The Grays: Black Excellence in Santa Rosa

Will the city be unbroken — Will the Circle Be Unbroken? On Growing-up “Negro” in Santa Rosa, KRCB Radio series supported by the Gray Foundation, Pamphlet n.d. View in our Digital Collection.

Alice and Gilbert can count on their fingers the number of African-American families (they would have said ‘Negro’ then) in Santa Rosa when they arrived. In 1951, these families had established a church, a mission of the Village Baptist Church, and by 1956, they had their own congregation in a building they built themselves, Community Baptist Church on Grand Avenue. By the mid-‘50s, they had also established a Sonoma County chapter of the NAACP and set about the work that Gilbert Gray describes as ‘opening doors.’

— LeBaron, Gaye. “Real Life Story of One Family's American Dream.” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, January 26, 1992.>

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