Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I've paddled out with people who had Confederate flag that
Speaker 2: was their surfboard.
Speaker 1: This is Martina Duran. As a black woman learning to
Speaker 1: surf in Florida, she was always hyper aware of her identity.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Miami, and I like to say,
Speaker 2: there's like this imaginary line, like when you cross the
Speaker 2: beach into the water where the diversity just drops, and
Speaker 2: not just in racial diversity, but gender diversity as well.
Speaker 3: You feel like an island out there right, Like you
Speaker 3: feel like all eyes are on you because you do
Speaker 3: stick out.
Speaker 1: And this is Chelsea Woody.
Speaker 3: I do think that I did try harder because I
Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, I wanted to fit in. I
Speaker 3: wanted to be good at it. I think it pushed
Speaker 3: me to want to create a space where others felt
Speaker 3: like they could join in because I didn't feel like
Speaker 3: I had that. I think as African American women that
Speaker 3: were interested in surfing, we just didn't see ourselves represented
Speaker 3: in the lineups that we frequented, and we all had
Speaker 3: a shared experience of wanting to change that.
Speaker 1: Chelsea and Martina, along with Danielle Black Lions and Gigi Lucas,
Speaker 1: met on social media.
Speaker 3: When you step out into the lineup, you don't typically
Speaker 3: see folks that look like you. And when you are
Speaker 3: looking through magazines, we don't typically see African American women
Speaker 3: represented or brown women represented in mainstream surfing. When folks
Speaker 3: think of a surfer, they don't automatically think of a
Speaker 3: woman with textured hair and a darker complexion. So we
Speaker 3: really wanted to change that.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, they decided to do something about the
Speaker 1: lack of diversity in the water. They formed a collective
Speaker 1: called Textured Waves with the goal of encouraging more women
Speaker 1: of color to surf. They want to make women like
Speaker 1: them visible in the roughly four billion dollar surf industry.
Speaker 1: But in order to do that, they have to deal
Speaker 1: with the past. That means facing the discrimination that was
Speaker 1: so prevalent, that was encoded in the California surf culture
Speaker 1: of the fifties and sixties when Mickey Dora ruled Malibu,
Speaker 1: that golden age that was only golden for a very
Speaker 1: privileged few. I am Dana Goodyear and this is a
Speaker 1: Lost Hills bonus episode the Black Heroes of Surfing. Not
Speaker 1: long after they formed Textured Waves, decided to make a
Speaker 1: short film it's called See Us Now. It's set in
Speaker 1: coastal California in the nineteen fifties, and it imagines a
Speaker 1: past that never was. Black women ride to the beach
Speaker 1: in a Ford Falcon convertible, wax up their boards, paddle
Speaker 1: out and surf. This is a picture of the California dream,
Speaker 1: that mid century myth, with black women squarely at the
Speaker 1: center of the narrative and not a single surf Nazi
Speaker 1: in sight. It's meant to be a corrective.
Speaker 3: In the iconic like days of surfing, which most people
Speaker 3: would say, or in the fifties and sixties, we can't
Speaker 3: even see ourselves in those images.
Speaker 1: In many places a surfing was emerging on the mainland,
Speaker 1: it was illegal for black people to be on the
Speaker 1: beach with white people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these laws were in place from the Jem Crow era.
Speaker 2: Of course, those laws were Their only purpose was to
Speaker 2: segregate the African American population from the white population because
Speaker 2: we were not deemed human, we were deemed like animals.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: A lot of those laws were disbanded in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: but it's continued in other ways.
Speaker 1: In the Jim Crow era, there were a few beaches
Speaker 1: around the country that were set aside for black recreation.
Speaker 1: These were places where black people would not face the
Speaker 1: harassment and hostility they often encountered at other beaches.
Speaker 2: So inkwell was the name designated to a beach where
Speaker 2: African Americans were legally allowed to be at. The name
Speaker 2: itself is as semi racist connotations because there was a
Speaker 2: belief that our skin would make the water dirty because
Speaker 2: we were dark, and so that's why they were called inkwells,
Speaker 2: you know, like an inkwell that they used for pens
Speaker 2: and writing.
Speaker 1: For decades after the official rules changed, people of color
Speaker 1: were informally, sometimes violently, barred from enjoying common natural resources
Speaker 1: like the beach. Mickey Dora Police Malibu in a Nazi
Speaker 1: uniform was a horrible example of what they faced.
Speaker 2: Which is interesting considering his own immigrant status, you know,
Speaker 2: coming here from Hungary. But you know a lot of
Speaker 2: people who are racist and have the whole of those ideals.
Speaker 2: It comes from a lot of insecurity on their own part.
Speaker 1: Chelsea and Martina are not fans of Mickey.
Speaker 2: I think he was the first one who really coined
Speaker 2: localism as if you live here, you can surf here.
Speaker 2: If you don't live here, you can't surf here, right,
Speaker 2: What does that mean to be allowed to be on
Speaker 2: a beach?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: That automatically excludes a certain group of people. Because you know,
Speaker 2: when my grandmother was alive, she would have been arrested
Speaker 2: for going on to a beach.
Speaker 5: It was illegal for her to go to a beach.
Speaker 1: Localism and the way it was championed by people like
Speaker 1: Mickey Dora embedded these exclusionary ideas into the culture of surfing.
Speaker 1: Exclusivity was tolerated, accepted, celebrated.
Speaker 2: Even though we do not have legal ink wealls anymore,
Speaker 2: we have still in a way ink walls.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So, like, there's a part of Florida and North Florida
Speaker 2: where I believe you have to drive ten miles before
Speaker 2: you can get to a public accessible beach, right, So
Speaker 2: everyone the community is forced on this little stretch of
Speaker 2: beachland while this entire coastline is open to either who
Speaker 2: has homes on that coastline, who is allowed who is
Speaker 2: friends of friends of that coastline.
Speaker 1: There were consequences to these policies and this informal culture
Speaker 1: of exclusion. Generations of black and brown children in this
Speaker 1: country were unfairly denied a connection to the ocean, to surfing,
Speaker 1: to swimming, to the beach itself.
Speaker 2: We've been stripped of our rights of aquatic culture, Like
Speaker 2: how do you learn to swim if you're not allowed
Speaker 2: in a pool and swim, And this is generations deep,
Speaker 2: and we see the very devastating results from that. There
Speaker 2: was a great study done with Hurricane Katrina. They looked
Speaker 2: at all the drownings and Hurricane Katrina, and the theory
Speaker 2: was that I believe sixty percent of those drownings would
Speaker 2: have been prevented with basic swimming skills.
Speaker 5: So, like, this has had real consequences.
Speaker 1: Exclusion, Martinez says, is dangerous.
Speaker 2: Children and our people have drowned and died because for
Speaker 2: generations we weren't allowed in these spaces. And if your
Speaker 2: parents don't know how to swim, they're not going to
Speaker 2: take you to learn how to swim.
Speaker 5: If they have a fear of the ocean, you're going
Speaker 5: to have a fear of the ocean.
Speaker 2: And we all know the one thing you do when
Speaker 2: you're in water is not to panic.
Speaker 5: That's how you prevent drowning.
Speaker 2: But like, if you've grown up with this fear around
Speaker 2: water and aquatic bodies, you're going to panic, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a lot to unpack.
Speaker 1: Even with all this hate and exclusion. There was a
Speaker 1: well known black surfer in the golden Age of surfing.
Speaker 1: His name was Nick Gabaldon. He was an accomplished waterman
Speaker 1: and athlete and a beacon for black surfers today, but
Speaker 1: he met a tragic end in Malibu. In Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: there was a two hundred foot area of Bay Street
Speaker 1: Beach that was roped off for the use of black people.
Speaker 1: Unlike other beaches in southern California, where harassment of black
Speaker 1: beachgoers was common, it was one of the few spots
Speaker 1: where black people could enjoy the ocean. It was known
Speaker 1: problematically as the Santa Monica Inkwell. In the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1: That was where Nick Gabbledon borrowed a board from a
Speaker 1: lifeguard and learned to surf. He heard the waves were
Speaker 1: better at Malibu, but he didn't have a car, and
Speaker 1: when he tried to hitchhike he didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of luck. He didn't let that stop him though. He
Speaker 1: got on his board, got in the water and paddled there.
Speaker 3: You know, Nick Gabbledon had to paddle twelve miles to
Speaker 3: Nalibu to even surf that beach, but he's one of
Speaker 3: the first documented African, American and Mexican surfers.
Speaker 1: It was an extraordinary feat of athleticism. And when Nick
Speaker 1: had finished surfing, he'd paddled twelve miles back. Nick Gabaldon
Speaker 1: was part of the Malibu Sine in the late forties
Speaker 1: and early fifties, and eventually he made friends with the
Speaker 1: surfers there and they would give him rides on a
Speaker 1: beach full of white surfers. Nick stood apart. Vicki Flaxman,
Speaker 1: one of the early Malibu surfers, remembers him.
Speaker 4: He was a little bit older. He was in his
Speaker 4: early twenties, I think because he'd been in the service,
Speaker 4: and so he started surfing after that.
Speaker 1: After graduating from Santa Monica High in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: he'd enlisted in the Navy. After the war, he was
Speaker 1: attending Santa Monica College and working as a postman.
Speaker 4: He was very handsome at a sweetheart. He was very
Speaker 4: very sweet, and he didn't just plunge into the Malibu Sine.
Speaker 4: He just wanted to surf and he got to be
Speaker 4: friends with a lot of the guys I think he
Speaker 4: was kind of shy around the girls. He didn't I mean,
Speaker 4: he was friendly, but he was very shy and kind
Speaker 4: of reserved.
Speaker 1: Vicky didn't know much about him or his context, but
Speaker 1: she does remember the story of his tragic death. It
Speaker 1: was June fifth, nineteen fifty one. There was a big
Speaker 1: south swell with eight to ten foot waves. Nick paddled
Speaker 1: out and caught a big wave and took off on it,
Speaker 1: heading straight for the Malibu Pier.
Speaker 4: I had been surfing the day before, and I knew
Speaker 4: the surf was still up, and I don't know why
Speaker 4: I just didn't go up that day, but I knew
Speaker 4: I felt something. I felt something really weird, and I
Speaker 4: called my girlfriend Claire. It was about two thirty in
Speaker 4: the afternoon, and I thought, what why am I calling her?
Speaker 4: She's up there, she's observing. There's no reason that she'd
Speaker 4: be home, but she was. And I said, what happened?
Speaker 4: Why are you home? And she said, Nick hits the
Speaker 4: peer and they can't find it. They haven't found it.
Speaker 4: And you know, everybody was bereft because the guys, all
Speaker 4: the guys you know, ran down there, ran up on
Speaker 4: the pier, tried to get as close to the pilings
Speaker 4: as they could, and they couldn't find him.
Speaker 1: His body washed up days later, miles away. He was
Speaker 1: just twenty four years old. Unlike Mickey Dora, who was
Speaker 1: documented excessively throughout his life and became a California folk hero,
Speaker 1: Nick Gabaldon's legacy was lost for many years. In the
Speaker 1: mid seventies, a surfer named Rick Blocker read an open
Speaker 1: letter but another Tony Corley, had published in Surfer magazine.
Speaker 1: Coraley called on his black surfing brothers to come together
Speaker 1: and form a Black Surfing Association. Mother Ocean knows no prejudices,
Speaker 1: Coraley wrote. Blocker answered the call, becoming one of the
Speaker 1: first members of the Black Surfing Association, and eventually he
Speaker 1: started researching the life and legacy of Nick Gabaldon. He
Speaker 1: sees Gabaldon as hugely significant for surfers today, a reminder
Speaker 1: that black people have been surfing in California for just
Speaker 1: as long as white people. That's exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: thing Textured Waves is doing with one crucial difference.
Speaker 2: Martina Duran, that's one thing that we're trying to do
Speaker 2: at Texture Waves, or trying to document some of these
Speaker 2: amazing surfers while they're still alive, you know, so that
Speaker 2: history is caps.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, a plaque was erected at Bay
Speaker 1: Street in Santa Monica to honor Nick Gabaldon and the
Speaker 1: beach that was once called the Inkwell.
Speaker 3: We celebrate him every year. And now the Black Servers.
Speaker 1: Collective Chelsea Woody again.
Speaker 3: They get together every year and they recreate the paddle Out.
Speaker 3: It's like a big celebration. A bunch of black servers
Speaker 3: and supporters and allies get together, eat on the beach,
Speaker 3: we serve, and we also just you know, wait for
Speaker 3: these folks to come and paddle and you know, cheer
Speaker 3: them on as they arrive to the beach.
Speaker 1: The event, which takes place in June each year around
Speaker 1: the time of his death, honors Gabbledon and his memory,
Speaker 1: and it also reinforces the bonds around the growing black
Speaker 1: surf community. Chelsea and Martina both learned to surf later
Speaker 1: in life. Martina was in college when she did a
Speaker 1: semester abroad in Costa Rica and took her first surf lesson.
Speaker 1: Chelsea was even older.
Speaker 3: I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, kind of in
Speaker 3: a suburb outside of Seattle, so I didn't grow up
Speaker 3: in the ocean or having much ocean knowledge at all.
Speaker 3: I had seen surfing in the movie theaters. The first
Speaker 3: time I saw it was watching Blue Crush, and I
Speaker 3: always wanted to do it since I was in high school,
Speaker 3: but just never had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: At thirty, she and her husband decided to quit their
Speaker 1: jobs and travel and ended up spending time in Indonesia.
Speaker 3: Never got the courage to do it until we kind
Speaker 3: of took a bigger risk in our life, you know,
Speaker 3: quitting our jobs and traveling, and I just thought it
Speaker 3: would be a good time for me to try to
Speaker 3: serve and so we went to Indonesia and stayed there
Speaker 3: for a month and taught ourselves how to serf. When
Speaker 3: I first started in Indonesia, I was one of the
Speaker 3: only brown women that looked like me in a lot
Speaker 3: of even though I am in a place with a
Speaker 3: lot of brown folks. There was a lot of tourists
Speaker 3: and Indonesian men, and they all called me sister. So
Speaker 3: you know, I think they recognize like you are like me,
Speaker 3: but we haven't, you know, seen a ton of women
Speaker 3: like you. One thing they called me also was Obama,
Speaker 3: which I thought was really interesting. I mean, he was
Speaker 3: very popular in Indonesia when he was president, you know,
Speaker 3: like Obama go on that way. I didn't know how
Speaker 3: to feel about that, and that when I did come home,
Speaker 3: it made me realize, like, wow, people around the world
Speaker 3: don't even see black women or brown women as surfers.
Speaker 3: That needs to change.
Speaker 1: After Indonesia, Chelsea and her husband made a big decision.
Speaker 3: We kind of uprooted our lives in the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 3: to live on the coast of California and surf every day.
Speaker 1: They moved to Santa Cruz, California.
Speaker 3: It's probably one of the most affected by localism. Still,
Speaker 3: you know, really difficult to break into the surf scene
Speaker 3: here and very intimidating, and men will still yell at
Speaker 3: you and push you off your board, even like young
Speaker 3: children and women. So I have definitely been yelled at
Speaker 3: a lot in this town by grown men.
Speaker 2: You just immediately get hassled before you even get in
Speaker 2: the water. So it's it's unfortunate because surfing should be
Speaker 2: a very peaceful, train quill thing, but somehow the aggression
Speaker 2: gets out.
Speaker 3: So and it always amazes me how comfortable men are
Speaker 3: in the water just yelling at a woman or a child,
Speaker 3: and in no situation on land would they be comfortable
Speaker 3: doing that. It is embarrassing, you know, So it is.
Speaker 3: It is a hard place to learn to serve, and
Speaker 3: I think you do have to adapt and have to
Speaker 3: learn quickly to make it around here, because if you
Speaker 3: can't serve or if you're not you know, following the rules,
Speaker 3: people don't give you a chance. That sounds harsh and
Speaker 3: it's changing, but that was definitely I've definitely had interactions
Speaker 3: here in the water.
Speaker 5: For sure.
Speaker 3: People are not always so kind.
Speaker 5: It's just such a contrast to like.
Speaker 2: Where I live, Like I think about how fortunate I am.
Speaker 1: Martina also moved away from the Confederate flag board she
Speaker 1: encountered in Florida to Hawaii.
Speaker 2: Here, I've been encouraged to expand my relationship with the ocean,
Speaker 2: Like I've started canoe surfing and racing and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: and everyone just like wants to help you, and like
Speaker 2: I just couldn't imagine. I don't know that I would
Speaker 2: be still surfing if I was in a place like
Speaker 2: Santa Cruz. Like you definitely would have to have some
Speaker 2: very thick skin well for cold too. As well, but
Speaker 2: thick skin for the words and for the cold. But
Speaker 2: it just shows that how important that is, like to
Speaker 2: just be accepting. You know, that's not fun for anyone,
Speaker 2: especially when you're younger and you're still trying to develop
Speaker 2: that identity. I can only imagine how that feels to
Speaker 2: be constantly told you don't belong here and to be
Speaker 2: bullied out of a space. And you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because the ocean is really for everyone.
Speaker 1: For Chelsea and Martina, surfing is a refuge and they
Speaker 1: don't want it to be a battleground, especially during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Chelsea says surfing was essential.
Speaker 3: I am a nurse and I was so happy to
Speaker 3: have surfing as an outlet. Luckily, you can kind of
Speaker 3: do it in isolation if you're strategic about it, So
Speaker 3: it was, yeah, so important for me to have during
Speaker 3: that time. I don't think I would have made it
Speaker 3: through mentally if I didn't have surfing.
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of what they want to
Speaker 1: put out there, the message they want to spread to
Speaker 1: future black surfers. These spaces, the beaches, the ocean, they
Speaker 1: belong to you too. They're there for your leisure and enjoyment.
Speaker 3: I think for it to be the leisure, to actually
Speaker 3: be leisurely is my hope. You know that it isn't
Speaker 3: a struggle. Do I belong here? Am I supposed to
Speaker 3: surf at this spot? Should I park here? Will somebody
Speaker 3: vandalize my car because I parked here? And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I just hope that it. You know, folks of color
Speaker 3: feel that they belong in spaces of leisure and outdoor
Speaker 3: spaces and aquatic spaces. Want it to be normal for
Speaker 3: our children, and you know, the generations beyond us to
Speaker 3: be surfers, to be outdoors people, to own land at
Speaker 3: the beach, to you know, have access to see themselves represented.
Speaker 1: Just like Mickey Dora, Chelsea is seeking freedom in surfing,
Speaker 1: but her definition of freedom couldn't be more different from Mickey's.
Speaker 1: He wanted to live a life without responsibilities. She just
Speaker 1: wants to feel safe.
Speaker 3: And I think that the ultimate level of freedom is
Speaker 3: to be able to walk into a space autonomously and
Speaker 3: feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: Above all, the women of Textured Waves want to spread
Speaker 1: the message that surfing is fun.
Speaker 2: We started this because of our passion for surfing and
Speaker 2: not any resentment for being held out of it.
Speaker 5: I think that is what drives us to do what
Speaker 5: we do.
Speaker 2: We're passionate about this, and because we are so passionate
Speaker 2: about this, we want other black women to discover this
Speaker 2: passion because it is an amazing passion to have.
Speaker 5: It's a good addiction to have.
Speaker 2: Oh that's what drives us every day doing this. And
Speaker 2: I think that's important to say because I know with
Speaker 2: our history, trauma comes up a lot, and that is
Speaker 2: something that we are fully aware of. But this sport
Speaker 2: brings us joy. And that's why we do what we
Speaker 2: do is because of the joy we get from surfing
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: Lost Hills is written and reported by me Dana Goodyear.
Speaker 1: It's created by me and Ben Adair and produced by
Speaker 1: Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and
Speaker 1: you can binge the entire season right now. Ad for me.
Speaker 1: Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost Hill Show page in
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus