Tag Archives: Mark Arax

Black Okie History

The West of the West Center has produced Black Okies, a documentary on the history of Teviston directed by Joel Pickford. You can view this film by going to this site:
https://vimeo.com/user25968631/blackokies  Enter the password (case sensitive): Bokies0415

Michael Essinger is a doctoral student at UC Merced who is studying the forgotten history of  African-American communities up and down the Central Valley. You can view or download his papers at this site:
Black Okie History

Mark Arax, Director of the West of the West Center, wrote several articles on Teviston in 2002 when he was a reporter for the LA Times. These are available at:
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/25/local/me-blackokies1
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/26/local/me-blackokies2
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/26/local/me-okieside26
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/27/local/me-blackokies3

Mark speaks of the migration to rural California and some of the people he found in Teviston in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LPBEb5PXBk&feature=youtu.be

Acres of Aspiration by Hannibal Johnson documents the all Black towns established in Oklahoma from the 1890s to the 1920s. They attracted independent, hard-working families from the deep South. This helps explain the strength of the younger generation that moved to California in the 50s to found Teviston and other primarily Black communities in California. One can order from Alibris.com.