Father”. Crane moved to California in the early 60’s, and described discrimination still being rampant at that time (despite being far more tolerable than his home state of Arkansas).
Like many other cities in California at the time, he noted that most black people in Modesto were strategically funneled into the city’s west side. Crane also explained that almost no Modesto companies hired black people; a Campbells Soup factory was the first, they began hiring blacks in 1963 with the advent of the Civil Rights Act.
As Americans, we like to think of racism as a nebulous and evil force rather than a banally essential part of our history. It’s not a coincidence that I didn’t know many black people growing up here in Modesto, nor is it a coincidence that the proportion of black people here is so low compared to other nearby areas with similar histories.
It’s fascinating and terrifying to see how your ‘home’ fits into the larger story of the United States. Fascinating because you truly see that this nation is one of so many different inter-connected stories and histories, and frightening because you see that evil is dynamic, pervasive, and far-reaching. History isn’t ‘the past’, we’re still living it. It’s supremely important to understand how we as a nation got to where we are now. Modesto is just a peek into the many different trends and histories that have taken shape in our country.
Some other sources to check out for anyone interested:
Black Farmworkers in the Central Valley: Escaping Jim Crow for a Subtler Kind of Racism
How Racism Ripples Through Rural California’s Pipes
Modestans shine light on area’s racially restrictive housing policies of the past
