Altadena, California, has one of California’s oldest and most affluent middle-class Black neighborhoods. That neighborhood was affected by the 2025 Eaton Canyon fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes across the entire Altadena community. Before the fire, Altadena was known for its cozy bungalows and elegant craftsman homes along tree-lined streets, as well as its scenic hiking and equestrian trails. Now celebrating its 125th year, Altadena is an unincorporated community of Los Angeles County with no city council, mayor, police, or fire department. Its residents rely on Los Angeles County for almost all emergency resources.
Situated near the base of the San Gabriel Mountains north of Pasadena and northeast of downtown Los Angeles, in 1960, Altadena was 95% white and 4% Black. Partly because of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in housing, and because the community had relatively inexpensive housing by Southern California standards, African Americans began moving into the town of 42,000 in the 1970s in significant numbers.
Unlike other communities that saw an influx of African Americans accompanied by significant white flight, Altadena adapted to the changing demographics while maintaining its unique character. As late as 1970, the town was 68% percent white. By 1980, the percentage of Blacks in the population peaked at 43%. Since then, it declined to 31%, and by 2020, it was 18%. The white population in 2020 was 46%, and Asian Americans and Latinos, almost all of whom have arrived since the 1990s, comprised most of the remainder of the community.
Although clearly a multiracial community, Altadena’s Black population included a number of middle-class African American professionals such as doctors, engineers, attorneys, pharmacists, and teachers. It also included many working-class people, such as railroad and factory workers, who, as first-time home buyers, acquired properties in the area.
Altadena’s most prominent African American residents have included actor Sidney Poitier, science fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler, and former Black Panther Party leader Leroy Eldridge Cleaver, the author of Soul on Ice. With one of California’s most affluent Black populations, half of its African American households earn more than $100,000 a year, and the Black homeownership rate is 70%.
It is still too early to estimate the impact of the recent multiple catastrophic wildfires that raged through Altadena, engulfing and destroying more than 1,000 structures and killing at least five people. Still, as of January 2025, all Altadena residents grieve the loss of homes and life in their historical community. For African Americans, however, the fires have devastated the dreams of at least three generations who, in the 1970s, found a community where they could establish and maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Many are wondering if they have to start from nothing to rebuild or if their community will be permanently swept away by the pressures of rapidly escalating home prices associated with gentrification and the decades-long housing shortage faced by all Southern Californians.
