For years, redlining drove inequities in Altadena and Pasadena. Lake Avenue, which bifurcates the two into east and west, had historically been a de facto segregation line preventing families of color from purchasing properties east of Lake Avenue.
Still, Black Angelenos found a rare kind of prosperity in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley as Altadena became one of California's first integrated middle-class neighborhoods. King's uncle, M. Earl Grant, founded Family Savings & Loan in 1949, one of the first Black-owned financial institutions west of the Mississippi that offered mortgage loans to families of color, King said. There was a doctor's row, a block of Black medical professionals, and lawyers and school principals. Jackie Robinson's mother, Sidney Poitier and Octavia Butler all called Altadena home.
Read more in NPR.