The Lawrence Tract in Public History
Axios article by Shawna Chen
Image courtesy of artist, Kija Lucas
“An experiment in carefully cultivated racial integration—one that included Asian, Black, and white people—marks the Lawrence Tract as a unique suburban development in a vast sea of of 1950s subdivisions, many of which were the exact opposite, consciously designed as segregated.”
Excerpt from A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area
by Rachel Brahinsky and Alexander Tarr
pp. 98-100
“Few Americans in the early 1960s had an opportunity to live in an interracial community. Of course some white and black Americans were living in close proximity with one another, especially in urban areas and on southern farms. Typically in cities and suburbs, racial proximity was literally fleeting, as white families fled whenever black families moved into their neighborhoods. Sure, black and white tenant farmers lived near one another on Jane’s family farm, but who could call that a community?”
From Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War
by H. Bruce Franklin, former Lawrence Tract resident
p.159—
“In 1950 the Fair Play Council developed a plan that was radical for the period, a racially integrated housing tract. Members of the council contributed down payments to purchase about 25 lots. Paul Lawrence, an African-American student at Stanford, was contact with the City of Palo Alto planning commission. The subdivision was later named the Lawrence Tract. There were of course hostile reactions from local whites. Gerda got some unpleasant phone calls. She felt that the project, while small, definitely proved something. In 1950 she ran for the state assembly 28th district seat on the Democratic ticket, but lost.”
— From, “Two Lost Landmarks”
Los Altos Hills Historical Society
“Lawrence Tract: A Bold Experiment in Integrated living,” by Loretta Green. March 31, 1980—Peninsula Times Tribune
and
“A distinguished Leader Recalls ‘Other’ Days,” by Loretta Green. [undated]
Construction Starts on First Home of 23-Unity Colorado Ave. Project.” February 23, 1950. Palo Alto Daily Times.