A Black couple defied racism by renting to a Chinese language household. Now comes $5 million in thanks
Each morning, Lloyd Dong Sr. would take the ferry from San Diego to Coronado, the place he labored as a gardener for rich owners. And each evening, he would retreat again dwelling throughout the bay, barred by racially restrictive housing practices within the early 1900s from renting or shopping for his personal home within the city.
Gus and Emma Thompson — a Black couple who had managed to safe possession of Coronado property earlier than restrictions took maintain — boldly rented a home they owned to the Dong household, whose Chinese language heritage blocked them from dwelling in the neighborhood. The intersection of those two households amid the embedded racism of the time would many years later change into a narrative of gratitude, made attainable by the very dwelling that after belonged to the Thompsons.
Some 85 years for the reason that Dongs moved to Coronado, Lloyd Sr.’s sons, Ron Dong and Lloyd Dong Jr., are donating $5 million from their portion of the sale of the home they ultimately got here to personal to San Diego State College’s Black Useful resource Heart.
The reward will broaden scholarships for Black college students and fund future renovations on the middle, its director, Brandon Gamble, stated.
“I do not know how one can describe the sensation in my chest, however there is a feeling that racism provides that people are acquainted with; you could not be capable of describe it on a regular basis,” Gamble stated. “That is the exact opposite, and we don’t get to entry it sufficient.”
Ron Dong, 86, the eldest son, stated his father “tried and tried [to live in Coronado] and the one factor that got here up was Gus Thompson keen to hire his home that he had accessible…. That was the massive plus for our household, as a result of it has made all of the distinction for us.”
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Gus Thompson was born into slavery in Kentucky in 1859, two years earlier than the Civil Battle broke out. He moved to Coronado in his 20s looking for work and a brand new life after listening to that industrialist tycoon Elisha Spurr Babcock was corralling cash to begin a brand new resort in California, in keeping with Coronado historian Kevin Ashley. Lodge del Coronado opened in 1888 as the most important resort on the earth on the time.
He turned the Babcock household’s coachman and shortly gained respect within the Higher San Diego space, founding a Prince Hall Freemasonry lodge in San Diego for Black middle-class males to congregate and talk about civil rights. In 1893 Gus married Emma, who ran a espresso tent in Coronado’s Tent City, the place locals and guests would flock to eat, store and keep, a extra inexpensive different to the luxurious resort.
Emma was additionally a frontrunner of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the primary Black church in San Diego and a vocal advocate for the 1922 Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which might have labeled lynching as a federal felony if not blocked by Southern Democrats within the Senate. It could take Congress 100 years to cross a federal anti-lynching bill, in 2022.
The Thompsons purchased a number of properties in Coronado round 1900 earlier than the Nationwide Assn. of Actual Property Boards formally adopted racially restrictive practices within the Nineteen Twenties, making them one of many few Black households to personal a house in Coronado.
Jobs for Black folks had been restricted and primarily included work as maids or drivers, Ashley stated. On the newly well-liked and lavish Lodge del Coronado, minstrel reveals featured white performers in blackface.
As leaders of Higher San Diego’s Black group, the Thompsons used their standing to increase assist to Asian People in Coronado, who had been additionally subjected to racist practices of the occasions.
“It’s simply one thing you do, as a result of there was a variety of oppression so that you assist those that had been below menace as effectively,” stated the Thompsons’ great-grandson, Ballinger Gardner Kemp, 76, who lives within the Bay Space. “To me, the attractive half is that it wasn’t thought of that large of a factor.”
His great-grandparents rented their home on C Avenue to a Japanese household within the Nineteen Twenties — after which to Lloyd Sr. and his spouse in 1939 below a rent-to-own settlement. The couple additionally rented a room in one other one in all their properties, simply blocks away, to Lloyd Sr.’s youthful brother, George Dong, after he got here again from serving in World Battle II.
“I believe there was positively a stage of ally-ship occurring,” Ashley stated.
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Lloyd Sr. was born of Chinese language heritage in 1905 in Bakersfield, the place most Asian People labored in agriculture. However as California tightened its Alien Land Laws barring Asian immigrants and ultimately American-born youngsters of Asian immigrants from proudly owning or leasing land, life in Bakersfield turned too tough for Lloyd Sr., Ashley stated.
He moved to San Diego, the place he labored a number of jobs — at a Chinese language division retailer and as a painter at an auto restore store for greater than a decade earlier than discovering work in Coronado as a gardener. Lloyd Sr. ferried forwards and backwards each day for his gardening work till he got here throughout the Thompsons and their beneficiant supply in 1939 to hire their home so he may stay nearer to work.
Gus died in 1947, and eight years later, Emma offered two properties to Lloyd Sr. and one property to George Dong, making the Dongs one of many solely — if not the one — Asian owners in Coronado, Ashley stated.
The property offered to George Dong was the Thompsons’ authentic dwelling in-built 1895, alongside F Avenue the place George rented a room. The properties offered to Lloyd Sr. included the home they had been renting, constructed round 1900, in addition to a livery steady in-built 1902. The second ground of the livery steady was used as a boarding home for Black folks.
“African People who had been in Coronado for work, possibly as a driver for a rich particular person staying on the resort, would hire a room within the livery steady proper subsequent to the Dongs’ home,” Ashley stated. “That was a vital place for a lot of African People to have that livery steady as a spot” to remain.
Lloyd Sr. turned the livery steady into an residence constructing in 1957, which, along with the home, is estimated to be value greater than $7 million right now, Ron Dong stated.
Though the Dong youngsters had been too younger to recollect the Thompsons, they recalled a hodgepodge of recollections rising up in Coronado, from water snowboarding with pals in San Diego Bay to dealing with discrimination as a result of they had been among the many few Asian American children on the town.
Lloyd Jr., 81, stated he remembered how his mom tried to maintain him busy when she discovered he was the one pupil not invited to a birthday celebration in second grade. Ron Dong recalled how he and the opposite nonwhite college students would get collectively the evening white youths gathered for cotillion as a result of they by no means obtained invitations. And earlier than he went off to school, he remembered the day his highschool girlfriend’s father came visiting to the home to persuade Lloyd Sr. to finish their biracial relationship.
“[My father] stood up for me,” Ron Dong stated. “He instructed him that was our enterprise, not theirs.”
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Ron Dong and his spouse, Janice Dong, are each retired lecturers in San Jose and have beforehand donated to the United Negro School Fund with a number of charitable the rest trusts at different universities. Lloyd Jr. is a retired tax preparer and auditor in Anaheim. Neither brothers have youngsters.
When Ashley reached out to the Dongs in 2022 after discovering the Thompsons’ connection to their household, the Dong brothers knew they wished to provide their portion of the property sale again to the group.
“We’ve got different property and my nieces and nephews are established, so I simply thought I’ll give it to somebody who may gain advantage from it,” Lloyd Jr. stated.
The Thompsons’ great-granddaughter, 65-year-old Lauren Few, praised the Dongs for eager to return her great-grandparents’ generosity practically a century later.
“We want extra of that on the earth right now,” stated Few, who lives in Colorado Springs.
Kemp, Lauren’s brother, comes from a household of lecturers and is a retired lawyer who represented lecturers for 35 years. He stated the Dongs’ concept to place the cash towards training was good.
“There isn’t any extra necessary job than being a trainer, since you’re the one particular person exterior of somebody’s household that has a shot at actually altering a life,” Kemp stated.
This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.
