Civil Rights in Bakersfield
Civil Rights in Bakersfield
Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley
2024 Outstanding Book Award, National Association for Ethnic Studies
A multiracial history of civil rights coalitions beyond the farm worker movement in twentieth-century Bakersfield, California.
In Civil Rights in Bakersfield, Oliver Rosales uncovers the role of the multiracial west in shaping the course of US civil rights history. Focusing on Bakersfield, one of the few sizable cities within California’s Central Valley for much of the twentieth century in a region most commonly known as a bastion of political conservatism, oil, and industrial agriculture, Rosales documents how multiracial coalitions emerged to challenge histories of racial segregation and discrimination. He recounts how the region was home to both the historic farm worker movement, led by César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itliong, and also a robust multiracial civil rights movement beyond the fields. This multiracial push for civil rights reform included struggles for fair housing, school integration, public health, media representation, and greater political representation for Black and Brown communities. In expanding on this history of multiracial activism, Rosales further explores the challenges activists faced in community organizing and how the legacies of coalition building contribute to ongoing activist efforts in the Central Valley of today.
Civil Rights in Bakersfield is an excellent history of a neglected region. From Bakersfield’s original sins of conquest in 1870 and segregation at the turn of the century, Oliver Rosales charts the city’s multiracial civil rights and political movements of the mid-twentieth century, culminating in battles over school desegregation that extended into the 1980s. Along the way, Rosales presents one of the first comprehensive social histories of any urban locale in California’s interior. His deep, careful research uncovers a long buried, ignored, and politically dangerous history that illuminates trends echoing across the Southwest and charting pathways to justice in our own time.
In revealing the neglected history of civil rights activism in Bakersfield, Rosales helps us understand the struggle against racial segregation in the West. This carefully researched case study challenges the notion that the civil rights movement was primarily a Southern phenomenon.
Oliver A. Rosales is a professor of history at Bakersfield College.
- Introduction
- 1. “A Laboratory of Races”: Racial Segregation in Greater Bakersfield, 1870–1950
- 2. Civic Unity: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Civil Rights Activism in Bakersfield, 1947–1964
- 3. “Maximum Feasible Participation” and Opposition: The War on Poverty in Kern County, 1964–1967
- 4. Agrarian Chicanismo: Jesus “Jess” Nieto and the Chicana/o Student Movement in Bakersfield
- 5. “Hoo-ray Gonzales!”: Civil Rights Protest and Chicana/o Politics in Bakersfield, 1968–1974
- 6. Police Violence, Fair Media, Rural Health Care, and Civil Rights Activism in Greater Bakersfield
- 7. A New Battleground for Civil Rights: The Desegregation of the Bakersfield City School District, 1969–1984
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
Chicana Movidas
New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era
Edited by Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell
