The Black Elders of Long Beach -- Definition

The Black Elders of Long Beach are defined here as:

 that generation of Black people who are the children of people

who migrated to Long Beach in the Great Migration of the 1940s,

1950s, and 1960s.

Those children are historically significant for several reasons:

       – their parents' stories are the stories of the Great Migration

      
       of Blacks out of the South to Long Beach...and their

      
       stories have not been recorded for history

       – they are the first generation of Black children to grow

      
       up in Long Beach after the Great Migration

      
       started,making them the bridge generation between

      
       the pre-Migration and post-Migration Long Beach

      
       Black population. Their stories need to be told and

      
        recorded – they are the elder generation in their families

        today, and therefore have the responsibility to tell the
 
        story of the past to the younger generations in their families.

This site is devoted to the premise that this generation today

holds the key to their families' future; not just their families'

immediate future over the next few years, but their

children's future, their grandchildren's, their great grandchildren's,

and beyond.


It is the members of this generation, and only this generation
,
that are best suited to instill a sense of historical identity and

a sense of responsible connectedness to a larger social

network, than now exists in the members of the younger

generations.
 

That is one focus of this blog:  to provide a forum for giving voice

to this elder generation--within their families, within their circle of

friends and associates, and within the larger community (local, city,

state, and national) in which they live.


A second focus is on providing tools to facilitate the elder

generation's success in positively impacting their younger

generations--within their families, and beyond.  The two tools that

we are initiating this focus with are (1) what we have named the

 "WorkStory;"and (2) the "Family History."