One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. ~Barack Obama
One black couple did exactly that in 1939, and now, in 2024, generations later, we can see the impact of what that couple did with one brave, bold, and simple, act. A black couple rented a home to a Chinese family.
A Black couple defied racism by renting to a Chinese family. Now comes $5 million in thanks (LA Times)
Every morning, Lloyd Dong Sr. would take the ferry from San Diego to Coronado, where he worked as a gardener for wealthy homeowners. And every night, he would retreat back home across the bay, barred by racially restrictive housing practices in the early 1900s from renting or buying his own house in the town.
Gus and Emma Thompson — a Black couple who had managed to secure ownership of Coronado property before restrictions took hold — boldly rented a house they owned to the Dong family, whose Chinese heritage blocked them from living in the community. The intersection of these two families amid the embedded racism of the time would decades later become a story of gratitude, made possible by the very home that once belonged to the Thompsons.
Some 85 years since the Dongs moved to Coronado, Lloyd Sr.’s sons, Ron Dong and Lloyd Dong Jr., are donating $5 million from their portion of the sale of the house they eventually came to own to San Diego State University’s Black Resource Center.
The gift will expand scholarships for Black students and fund future renovations at the center, its director, Brandon Gamble, said.
“I don’t know how to describe the feeling in my chest, but there’s a feeling that racism gives that folks are familiar with; you may not be able to describe it all the time,” Gamble said. “This is the complete opposite, and we don’t get to access it enough.”
Ron Dong, 86, the eldest son, said his father “tried and tried [to live in Coronado] and the only thing that came up was Gus Thompson willing to rent his house that he had available…. That was the big plus for our family, because it has made all the difference for us.”
Open thread.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you for posting this.
BruceFromOhio
What people can do, given the chance.
SiubhanDuinne
What a wonderful story! Thank you.
Professor Bigfoot
Another example of Black folks standing up for all marginalized communities, even when they don’t support us back.
Black folks living the belief that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Scout211
Sweet story. So nice to read this morning.
JML
Good by all of the people involved, the Thompsons for standing up and doing what was right and the Dong family for paying it forward. There are good people in the world.
UncleEbeneezer
This is a great reminder of the fact that racist policies in the West typically targeted Asian-Americans (and Native-Americans and Mexicans). There were also restrictive covenants that excluded Black People and Jewish People, but the really big energy out West was quite different in focus than it was in the South, Midwest and NorthEast.
geg6
This is a beautiful story. Two wonderful families, toughing out the worst of times together. Seeing themselves in each other. I love it.
WaterGirl
There’s no “I’ve got mine, fuck you” going on in this story.
gwangung
@Professor Bigfoot: Yup, yup, yup.
Conservatives and mass media (but I repeat myself) focus on Black vs. Asian hate and make it seem the norm. But, while that exists, it’s far more common, and far more historical, to see solidarity.
Bill K
I realize California house prices are high, but I have trouble believing that house is worth more than $5 million. Or am I missing something in the article?
Anonymous At Work
Thinking hard about the latest stuff in politics and saw this article on the defamation lawsuits from voting companies.
I don’t pretend to know what precise effect it will have but the idea that Newsmax and FOX and OAN all facing multi-million dollar lawsuits against both their companies, their hosts and their frequent guests RIGHT BEFORE the election will have on right-wing coverage. TFG will be talking all about 2020 and election fraud, but will OAN and Newsmax allow him time, if it is just going to get them into more trouble? Will FOX want to play ball, even if the lawsuit won’t end them, it will destroy
Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin(Editor’s Note: You know who I mean).Additionally, I wonder how much ‘fun’ the NYT will find their first serious death threats from right-wingers when TFG calls them out by name for not kissing his ass in their coverage. Will there be a sense of “Maybe we should take him and his threats seriously this time?” from legacy media that’s grown comfortable?
I think this and put it in this thread because all these signs point upwards.
Ksmiami
Addressing racism as policy makes the country better, richer and more actualized.
Eolirin
@Bill K: The median price in that city is 2.4 million
Edit: Actually the median for a single family home is 3.1, and was around 4 last year. 5 million sounds perfectly plausible.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Oregon used to ban black people from the state. So no need for restrictive covenants.
Ksmiami
@Bill K: it’s for scholarships etc.
JCJ
@UncleEbeneezer: A while ago I went to an exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee that was primarily about the Japanese internment camps in World War II, but they also had displays about the history of racism and racist laws directed at Asians. Some of the accompanying posters were amazing in their horrible depiction of Asians. I think it might have been a traveling exhibit. If it is around it is well worth seeing
Tony Jay
Awesome tale. People saw their countrymen doing something monstrous and stood up to say “Hell no!”, at what was almost certainly serious personal risk.
The world needs a lot more of that.
trollhattan
@Bill K: The weather, it’s so nice!
It doesn’t say what became of the lot–guessing something else sits there now. Not like it’s La Jolla or something (“Hi, Mitt’s car elevator!”)
Baud
@Anonymous At Work:
They’ll think it’s almost as bad as NYT Pitchbot.
trollhattan
Last time the Legislature passed a bill that pissed off Uber and Lyft, they overturned it with a ballot proposition. Getting my popcorn order in, now.
trollhattan
@JCJ: Chinese Exclusion Act was in force from 1882 to 1943, when certain events in the Pacific transformed them into “the good Asians.”
rikyrah
@Professor Bigfoot:
truth
KrackenJack
@Bill K: IIRC, the Dongs built a multiplex on the property.
Brachiator
I love stories like this. Absolutely warms my heart.
WaterGirl
@Bill K: Dare I say that maybe you’re missing the point of the article, which was about humanity and not about the cost of housing? :-)
Sister Golden Bear
@Bill K: Location, location, location. Wealthy enclave, right on the beach. Plus they converted a livery stable on the property into an apartment building. $5 million is entirely plausible
LA Times said the entire property was estimated at $7 million, the Dong brothers donated their share of it.
UncleEbeneezer
@gwangung: There’s still a sad amount of casual, Anti-Blackness in the Asian-American community. I just had to explain to my Taiwanese-American assistant coach why it’s not cool to refer to the park we teach tennis at, as “ghetto.” The park is much more diverse and has far more Black people, pickup basketball games, hip hop on radios etc., than the other park we work at that is in a much more affluent and predominantly Asian-American community. The AAPI community is still miles better than predominantly-White ones, but it’s sad how much anti-Blackness still exists despite the fact that Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian sentiments and oppressions have had so much historical overlap.
Brachiator
@Professor Bigfoot:
You really need to step back from this overly simplistic view.
A quick example from Los Angeles social history. The Crenshaw district is seen as “the hood,” but it was one of the largest integrated neighborhoods in California, largely thanks to Asian Americans.
A returning Japanese American veteran got into real estate and explicitly defied racial covenants by selling homes to Hispanic and black families.
And this is just a quick example. There are many more stories of solidarity and cooperation that need to be remembered.
gwangung
@UncleEbeneezer: Some (but not all!) is from recent immigrants who don’t know the history and are actually contemptuous of it.
I remember efforts by recent 1st generation Chinese Americans who opposed renaming a CA high school for Japanese American camp survivors because of what happened in Nanking. (The irony being that their “reason” was exactly the same as the reason they were incarcerated in the first place, and disrespectfully spitting on the pan-Asian effort to do the renaming in the first place).
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Governor Newsom and the state legislature may have good intentions, but they are helping to kill the restaurant industry. Restaurant owners are also being stupid.
In anticipation of the new law that raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour for most fast food franchises with at least 60 stores, some pizza places and other eateries laid off their employee drivers. This pushed more customers to Door Dash and other companies.
Putting the squeeze on these delivery companies is understandable, but it may not help customers as much as lawmakers think.
For some places, drive thru is becoming bigger, leading to neighborhood complaints of long lines of cars spilling over into residential areas.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
They “help” restaurants like Uber and Lyft help taxi service. Everybody pays more.
John Oliver had a nice breakdown.
https://jalopnik.com/john-oliver-breaks-down-why-food-delivery-apps-are-bad-1851387323
UncleEbeneezer
@gwangung: It’s also just hard in organizing to get different groups to show up for other groups. And that is a pretty universal challenge, in my experience. I’ve done outreach to try to build coalitions on police violence (mostly effecting the Blackest areas of our city) and gotten mostly nothing but crickets from Latinx and Asian-American orgs. And similarly disappointing reluctance/disinterest from Black and AAPI orgs/activists when it comes to Immigration campaigns. And the same reluctance from Black and Latinx orgs/activists for StopAsianHate campaigns. They mostly stand in solidarity when it comes to voting but creating strong interracial/ethnic coalitions has been surprisingly tough even in areas with decent-sized communities of each group. The attitude that “well that’s THEIR problem” is disappointingly common even in activism/organizing and even in communities that talk a lot about the importance of allyship and unity. All that said, all three communities are still exponentially better and more receptive than your average white community.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
I live in Southern California. Taxi service has been terrible for decades. Uber and Lyft are welcome alternatives.
Los Angeles is where private car and taxi companies prevented light rail from coming to LAX. The Green Line came close, but requires that people transfer to shuttle buses to get to the airport. About the only people who use the Green Line are LAX employees.
As for restaurants, yeah, everybody pays more. But if restaurants fire their delivery drivers, what is the alternative.
It’s funny. I hear some local progressives insisting that people should buy food from farmers and stay home. Fuck people who need jobs.
UncleEbeneezer
@JCJ: Museums, in general, are pretty excellent about connecting those dots and emphasizing their importance. But when it comes to non-Academics (and certainly Normie voters), not so much.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Listen to the entire Oliver segment. They’re shit and damaging every part of the chain–from restaurant to customer.
They are unneeded, unwanted, unloved.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: True. But the state did get onboard the Anti-Asian, “Alien Land Laws” train in the 1920’s, by passing covenants that effectively prohibited Asians from owning land (at which point Black People had been legally permitted to own land for 60 years as a result of the 14th Amendment). Though damn, looking at the history of this stuff in Oregon, it was a pretty freaking racist state at every turn. Like, it actually rescinded it’s ratification of the 14th Amendment…
Betty
Deleted. Repetitive.
Soprano2
@trollhattan: I can tell you what they charge – at least 30% of the price of what was sold. We quit using these delivery services because you either lose money or raise your prices 30% for delivery.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
I will listen to it later. But I understand Los Angeles and Southern California restaurant and transportation issues very well. And especially post pandemic.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: You know what the restaurants don’t do if there’s no DoorDash? Fire the employees they need for a decent chunk of their revenue. Their delivery drivers stay employed if they can’t be outsourced to a third party that, through a lack of transparency, is able to exact excessive rents from both consumers and restaurants.
Nothing in that law is doing anything but making it clear exactly how much and where the ride share companies are adding to the bill. If that’s enough to cause disruption to the delivery side of things, that should tell you something about how what they’re doing is not okay.
Otherwise it’s just a fee people are willing to pay for convenience and nothing will come of it except people will have accurate information.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
From late December.
I think that this was stupid and self-defeating, but they didn’t ask me.