Help Get Justice for the Survivors of Section 14

Please Note: All of your donations are being submitted to the treasurer (Gloria Thompson) on behalf of PS Section 14 Survivors.

All proceeds will fund outreach to find other survivors, pay legal fees and related costs and provide immediate support and relief to our most at-risk survivors.

Imagine witnessing your house and belongings deliberately burned to the ground and being forced out of the neighborhood you built, not knowing where you would sleep that night. Imagine if the perpetrator was your own government—and the motivation was racism and greed. Imagine if the government admitted to it but never did anything to make you whole again.

The survivors of California’s Palm Springs Section 14 don’t have to imagine. They live with the inescapable memory and scars every day.

Palm Springs Darkest Secret

Palm Springs of today is an escape for the rich and famous. The actions that paved the way for that wealthy enclave are akin to the Tulsa, Oklahoma and Rosewood, Florida race massacres, where families who built strong, beautiful, thriving communities had their lives upended. Their very existence was threatened for no reason other than the color of their skin.

In the early 1900s, the City of Palm Springs enacted racially restrictive covenants preventing African Americans and Latinos from living in communities near its predominantly white residents, relegating its minority population to an area of town referred to as Section 14. Then, in the 1960s, the city hatched a plan to demolish Section 14 for the purpose of developing it into more lucrative commercial enterprises.

To clear the area, the city issued an order to destroy homes in the community. There is no documentation that proper and timely legal notice was provided to the residents. Houses were burned down by the city’s fire department and bulldozed to the ground. In most cases, families’ personal property and belongings were also burned and destroyed. Many residents came home from work and school to find their homes demolished.

A 1965 report from the California Attorney General described the events as a “city-engineered holocaust.” Sixty years later, the city issued a formal apology but has taken no other action to right these wrongs.

Learn more about the atrocities of Section 14 on the Survivors’ group website.

Justice for Section 14 Survivors

Reparations will not wash away the sins of oppression and theft entwined with this country’s history of racial discrimination, restrictive covenants, and the endemic racialized trauma that is a very intentional consequence of those practices. But ensuring that reparations are made is the very least we can do to begin to right the wrongs.

Please support our ongoing efforts to fight for Justice for Section 14 Survivors by donating today.

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Please Note: All of your donations are being submitted to the treasurer (Gloria Thompson) on behalf of PS Section 14 Survivors.