The Brief

Walk through the automatic doors at the Carson Library and you’ll see on your left a 1973 painting called "Dominoes" by John Riddle.

Riddle, a prominent Black artist, has worked in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has been collected by Jesse Jackson and Roberta Flack.

Riddle's work was previously owned by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in West Adams. Over two decades, the company’s art director, William Pajaud, an L.A. artist himself, carefully collected hundreds of pieces of Black art. Each piece in the collection, Pajaud said, would be a chapter telling the story of African Americans in the U.S. The collection included oil paintings, watercolors, and sculptures in clay, wood and metal.

When Golden State Mutual Life Insurance shut down, the company sold most of the best pieces at a private auction in 2007, with some selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. L.A. County was able to acquire about 120 works, including Riddle's piece.

To keep the works accessible to the public and free of charge, county officials chose four public libraries and three community centers to show the work. Earlier this year, the county arts department created a new website with a map to make them easier to find. The locations include the Golden State Mutual historic building in West Adams, plus:

Libraries

• Carson Library (Carson)
• A.C. Bilbrew Library (Willowbrook)
• Masao W. Satow Library (Gardena)
• View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library (View Park/Windsor Hills)
  

Community centers:

• Curtis Tucker Behavioral Health Center Health Services (Inglewood)
• Willowbrook Senior Center Aging and Disabilities (Willowbrook)
• Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center Health Services (on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Campus).

“All of these are county-owned spaces that are available, accessible to the public and to patrons to be able to live with the works, learn about the works, see the works, learn about the works,” said Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Fifteen by John Riddle. The screenprint was part of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance collection but is now part of the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection.

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As you walk past the checkout desk at the Carson Library, toward the teen section, you’ll see another remarkable piece from the county’s holdings. It’s a two-foot-tall sculpture made from one piece of mahogany. It’s called "The Embrace" by artist Elizabeth Catlett, whose work is in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions. Catlett depicted two people hugging, their faces and bodies fused together, their eyes looking at the viewer.

Detail of El Abrazo (The Embrace) by Elizabeth Catlett.

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In the auction catalogue for the Golden State Collection, Catlett wrote: “I still work figuratively, trying to express emotion through abstract form, color, line, and space. I attempt to reach out to ordinary people who have little or no experience or understanding of art principles, and extend to them what I may feel about a subject."

Ancestral Fragments by Stanley Wilson.

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Meanwhile at A.C. Bilbrew Library, north of Compton, there’s a piece by Charles White, who lived in L.A. County for decades and mentored many artists in the region. His paintings and drawings in the 1960s took on the issues of the Black Civil Rights Movement, and that led well-known Black Americans like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt to buy his art.

County officials are hopeful that the communities around these neighborhoods enjoy the art’s benefits, including “mental health, in our education, our youth development, our sense of inclusion and belonging,” Sakoda said.

For the last three years, the record store and music venue Healing Force of the Universe has been operating on a sleepy street corner not far from Pasadena City College. Nearby businesses include a shoe repair store, a nail salon and several auto shops.

“We're kind of in a dead corner,” owner Austin Manuel said. “No offense if anybody lives here, but not a very foot-trafficked area, kind of a hard place to have a store.”

In spite of the location, Manuel said Healing Force has become a home away from home for musicians and music fans. One of them is Bobby Bradford, a jazz trumpet legend who lost his house and personal archive in the Eaton Fire. He performs regularly at the venue. (Healing Force has also partnered with LAist on fire recovery events.)

Its current location is set to close this month, but Manuel and his team are already raising funds to cover a move to another space: G-Son Studios in Atwater Village. The repurposed ballroom was the Beastie Boys' home base when they recorded their classic albums Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Run-DMC and Biz Markie stopped by at one point, and Beck also laid down tracks for his album Odelay there.

Inside Healing Force's space in Pasadena.

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The vibe

Healing Force sells records, of course, but these days it’s more of a nighttime performance space. Manuel said he wants people to feel comfortable striking up conversations after a show.

“I grew up in the church in the South, and I was like, ‘How do I design this so that it feels like a Southern church lady could come in here and feel welcome?’" Manuel said. “ I didn't want it to be too cool.  I wanted it to feel kind of suburban in a way.”

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Though the name might call to mind a cult slogan — and Manuel said they lean into that aesthetic on purpose — it’s actually a reference to the 1970 album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe by saxophonist Albert Ayler.

At the venue, “people can kind of get … into a meditative zone,” Manuel said. “After the [January 2025] fires, it felt so good to come back together in this room and feel the healing of community.”

Healing Force's stage setup.

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The performances

The shows Healing Force puts on share a common thread: They’re meant to promote peace and relaxation, as well as deep, careful listening on the hi-fi sound system. But they’re an eclectic mix of genres. On one night, you might see L.A. spiritual jazz band Phi-Psonics, who turned a residency at the venue into a live album, Expanding to One.

On another night, you might catch a spaced-out electronic set, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter or a group of session musicians who’ve played with the likes of Paul Simon, Elton John and Lucinda Williams.

About the fundraiser

With the new space on Glendale Boulevard, Manuel said, Healing Force would triple its capacity for concerts, get a bar space and be closer to other venues in Northeast L.A.

“If 1,000 people gave $25, we would get there,” Manuel said – though he also said most people have been giving more.

You can read more about the fundraiser and donate at Healing Force’s GoFundMe.

See the Pasadena space before it closes

The venue is still open at 1200 E. Walnut Street and is holding events through this Halloween weekend. You can see their events calendar on their website.

The racist DNA of Jim Crow discrimination may be embedded in your housing documents.

The language in housing documents that restricts sale or use of a property only to a person of the white race is called a “restrictive covenant,” and in California the practice goes back to the 19th century and continued into the mid-20th century. While housing discrimination persists, the practice was found unconstitutional in 1948.

California counties are reporting mixed progress in meeting the demands of a 2021 law to excise the language from property records.

According to Sylvia Manzo, deputy recorder in the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s office, the county finished the job in March of this year, removing racist language from more than 27,000 property documents with the help of computer software.

This 1924 property document from Bakersfield includes racist language limiting use of the property in question to people of "the white or Caucasian race."

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L.A. County is far from done. It says that with the help of an outside company hired in 2024, 50 million pages will be examined yearly, which would take about 10 years to finish the job.

Public agencies could use the public’s help.

Language examples

Here’s a 1924 example from a property in Bakersfield. The text reads, “That the lands herein conveyed shall never, at any time, be sold to or rented to or occupied by any person not of the white or Caucasian race.”

Or this language from a 1936 document relating to a Costa Mesa property: “That said premises shall not be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased to, or occupied by any person of African, Mexican, or Asiatic descent.”

How to get it taken out

The Restrictive Covenant Modification Form is at the heart of the effort to remove the racist language from housing documents. Each county has its own process. Some charge a fee; others don’t. Some require a notary certification for the signature; others don’t.

L.A. County:

Registrar-Recorder officials recommend these steps:

• Highlight or underline the unlawful provision on the recorded document
• Complete the Restrictive Covenant Modification Form
• Submit the form and the recorded document by email: RCM@rrcc.lacounty.gov or in person at the Norwalk headquarters at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk
• Mail instructions are here.

Orange County:

The Orange County spokesperson says there may be some properties not caught by its software and urges the public to report them. Here’s the form

Riverside County:

Here’s the Riverside County form

San Bernardino County:

Here’s the San Bernardino County form

San Diego County:

Here’s the San Diego County form

Santa Barbara County:

Here’s the Santa Barbara County form

Ignoring the racist language in property documents, some say, reinforces the legacy of segregation, while taking steps to remove restrictive covenant language is a way individuals and organizations can repudiate policies that sought to discriminate.