Their house looked better than many of Teviston’s homes, but it was small. The parents had one bedroom, the ten children born by 1964 shared the other one.

Benjamin and Bertha Mae worked hard, often taking their family out to work with them in the fields. He also worked as a truck driver and she in a tortilla factory in Tulare. The older kids filled in, taking care of their younger brothers and sisters.

Benjamin and Bertha Mae inspired the Beavers children to get out of low-paying farm labor and find employment in service industries.

I photographed their oldest son, Charles, hauling water for his family and others. His younger sisters and their friends would ride along in the back of the pickup.

Benjamin led work on an American Friends Service Committee project to get Teviston a pump and storage tank so they and others could end the drive to Pixley to collect the water and distribute it.

Later Benjamin led development of a self-help housing project and the Beavers and other families worked together to tear down many shacks and build attractive stucco homes. That was after my long visit in 1964.

The Beavers worked closely with other families in community improvement projects, child-rearing, and enjoyment of life. Their close network of Teviston families shared Benjamin and Bertha Mae’s work ethic and their determination to see their children succeed.

When I revisited Teviston in March and April of 2015 the grown up children I found said they never felt poor back in the day.

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In 2002 author Mark Arax and photographer Matt Black produced a series on Teviston in the L.A. Times . Then Mark recruited Joel Pickford to start shooting a Black Okies video documentary, including many of my stills. (see this page for links.)

In March of 2015 I revisited Teviston, bringing my old photos and a new camera. (Mark Arax, Mark’s son Jake, photographer and film-maker Joel Pickford, and historian/anthropologist Michael Essinger came along with me.) I hoped to find some of my subjects and photograph them in their middle age years. My hope was more than fulfilled!

Our day started with the churches, Friendship Baptist and St. Paul AME in Teviston and then First Baptist in Pixley, with one stop at the home of one of the Black families still living in Teviston. (The population now is primarily Latino.)

Folks responded to my 60s photos with great enthusiasm. The multi-congregation service at First Baptist of Pixley was on the theme Old Fashioned Day, with members dressing in their old clothes and artifacts across the front of the room. C.L Jones and Charles Carters held up Teviston antiques: a rusty milk can with spigot  (“our water supply” for hauling water from the well), a slop bucket.(“our indoor plumbing”) and a rotary phone (“our iPhone”)  drawing waves of laughter from the  congregation. Several members and Reverend Hairston spoke of the progress they’d made since the not so good old days of the 60s.

Following the service we laid out prints and people crowded around, recognizing themselves or their relatives in many of the ones of children.

We returned again in April, attending service at First Baptist, photo touring Teviston and Pixley, and recording interviews.

My Teviston photographs have appeared in my large multi-media exhibition at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco (1966), and in many books, reports, and magazines. Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and New York broadcast a documentary on Teviston and a life history of Teviston resident William McKinley “Buck” Ashmore.

The post Teviston, a Black Okie Community appeared first on Harvesting my life.

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.

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