News release
Santa Clarita trailblazers gathered to share history during the “First & Famous Black Trailblazers of Santa Clarita” meet-and-greet in observance of the Juneteenth holiday.
The event, held at Meet@Metro on Prima Way, featured presentations from civic leaders who shared how they reached success. The trailblazers are featured in “First & Famous Black Trailblazers of Santa Clarita,” which was released in February during Black History Month as an educational resource.
“We are fortunate to have many of the ‘firsts’ still here to share experiences and inspire the next generation,” Gloria Locke, co-author and illustrator of the book, said in a news release. “Santa Clarita is still witnessing firsts in Black history, even in 2026.”
When the city of Santa Clarita was established in 1987, one of its founders was Louis E. Brathwaite, the first commissioner appointed to the city Planning Commission. He had lived in Santa Clarita since 1969, and last year, a street was named in his honor.
Rlynn Smith-Thomas, current president of the NAACP’s Santa Clarita chapter, opened the discussion at the event. “The NAACP is the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. We are celebrating our fifth year as a Santa Clarita branch,” she said, according to the release. “We seek to engage, educate and empower, in that order. Engage with the community. We want to do the good work.”
The local NAACP chapter’s first president, Valerie Bradford, said she was recently asked why local Black people keep saying “first” all the time. “We are oftentimes the only one in the room,” Bradford said in the release. “We are still trailblazers in Santa Clarita. We will stop saying ‘first’ when it no longer exists.”
Cherise Moore, a member of the William S. Hart Union High School District board of trustees, said she stands “on the shoulders of Louis Brathwaite,” as she pointed to the poster in the room depicting Brathwaite, one of the founders of the city of Santa Clarita who was the first member named to the city’s Planning Commission.
appropriately looming over the panelists’ shoulders. “Louis Brathwaite was first involved with the schools as a school board member. He was the first (local) Black school board member. How important it is to get this book into the libraries in the Hart district — and that is the step that we are taking to make sure history isn’t lost.”
Jim Ventress, the former director of the Santa Clarita Valley Boys and Girls Club, recalled that, in 1985, he was invited to the newly built SCV Boys and Girls Club. “I said I would only stay for one year. Well, 37 years later, I retired from the Boys and Girls Club,” Ventress said in the release. “Louis Brathwaite was one of the first people I met who then introduced me to Ed Bolden, who was one of the founders of the Boys Club,” which had not yet been renamed the Boys ‘and Girls’ Club.
Other local trailblazers who participated in the session included: clergyman Julius Harper; Gloria Mercado-Fortine, a former school board member and board member of the Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers; Jeffrey Forrest, a former vice president of economic and workforce development at College of the Canyons; singer and actor Sy Richardson; Kei Kei Dover, founder and CEO of Coco Moms; Jeffrey Thompson, producer and Disney executive; and, Di Thompson, the first Black woman to chair the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce.
