{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/bz6154g809/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Jataun Valentine, 2/21/2023"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Jataun Valentine is a descendent of Irving Tabor and an Oakwood community activist and leader."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["5/23/22 at 9:00 AM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_043"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Jataun Valentine is a descendent of Irving Tabor and an Oakwood community activist and leader."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/226/599/small/Jataun_Valentine.jpg?1713989211","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Jataun_Valentine_VHM_SHORT-subtitled-_1.mp4"]},"duration":771.584,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/226/599/small/Jataun_Valentine.jpg?1713989211","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/226/599/original/Jataun_Valentine_VHM_SHORT-subtitled-_1.mp4?1737914365","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":771.584,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599/transcript/67691","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Jataun Valentine Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599/transcript/67691/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:05:03 - 00:00:08:21\nMy name is Jataun Valentine,\n\n00:00:08:21 - 00:00:14:22\nand I was born the second month, the 16th, ‘37.\n\n00:00:14:22 - 00:00:18:10\nMy mother's family was in Venice.\n\n00:00:18:10 - 00:00:23:14\nMy father's family was in East L.A.\n\n00:00:23:14 - 00:00:29:00\nand we stayed in Los Angeles\n\n00:00:29:00 - 00:00:33:09\nfor a couple years.\n\n00:00:33:09 - 00:00:37:08\nAnd then went back, came to Venice\n\n00:00:37:08 - 00:00:41:11\nwhich to me, has always been home.\n\n00:00:41:11 - 00:00:46:11\nMy cousin Joycelyn Gilies\n\n00:00:46:11 - 00:00:48:07\nKathy Wolfe.\n\n00:00:48:07 - 00:00:50:05\nThey lived in the neighborhood.\n\n00:00:50:05 - 00:00:52:08\nThey were relatives.\n\n00:00:52:08 - 00:00:57:08\nThe Wolfes were\rcousins on my grandfather's\n\n00:00:57:08 - 00:01:03:23\nand Joycelyn is my first cousin\ron my grandmother's side.\n\n00:01:03:23 - 00:01:05:19\nJenny Tabor.\n\n00:01:05:19 - 00:01:10:04\nMy grandfather's name was A.J. Alfonse\n\n00:01:10:04 - 00:01:12:11\nJoseph Henry.\n\n00:01:12:11 - 00:01:18:15\nHe was the first Black\rcement contractor in Venice.\n\n00:01:18:15 - 00:01:24:12\nIn fact, I have his original license.\n\n00:01:24:12 - 00:01:27:07\n“Why did he moved to Venice?\rDo you know?”\n\n00:01:27:07 - 00:01:30:22\nHe moved to Venice because\n\n00:01:30:22 - 00:01:33:15\nhis cousin, Arthur Reese.\n\n00:01:33:15 - 00:01:36:06\nHe worked on the railroad.\n\n00:01:36:06 - 00:01:39:13\nAnd he said that they were building the canals\n\n00:01:39:13 - 00:01:43:01\nand there's plenty of work in Venice.\n\n00:01:43:01 - 00:01:45:16\nWell, Abbot\rKinney was a progressive thinker\n\n00:01:45:16 - 00:01:50:00\nbecause his idea was that\rhe didn't care about color.\n\n00:01:50:00 - 00:01:52:18\nHe wanted the right people\rfor the right job.\n\n00:01:52:18 - 00:01:55:06\nThat's the reason why\n\n00:01:55:06 - 00:01:56:04\nArthur Reese\n\n00:01:56:04 - 00:01:59:08\ntold his cousin about Venice.\n\n00:01:59:08 - 00:02:01:10\nAnd, you know, several of them\n\n00:02:01:10 - 00:02:04:02\nworked for Abbot Kinney.\n\n00:02:04:02 - 00:02:05:09\nAnd he was\n\n00:02:05:09 - 00:02:08:01\na very good boss.\n\n00:02:08:01 - 00:02:10:02\nIn fact, one time he\n\n00:02:10:02 - 00:02:15:08\nhad Arthur redecorate the float\rfor the Rose Parade.\n\n00:02:15:08 - 00:02:18:00\nAnd they won an award.\n\n00:02:18:00 - 00:02:20:21\n“He also did all those great costumes.\n\n00:02:20:21 - 00:02:21:22\nThe big heads for...”\n\n00:02:21:22 - 00:02:23:02\nYeah. Yeah.\n\n00:02:23:02 - 00:02:26:02\nFor Mardi Gras. Yes, they did.\n\n00:02:26:02 - 00:02:30:18\nAnd then one of his cousins\n\n00:02:30:18 - 00:02:34:20\nmy great uncle, Irving Tabor,\n\n00:02:34:20 - 00:02:37:03\nhe was walking on the pier\n\n00:02:37:03 - 00:02:39:19\nand one day Abbot Kinney was walking\n\n00:02:39:19 - 00:02:40:19\nand he said that\n\n00:02:40:19 - 00:02:46:07\nhe needed a chauffeur so \rIrving said, “Oh, I’ll...\n\n00:02:46:07 - 00:02:48:11\nI could drive.”\n\n00:02:48:11 - 00:02:49:06\nBut he couldn't\n\n00:02:49:06 - 00:02:53:10\ndrive but so what, he had a friend \rthat worked at the Ford\n\n00:02:53:10 - 00:02:57:19\nMotor Company and he taught him how to drive.\n\n00:02:57:19 - 00:03:01:22\nIn face, Abbot Kinney ended up\n\n00:03:01:22 - 00:03:05:11\nafter him and his had wife passed away,\n\n00:03:05:11 - 00:03:09:11\ngiving him the house which is still there.\n\n00:03:09:11 - 00:03:11:14\nNot in the valley anymore.\n\n00:03:11:14 - 00:03:13:17\nBut the house is still there.\n\n00:03:13:17 - 00:03:16:17\n709 Vernon.\n\n00:03:16:17 - 00:03:19:20\nMy grandfather Alfonse\n\n00:03:19:20 - 00:03:21:17\nHenry,\n\n00:03:21:17 - 00:03:29:14\nhe’s Indian and Black but he’s dark.\n\n00:03:29:14 - 00:03:33:15\nAnd my grandmother, Jennie\n\n00:03:33:15 - 00:03:36:13\nTabor,\n\n00:03:36:13 - 00:03:38:16\nHenry, she, uh...\n\n00:03:38:16 - 00:03:42:04\nher mother was Irish\rand her father was Black\n\n00:03:42:04 - 00:03:44:05\nbut they're very light.\n\n00:03:44:05 - 00:03:48:05\nAnd so the people on Vernon\rthought it was a Black man\n\n00:03:48:05 - 00:03:50:15\nmarried to a white lady.\n\n00:03:50:15 - 00:03:53:17\nAnd practically everybody on the street\n\n00:03:53:17 - 00:03:57:01\nbelonged to the KK, Ku Klux Klan.\n\n00:03:57:01 - 00:04:01:11\nI was young them. \rThat was during my mothers age.\n\n00:04:01:11 - 00:04:06:00\nAnd like I said, I just explained\rabout how they thought\n\n00:04:06:00 - 00:04:10:03\nthat was a black man\rand a white lady getting married.\n\n00:04:10:03 - 00:04:14:09\nAnd, and they, they burned that cross.\n\n00:04:14:09 - 00:04:17:18\nAnd so the people who couldn't take it,\n\n00:04:17:18 - 00:04:21:01\nthey left and the other ones stayed\n\n00:04:21:01 - 00:04:26:22\nand they say, that they used\rto call him Mister\n\n00:04:26:22 - 00:04:29:20\nA.J. Alphonse Joseph.\n\n00:04:29:20 - 00:04:34:01\nAnd his family of nice people,\rand they got along.\n\n00:04:34:01 - 00:04:38:03\nThey’ve never had any more problems.\n\n00:04:38:03 - 00:04:42:15\n“So did your grandfather stay\rin the house after the cross was burned?”\n\n00:04:42:15 - 00:04:45:08\nYes.  He stayed because\n\n00:04:45:08 - 00:04:50:19\nyou know, he was the man of the house\rand he had all those kids and he...\n\n00:04:50:19 - 00:04:56:00\nhe figured pretty soon they'll figure out\n\n00:04:56:00 - 00:04:59:18\nhe's a nice man\rjust trying to raise his family.\n\n00:04:59:18 - 00:05:05:00\nMy earliest memories of Venice that was quiet.\r\n\n00:05:05:00 - 00:05:09:11\nWe, we were never afraid to venture\n\n00:05:09:11 - 00:05:13:08\nfrom where we lived to the beach here\n\n00:05:13:08 - 00:05:15:23\nand never had no problems.\n\n00:05:15:23 - 00:05:21:17\nIt was in the days when, if you\rsee the man, they would tip their hat.\n\n00:05:21:17 - 00:05:24:16\nI always thought that was pretty cool.\n\n00:05:24:16 - 00:05:27:19\n“What was different about Venice\n\n00:05:27:19 - 00:05:31:14\nfrom the other neighborhoods\rlike back in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s?”\n\n00:05:31:14 - 00:05:33:17\nWell, what was different\n\n00:05:33:17 - 00:05:35:06\nis that a lot\n\n00:05:35:06 - 00:05:41:00\nof what I call the\rpioneer families like my family\n\n00:05:41:00 - 00:05:44:01\nthey still stayed.\n\n00:05:44:06 - 00:05:48:07\nAnd so from generation to generation.\n\n00:05:48:07 - 00:05:50:13\nAnd then the other\n\n00:05:50:13 - 00:05:55:07\npeople that came in, you know,\rthey weren't there that long.\n\n00:05:55:07 - 00:06:01:00\nI would go to a meeting, somebody would say,\roh, I've been here ten years.\n\n00:06:01:00 - 00:06:02:19\n(laughter) I'd say, well,\n\n00:06:02:19 - 00:06:03:11\nwe've been\n\n00:06:03:11 - 00:06:09:04\nin Venice how many generations\ras they’re more than that.\n\n00:06:09:04 - 00:06:12:13\n“So you have a commitment to Venice?”\n\n00:06:12:13 - 00:06:13:22\nYes, I have.\n\n00:06:13:22 - 00:06:17:14\nBecause Venice\n\n00:06:17:14 - 00:06:20:01\nwas good to my family.\n\n00:06:20:01 - 00:06:25:19\nHow I mean is that all the \rneighbors recognize that this was\n\n00:06:25:19 - 00:06:30:09\njust a good, hard working family\n\n00:06:30:09 - 00:06:35:18\nand very friendly, and uh,  \n\n00:06:35:18 - 00:06:43:10\ntheir desire was like, to\rhave a home, you know.\n\n00:06:43:10 - 00:06:44:21\nA house.\n\n00:06:44:21 - 00:06:47:11\n“Do you remember when\rPACE came in?”\n\n00:06:47:11 - 00:06:49:08\nI remember that.\n\n00:06:49:08 - 00:06:53:18\nIn fact, my cousin, she got\ra letter about a meeting.\n\n00:06:53:18 - 00:06:56:18\nAnd she said to me,\n\n00:06:56:18 - 00:06:57:22\n“You girls”\n\n00:06:57:22 - 00:07:01:06\nShe meant me and my sister Jackie,\n\n00:07:01:06 - 00:07:04:07\n“You need to go to this meeting.”\n\n00:07:04:07 - 00:07:07:10\nSo we said we went to the meeting\n\n00:07:07:10 - 00:07:10:12\nand then they were talking about this\n\n00:07:10:12 - 00:07:13:16\nPACE protocol\n\n00:07:13:16 - 00:07:17:18\nand we found that the police\rhad something to do with it.\n\n00:07:17:18 - 00:07:19:19\nAnd that, uh,\n\n00:07:19:19 - 00:07:23:01\nThen they started inspectors\n\n00:07:23:01 - 00:07:28:04\ngoing around and let’s say\rsomebody had a box\n\n00:07:28:04 - 00:07:31:12\nin the window with\rsome flowers, they say\n\n00:07:31:12 - 00:07:35:11\nthey write them up, all of\rthat’s messing with you\n\n00:07:35:11 - 00:07:36:20\nhow you breathe.\n\n00:07:36:20 - 00:07:39:10\nOr they have abandoned car\n\n00:07:39:10 - 00:07:45:03\nbut they mostly went to \rpeople of color and elderly.\n\n00:07:45:03 - 00:07:47:00\nAnd say, “Well your house\n\n00:07:47:00 - 00:07:51:17\nneeds to be painted,\rthat you need to take that all the stuff.”\n\n00:07:51:17 - 00:07:56:11\nAnd you know, \rthese people didn’t have much money.\n\n00:07:56:11 - 00:08:02:11\nYou know, and remember some\rof these people were elderly people\n\n00:08:02:11 - 00:08:09:02\nand they had been through a lot.\rThey had been through segregation, depression.\n\n00:08:09:02 - 00:08:14:15\nAnd, you know, it was easy to frighten them.\n\n00:08:14:15 - 00:08:17:03\nBut we stopped a lot of people\n\n00:08:17:03 - 00:08:20:00\nand we helped them to, uh,\n\n00:08:20:00 - 00:08:23:20\nyou know, to fix the problems\n\n00:08:23:20 - 00:08:28:09\nso the inspectors would\rsign off that it’s fixed.\n\n00:08:28:09 - 00:08:31:18\nWe did stop people from selling.\n\n00:08:31:20 - 00:08:36:02\nBut I think if we had not done\rnothing, most of those\n\n00:08:36:02 - 00:08:39:02\npeople would have sold their house,\n\n00:08:39:02 - 00:08:41:17\nand sell for nothing.\n\n00:08:41:17 - 00:08:46:14\nI became involved with Venice\rCommunity housing\n\n00:08:46:14 - 00:08:52:09\nbecause at first\rI was hearing bad things about it\n\n00:08:52:09 - 00:08:56:03\nand I decided I really want to find out\n\n00:08:56:03 - 00:08:59:19\nwhat they've been saying is true.\n\n00:08:59:19 - 00:09:04:18\nAnd so I started,\rI was asked to be on the Board.\n\n00:09:04:18 - 00:09:07:22\nAnd so that's when I found Venice.\n\n00:09:07:22 - 00:09:10:20\nThose things that people were saying\n\n00:09:10:20 - 00:09:14:22\nwas not true and Venice Community Housing\n\n00:09:14:22 - 00:09:17:18\nthey’ve been doing a wonderful job.\n\n00:09:17:18 - 00:09:23:23\n Like especially the TLC\rwhere like women who\n\n00:09:23:23 - 00:09:28:16\nhave a child and wanna\rtry and do better,\n\n00:09:28:16 - 00:09:31:16\nyou know, get a job and get out of,\n\n00:09:31:16 - 00:09:33:21\nyou know, public housing.\n\n00:09:33:21 - 00:09:38:21\nAnd I was on the board for over 20 years.\n\n00:09:38:21 - 00:09:42:17\nThat's how much I believed in that.\rI wouldn't have stayed\n\n00:09:42:17 - 00:09:46:04\nif I didn't believe what they're doing.\n\n00:09:46:04 - 00:09:50:16\nThe VNAC was Laddie Williams.\n\n00:09:50:16 - 00:09:54:03\nWhose real name is Cecelia\n\n00:09:54:03 - 00:09:58:16\nWilliams, myself, Jataun Valentine,\n\n00:09:58:16 - 00:10:02:15\nCynthia Vincent was on that.\n\n00:10:02:15 - 00:10:04:06\nVNAC was good\n\n00:10:04:06 - 00:10:10:13\nbecause we only solved problems\rthat, as they came up,\n\n00:10:10:13 - 00:10:14:16\nI told Laddie we gonna \rbe working ‘til we die\n\n00:10:14:16 - 00:10:17:02\n‘cause there’s always a problem.\n\n00:10:17:02 - 00:10:22:03\nHow I met Laddie was uh, \rI was wanting to know\n\n00:10:22:03 - 00:10:25:15\nabout some of the people that elderly\n\n00:10:25:15 - 00:10:29:04\nthat were, have been in Venice a long time\n\n00:10:29:04 - 00:10:33:18\nbecause I used to see her\rgrandfather, Henry Williams,\n\n00:10:33:18 - 00:10:36:19\nin fact, my sister Jackie said,\n\n00:10:36:19 - 00:10:40:05\ncause he was over a hundred\rshe said Mr.\n\n00:10:40:05 - 00:10:41:22\nHill, Henry Will...\n\n00:10:41:22 - 00:10:44:01\nI say, okay mister.\n\n00:10:44:01 - 00:10:48:03\nAnd so I went by his house.\n\n00:10:48:03 - 00:10:50:19\nUh, Laddie and I started talking\n\n00:10:50:19 - 00:10:54:23\nuntil we seen that we go to each others houses.\n\n00:10:54:23 - 00:10:58:06\nYou know, we became good friends.\n\n00:10:58:06 - 00:11:01:08\nI'm still a good friend to her now.\n\n00:11:01:08 - 00:11:05:17\nOne time there was a meeting at the park,\n\n00:11:05:17 - 00:11:11:00\nso Laddie Williams and I\rtalking to Mike Bonin,\n\n00:11:11:00 - 00:11:16:13\nhe claimed, he claimed, and I'm\rstill gonna say claimed, ‘cause I don’t believe him.\n\n00:11:16:13 - 00:11:19:23\nHe said that he had a meeting\n\n00:11:19:23 - 00:11:24:14\nand uh, we, we, we finally said\n\n00:11:24:14 - 00:11:26:19\nOK, well I’ll tell you what\n\n00:11:26:19 - 00:11:33:16\nwe’ll let you have a meeting, \ryou could go first but we cut his time\n\n00:11:33:16 - 00:11:36:12\n(laughs)  and we\n\n00:11:36:12 - 00:11:41:03\nwe had more time for ourselves\rwhen it was time for us.\n\n00:11:41:03 - 00:11:42:23\nSo I don’t think he won.\n\n00:11:42:23 - 00:11:44:15\nWe won that one.\n\n00:11:44:15 - 00:11:48:13\nYou could make a difference,\rbut you have to be committed to it\n\n00:11:48:13 - 00:11:52:08\nbecause nothing happens in a day.\n\n00:11:52:08 - 00:11:56:08\nAnd people might say,\roh, you’ll never get this done.\n\n00:11:56:08 - 00:12:00:10\nYou never give up until the problem\n\n00:12:00:10 - 00:12:03:15\nis settled, the right way.\n\n00:12:03:21 - 00:12:06:07\nAnd I had made my mind up\n\n00:12:06:07 - 00:12:11:21\nthat I love Venice and whatever comes up\n\n00:12:11:21 - 00:12:18:18\nI wanna try to do the best I can\rto help that situation.\n\n00:12:19:01 - 00:12:23:10\nPeople who’ve never been \rto Venice should know\n\n00:12:23:10 - 00:12:27:09\nthere’s still some families in Venice.\r\n\n00:12:27:09 - 00:12:32:16\nIt's not just homeless people\ron Venice Beach.\r\n\n00:12:32:16 - 00:12:34:10\nThere's more to it.\r\n\n00:12:34:10 - 00:12:37:18\nYou know, you have to go \rthrough changes, but uh,\n\n00:12:37:18 - 00:12:41:19\nyou still can't beat Venice weather.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119595/file/226599#t=0.0,781.01333"}]}]}]}