ON JULY 7, 2025, I RETURNED TO ALTADENA.

Beneath a bruised summer sky, I gathered with hundreds of others to mark six months since the Eaton Canyon wildfire. We stood on the property of Evelyn McClendon, the first identified victim, whose brother, Zaire Calvin, was once my schoolmate. The fire ultimately claimed nineteen lives, with twenty-two still missing.

That evening, I felt connected to Altadena in a way I never had before. The land was scarred, yes, but I trusted nature to heal. The contrast between the charred remains and the picturesque scenes etched in my memory would take time to reconcile. My uncertainty wasn’t about the land’s recovery, it was about the people. Could they bounce back?

At the vigil, I felt the weight of Altadena’s stories, its people’s struggles, and their deep appreciation for community. The experience moved me beyond nostalgia, beyond survivor’s guilt, and beyond the familiar swell of emotion when a group sings “Amazing Grace” in unison.

That evening, Tongva scientist Samantha Morales Johnson Yang lifted sage toward the sky and in a somber voice said, “There’s not enough sage in the world for all the problems we have right now. But I’ve got enough to honor the ones who came before us.” A series of pastors led prayers for the fallen. Then Pasadena NAACP President Brandon Lamar read aloud demands: direct aid, streamlined permits, and community-led rebuilding efforts, among others. Altadenans rightfully demanded justice. Their lives and land were at stake. Beyond repairing homes and lives, toxic lead still lingers in the soil where homes once stood, which is a devastating health threat for Altadenans.

The refrain rose and echoed: Altadena is not for sale. We stood in silence while the names of the eighteen souls were spoken. Candles flickered as the sun sank behind the horizon. We broke bread together as tamales and patties passed hand to hand.

As I stood there, my mind wandered. I knew the acute pain felt due to losing someone in a

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IT WAS A HUB FOR BLACK FAMILIES SEEKING SELF-DETERMINED LIVES BEYOND JIM CROW… BURNED OR BEAUTIFUL, THE LAND REMAINS NURTURING AND GRACIOUS, RESILIENT AND FAIR.

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fire. Twenty years earlier, my sister Shennea Sarah Anderson died by fire in Los Angeles. At least I could offer understanding. Or maybe, I wanted to reassert my connection to the land and its people because I feared that without it, I would lose a part of myself and my footing on the land that raised me.

Although my home now was the Bronx, I had been raised in Altadena. My memories of a joyous childhood there come easily. Growing up in that community in the 1980s, I remember horses trotting past our house on their way to the Loma Alta equestrian center or nearby Chaney Trail and Gabrielino Trail. My siblings and I hiked Millard Canyon, cruised by the Altadena Community Garden, swam at Loma Alta Park and occasionally celebrated events at Farnsworth Park. At my grandparents’ house on Neldome Street, we picked apricots, plums, and grapes.

Our family’s roots stretched back to East Texas, a place marked with pine woods, the Sabine River, dirt roads, plantations, and unmarked graves. In 1926, my grandfather’s aunt, Rosa Bell Smith Bowens Lavergne, traveled west and made a home with her husband in Ripley, Riverside County, just southeast of Altadena. It was a hub for Black families seeking self-determined lives beyond Jim Crow. They worked cotton and alfalfa until, by the 1940s, they moved to Pasadena, drawing relatives along, including my grandfather, Obzine Scott.

In 1960, my grandparents, Obzine and Thelma Scott, purchased a home on Neldome Street in

Altadena on the west side, defying realtors and banks that sought to keep Black families out. Their migration, like that of thousands of others, was ultimately an act of resistance. They demanded freedom, land, and opportunity for themselves and their descendants.

That pursuit carried Black Americans west into foothills and cities where redlining penned us in

and violence pushed us out. Our claim to the land was always contested by racism, by fire, and by profiteers eager to seize what we built. Still, we remained. We cultivated gardens, built churches, created businesses, founded libraries, and raised families.

Decades later, in 2025, flames consumed four of my family’s homes. I understood then how fragile our claim remained. And yet, that claim wasn’t only ours as Black Altadenans. The Hahamog’na and Tongva peoples were the first to live here. Altadena was known for the bounty of food it provided, including oranges, olives, walnuts, dates, and avocados. Burned or beautiful, the land remains nurturing and gracious, resilient and fair.

Back in my Bronx apartment, reflecting on the six-month memorial and the tapestry of people gathered there, I realized something. We are more than our individual journeys or struggles. We are bonded by geography, by proximity, by community, by grief. We are children of these foothills. We all have a stake.

As I write this, I am planning my return to Altadena for the first anniversary vigil. I am being called home, summoned to the land of my childhood to demand justice and accountability, help nurture and rebuild it. Because after such a devastating wildfire, the land needs us, just as we have always needed it.