Stories From the Eastside of Riverside - Catching up with Ed Blakely

Welcome to the first of several conversations with a group from the 1940’s, who grew up together on the Eastside of Riverside California. They grew up in a tight-knit community where all of the parents looked out for all of the children.

“We were all cousins,” Ed Blakley explains.

In this first episode we meet Ed Blakely born in 1938 in Riverside, California. He and his brother Warren, are members of a surviving cohort of African Americans who lived together on the Eastside during the 1940’s and 50’s. Two other members of that community, Buddy Jones and Alyce Smith Cooper spent time on Friday, December 3rd, 2020 recalling shared experiences in an effort to describe what made this economically poor neighborhood so rich and nurturing that the children had no idea they were starting near the bottom economic rung of American society. As you will find, these youngsters believed they could do anything!

Here is a preview of the one hour, sixteen minute conversation. You will find the complete video below:

Polytechnic High School, Riverside 1962 Ranked in the top ten California High Schools.

Ed Blakely

Professor Blakely, was Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley from 1986 through 1994.

A leading scholar and practitioner of urban policy, Blakely has been Dean of the School of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California and Dean of the Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University in New York City. He has also held professorial appointments at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Southern California and the University of Sydney.

Blakely's extensive record of public service includes advising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, state and federal governments in Australia and the United States, as well as governments in Korea, Japan, Sweden, Indonesia, New Zealand and Vietnam.

Blakely was recognised by UN Habitat for his contributions to social justice and sustainable planning in disaster recovery in 2012.

Professor Blakely is author of ten books and more than one hundred scholarly articles as well as scores of essays and opinion pieces, including:

Separate Societies - “Economic and political forces no longer combat poverty—they generate poverty!" exclaim William Goldsmith and Edward Blakely in their report on the plight of American's urban poor. In this revised and updated edition of their 1992 book Separate Societies,the authors present a compelling examination of the damaging divisions that isolate poor city minority residents from the middle-class suburban majority. They pay special attention to how the needs of the permanently poor have been unmet through the alternating years of promises and neglect, and propose a progressive turn away from 30 years of conservative policies.

Separate Societies vividly documents how the urban working class has been pushed out of industrial jobs through global economic restructuring, and how the Wall Street meltdown has aggravated underemployment, depleted public services, and sharpened racial and class inequalities.

The authors insist that the current U.S. approach puts Americans out of work and lowers the standard of living for all. As such, Goldsmith and Blakely urge the Obama administration to create better urban policy and foster better metropolitan management to effectively and efficiently promote equality.”

Watch the entire conversation

Local Heroes - Eastside Riverside, California 1940's -50's

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