| Tarea Hall Pittman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Tarea Hall 1903 Bakersfield, California |
| Died | July 31, 1991 |
| Alma mater | San Francisco State University |
| Occupation | Civil rights leader |
| Known for | Director of the West Coast Region of the NAACP |
Tarea Hall Pittman (1903–July 31, 1991) was an American civil rights leader who served as President of the California State Association of Colored Women’s Clubs from 1936 to 1938 and of the California Council of Negro Women from 1948 to 1951, and as Director of the West Coast Region of the NAACP from 1961 to 1965.
Biography
She was born in Bakersfield, California in 1903, the second of five children born to William Hall and Susie Pinkney. Her father had moved from Alabama to Bakersfield in 1895 and made his living as a farm laborer. He helped his brothers found the Bakersfield Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Tarea Hall attended integrated public schools in Bakersfield and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley in 1923. Because Black students were not allowed to reside in campus housing at that time, she used her personal connections to find accommodations. In 1927, she married William Pittman, a dental student and dropped out of college to support him. Eventually, she enrolled in San Francisco State College and received her A.B. in social service in 1939.
Tarea Pittman organized protests to force Kaiser Shipyards to hire African Americans in 1941 and 1942, helped desegregate the Oakland Fire Department in 1952, and lobbied successfully for the California Fair Employment Practices Act in 1959. She also helped with the passage of similar laws in Arizona, Alaska, and Nevada.
Throughout her career, Pittman continued to broadcast the Negroes in the News radio program into the late 1970s. Pittman was the Director of the West Coast Region of the NAACP from 1961 to 1965 and retired from the NAACP in 1970 and she died on July 31, 1991. She was said to have been an "integral part of the civil rights and social welfare movements in the Bay Area and the West Coast for much of the 20th Century."
In 2015 the Berkeley, California city council voted to rename the city's South Branch Library in Pittman's honor after a community petition.
References
- ^ "Pittman, Tarea Hall (1903-1991)". Blackpast. BlackPast.org. 13 December 2012. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
- Tom Lochner (2015-05-08). "Berkeley library board reverses course, recommends renaming branch after late civil rights activist". Contra Costa Times.
- Natalie Orenstein (2015-02-24). "Neighbors Push to Rename Berkeley's South Branch Library After Civil Rights Leader". KQED.
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External links
- Earl Warren Oral History Project: Tarea Hall Pittman, NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker
- Guide to the Tarea Hall Pittman papers, ca. 1951-1970
- All-American Newsreel episode showing Tarea Hall Pittman broadcasting on KLS, Oakland, California, from Library of Congress