"Tarea Hall Pittman" (1903-1991)

Was civil right worker,social worker,and community activists.Born in Bakersfield,California she, was was the second of the five children of William Hall and Susie Pinkney.Her father,a farm laborer who moved from Alabama to Bakersfield in 1895,helped his brothers found the Bakersfield Branch of the NAACP .She experienced racial prejudice in Bakersfield,Tarea did attend integrated public schools and in 1923 enrolled at the University of California,Berkeley.Black students were not allowed to reside in campus housing leading Tarea to use personal connections to find accommodations.Through these connections she met William Pittman,a dental student whom she married in 1927.Tarea became active in the NAACP and California State Association of Colored Women's Club in the early 1930s.She served as President of the Association from 1936 to 1938.Her work with the Association included voter registration and funding orphanages for African-Americans children.In 1936 she organized west coast branches of the National Negro Congress assisted in the creation of the Negro Education Council which provided research and funded "Negroes in the News,"a radio program devoted to publicizing positive news about the African American community.William often hosted the programs as well and became a recognized radio personality across  the U.S.After dropping out of school to marry her husband and support his career,Tarea returned to college and received an A.B. in social service from San Francisco State College in 1939.In 1941,Tarea,anticpating the large scale migration of blacks to the West Coast began helping the first arrivals from the the South integrate into Bay Area communities.She also organize protests against Kaiser Shipyards and other War industries in 1941 and 1942 to force them to hire African-Americans.Tarea always and active clubwoman,served as President of the California Council of Negro Woman from 1948 to 1951.She also continued her civil rights work,helping to desegregate the Oakland Fire Department in 1952 and working on behalf of the NAACP,helping to lobby successfully for the California Fair Employment Practice (fep) bill which signed into law in 1959 by Governor Edmund "Pat Brown.Partly because of this success she served as Director of the West Coast Region of the NAACP from 1961 to 1965.During her tenure,she worked to get FEP laws passed in Arizona,Alaska,and Nevada.She retired from theNAACP but continued to broadcast the "New Negroes in the News"radio program in the late 1970s.After protracted illness,she passed away,having been an integral part of the civil rights and social welfare movements in the Bay Area and the West Coast for much of the 20 Century.