Former Mayor A.I. Stewart promoted housing covenants that barred Black residents and other people of color from buying or occupying homes in Pasadena during the early 20th century.
Black people moved to Pasadena and Altadena, after the Great Migration of African Americans from the South.
A 1917 court ruling declared the covenants unconstitutional but allowed for private agreements to continue.
In 2022, a letter circulated exposing the long-forgotten hate campaign aimed at stopping Black people from owning local homes.
The letter sparked calls not to just recognize the horrors of the past but to deal with the two men widely responsible for the campaign of hate and discrimination — Stewart and attorney Herbert Hahn, a founding partner decades ago in the prestigious local law firm Hahn and Hahn.
Calls went out to remove Stewart’s photograph from the Hall of Mayors at City Hall and to posthumously strip Hahn of the city’s Arthur Noble Civic Medal and remove his plaque from City Hall.
Councilmembers Tyron Hampton and Justin Jones requested the City Council review the legacy of the former mayor and chairman and potentially decide if his portrait should be removed from City Hall.
Jones’ family has long combated racism in Pasadena.
In 1902, long before modern political districts existed, Jones’ great-grandfather, a Black pioneer and newspaper editor, Seaborn (S.B.) Carr stood before the City Council to oppose a group of white property owners that petitioned the city to stop a Black church congregation from building a chapel on South Pasadena Avenue, near what is now the 710 stub.
Carr called out the alleged racism directly during his public comment to the council. “It is not the church that is objected to, but the color of the members of the congregation… Don’t pity the negro, I want to have fair play, fair play.”
The council voted to block the church, an early example of local government enforcing segregation.
Over the next few decades, discrimination became an official system.
According to records from the Pasadena Historical Society’s Black History Project, housed at the Pasadena Museum, the fight continued through the family.
Carr’s daughter-in-law, Clara Carr, contributed to a crucial 1939 lawsuit filed by Black residents against the city over the segregated Brookside Plunge.
Following that lawsuit, city leaders formed the Pasadena Improvement Association. A.I. Stewart served as secretary-treasurer, working with powerful local attorney Herbert L. Hahn. Together, they added racial restrictions to property deeds, locking non-white families out of a majority of Pasadena’s residential properties by 1941.
When the Supreme Court ordered the city to open the pool in 1942, Stewart’s administration shut the Plunge down completely for five years rather than integrate.
That same year, Mayor Stewart watched the forced removal of Japanese American residents to horse stalls at the Santa Anita racetrack.
Today, Stewart’s portrait still hangs in City Hall, and Hahn’s name is listed as a recipient of the Arthur Noble Award in the City Council Chambers.
Pasadena’s government remained entirely white until 1973, when Henry “Hank” Wilfong Jr. became the first Black person elected to Pasadena’s Board of Directors (now the City Council). Wilfong, a Korean War veteran and businessman, won his seat in a city-wide election.
This history connects directly to the current City Council. Councilmember Tyron Hampton, who represents District 1, is the cousin of Hank Wilfong.
Hampton and Jones, along with their colleagues, are a direct, living bridge to the people who fought against Pasadena’s old laws.
Today the city is led by Victor Gordo, a Mexican American mayor. Gene Masuda, a Japanese American representative whose family was interred during World War II while Stewart was mayor, also sits on the City Council.
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