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Black Altadenans seek hope and resilience in the wake of the LA wildfires
Margaret Larkin holds a piece of her Christmas decor outside of what remains of her home. Larkin lived on her block in Altadena, Calif. for 36 years.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
Two weeks after the Eaton Fire, hundreds were gathered at Robinson Park Recreation Center for Dena Love Day. There were food trucks giving away food, and a live DJ played as people danced and grieved. It was a bittersweet celebration for a community reeling in the wake of devastating wildfires.
They were marking a milestone: Pasadena had gone a year without a single gang-related death, according to the Pasadena Police Department.
“I never lost hope of my community. But today was just a new spark for me that God was just there,” LaToya Carr said. “I feel like I’m on a team and I won a championship.”
Carr, 49, is a community outreach coordinator with Pasadena’s Gang Outreach Violence and Interruption Services, established last year. The city’s northwest neighborhood was once a hotspot for gun violence and racial profiling.
Latoya Carr, right, hands out awards to Cedrick Jolley, left, and Andre Brown at Robinson Park Recreation Center at Dena Love Day on Jan. 19, 2025. Jolley and Brown were volunteers helping victims of the Eaton Fire.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
In the wake of the deadly fire, Carr witnessed her community rallying together after Black Altadenans were hit hard by the flames.
“I’ve seen you guys last week,” Carr said as she handed out trophies to people who volunteered at mutual aid sites passing out water and clothes to fire victims who lost their homes. “ Y’all was loving on each other, working together to make things happen for other people. And that’s a big deal.”
Dena Love Day brought together resources for residents: hairdressers offered braiding services next to FEMA employees helping people apply for disaster relief. It was a moment to breathe and reflect in a neighborhood that had faced so much adversity.
A history of redlining and discrimination
For years, redlining drove inequities in Altadena and Pasadena. Lake Avenue, which bifurcates the two into east and west, had historically been a de facto segregation line preventing families of color from purchasing properties east of Lake Avenue.
“ Steering was something that real estate agents did,” said Barbara Richardson King, 77, who earned her real estate license in 1985 when there were few other women of color in the profession.
Redlining had been outlawed for two decades, but home sellers still found creative excuses to redirect her interest. “ I’ve been kind of blocked out of showing property for one reason or another. ‘Oh the seller’s out of town and he doesn’t want any showings for the next week,’ ” said the third-generation Pasadenan.
Barbara Richardson King stands in her realtor’s office. She’s sold homes for three decades in Pasadena and Altadena.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
Still, Black Angelenos found a rare kind of prosperity in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley as Altadena became one of California’s first integrated middle-class neighborhoods. King’s uncle, M. Earl Grant, founded Family Savings & Loan in 1949, one of the first Black-owned financial institutions west of the Mississippi that offered mortgage loans to families of color, King said. There was a doctor’s row, a block of Black medical professionals, and lawyers and school principals. Jackie Robinson’s mother, Sidney Pointier and Octavia Butler all called Altadena home.
The Black population in Altadena was more than 40% in the 1980s, according to the Altadena Historical Society, but today it’s fallen to 18% as the neighborhood has become increasingly expensive. The average home is valued at more than $1 million.
About 75% of Black Altadena residents own their homes, higher than the national average of 44%. Residents had accumulated generational wealth through their homes, but thousands of those homes have turned to rubble. According to a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles, almost half of Black-owned homes were destroyed or heavily damaged in the Eaton Fire, the deadliest and most destructive of the Los Angeles wildfires.
How the fires exacerbated inequities
Several families on the west side of Altadena reported receiving delayed evacuation alerts, hours after their neighbors to the east. The west side is where all 17 deaths occurred in the Eaton Fire. Local and federal officials are investigating potential flaws in Los Angeles County’s emergency alert system.
Margaret Larkin, 66, had seen her fair share of fires and heavy Santa Ana winds in her decades of renting her cul-de-sac home on the west side of Altadena. That night on Jan. 7, she could see the fiery glow of Eaton Canyon in the distance.
“ I kept saying, ‘The fire will never come down. It has to hit so many houses first before it gets to us,’” Larkin said. But the winds were picking up and throwing flaming embers at speeds up to 100 miles per hour.
“ My phone didn’t have service. We didn’t have electricity,” said Larkin, who said she didn’t receive an evacuation notice to leave. When she and her daughter finally left at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, it was chaos.
“ Every street you turn on, there was fire or there was a tree fell over. It was pitch dark,” Larkin said. She said there was so much smoke, their car headlights did little to illuminate the road ahead and all she could hear was the sound of the wind like a train horn and the cracking of falling debris as her entire block was burning.
They escaped unscathed, but when she returned to inspect the damage two weeks later with her family, there was nothing left where the flames had leveled her home.
Veronica Jones, the first Black president of the Altadena Historical Society, said these issues are symptomatic of the underinvestment west of Lake Avenue.
“ You just wonder why there aren’t a lot of trees on the west side,” Jones said. The 71-year-old is a former member of the Altadena Town Council who has pushed to increase funding for their local parks and libraries.
Veronica Jones, the Altadena Historical Society’s first Black president, stands in front of a lot full of burned cars on Jan. 21, 2025. The Eaton Fire came just a block away from her home in west Altadena.
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Jireh Deng
Throughout her daily three-mile strolls of west Altadena, the prevalence of liquor stores has been a continual eyesore for her.
The daunting prospect of rebuilding
A big question looming on the minds of Black residents is whether they have a future in Altadena.
“We didn’t just lose our house, we lost our community,” said Aldra Allison, a housing specialist who works with the City of Pasadena. Allison, 68, and her husband Herman had rushed so fast out of the house they hadn’t been able to rescue their children’s photos from the mantle of their fireplace. “I’ve cried so much that I can’t cry anymore … that chapter in my life was gone.”
Allison, an affordable housing specialist with the City of Pasadena, taught genealogy classes on Black families at the Alkebu-lan Cultural Center, helping compile a book about Black pioneers in Pasadena. Allison worries about the future of Black homeownership. More than half of Black homeowners in Altadena are over the age of 65. She expects many might face challenges to rebuilding.
Aldra Allison holds letters that her children wrote to her, some of the only keepsakes she was able to salvage in the Eaton Fire that ravaged her Altadena home. The Eaton Fire was the deadliest and most destructive of the Los Angeles wildfires. She and her husband are staying in an apartment in Monrovia, Calif.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
Many of the seniors in Allison’s caseload were on fixed incomes and being pushed out of Pasadena because of the skyrocketing rents. The Eaton Fire displaced thousands of families, making affordable housing even more scarce in the area.
“There are so many developers out there sending letters, misinformation to people saying ‘You can’t go back,’ or ‘You can’t afford to go back.’ [Residents don’t] realize that it’s really early in the game,” Allison said. Even if people’s homes burned down, they are still responsible for the mortgages. People need to not panic.”
Allison said she would hate to see older residents losing their generational wealth by selling to developers circling the carnage of the fires.
“You just have to be patient and seek help, because there’s help out there. There’s no doubt that I will one day rebuild my house,” Allison said.
L.A. County Board Supervisor Kathryn Barger has vowed to protect the mom-and-pop charm of this unincorporated town where people of color make up a majority of the population.
“Altadena is not for sale,” Barger said in a recent county board meeting. She also commended Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to lift permitting requirements to fast-track rebuilding in the wake of the L.A. fires.
“ I am convinced that if we can move the red tape, get rid of it, and allow people to return and begin the rebuilding effort … that is going to bring the community back,” Barger said.
This week she launched the Altadena Recovery Commission, a group that includes community members to aid and shape rebuilding efforts.
“The cost of housing is so expensive that it is pricing many young African American families out of the market, and they’re having to move away,” Barger said. She said she doesn’t want the Eaton fire to be the last chapter of Altadena’s historic Black community. “I want to make sure we don’t let that history go away and that we provide the opportunity to the next generation.”
A legacy of resilience and hope
This isn’t the first time Dena’s Black community has had to rebuild. In the 1950s and 60s, the expansion of the 210 and 710 freeways upended the lives of thousands of Black residents in Pasadena.
“This hurts because this was truly an act of nature,” said 73-year-old Marcus Williams, a recently ordained elder at Friendship Baptist Church in Pasadena. The church, with its Spanish-style white stucco steeple, stands at the heart of Old Town Pasadena — once a thriving Black commercial district that has since been supplanted by an upscale shopping district with stores like Apple and Anthropologie.
“ I am saddened. I’m frustrated. There’s no one to blame, no finger to point. This is a natural disaster. The freeway was not,” Williams said.
At Friendship Baptist Church, the congregation celebrated four elders who were ordained during a Sunday service on Feb. 2, 2025. The church was once a center of Black life in Old Town Pasadena. Church elders are hopeful the wave of displaced residents will be able to return.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
But many of those displaced persisted, becoming part of the wave of Black families who moved to the west side of Altadena in the 70s and 80s, shaping the town into a legacy for Black wealth.
“ We have suffered innumerous, immeasurable things that would have crushed a lesser people. But still, we are here and we are surviving. And we will come back,” promised Williams.
Local bookseller Nikki High, 50, has been drawing inspiration from the prescient work of Octavia Butler.
“ [Octavia Butler] had been studying global warming as early as the 80s,” High said, who opened Octavia’s Bookshelf two years ago in honor of the Afrofuturist writer. In Parable of the Sower published in 1993, Butler depicted an apocalyptic future through the perspective of a preacher’s daughter, Lauren Olamina. Olamina’s journal entry for Feb. 1, 2025 begins with, “We had a fire today.”
Nikki High transformed her bookstore, Octavia’s Bookshelf, into a mutual aid hub for Altadena residents affected by the Eaton Fire. High, on Jan. 21, 2025, poses in front of a Scrabble board with a message for developers.
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Jireh Deng for NPR
“It’s jarring to see how accurate, within weeks, she was of [predicting] these events,” High said. But she doesn’t see Butler as a prophet of doom. Parable of the Sower is a blueprint of hope. Lauren Olamina is rebuilding and she’s basing [her new] community [on] feeding each other and being accountable for one another.”
High’s home was narrowly spared by the flames that engulfed her entire block in Altadena. She focused on her community, transforming her bookstore into a mutual aid hub where people could pick up masks, burritos, toiletries and other basic necessities. On the ground, dozens of similar mutual aid sites popped up at stoplights, empty parking lots, and gas stations.
“Nobody’s coming to save us,” High said. “We have to embrace each other.”
Producer Janet Woojeong Lee contributed reporting.
The firing of US Navy Secretary John Phelan is the latest in a shakeup of the American military during the war on Iran, now in its eighth week.
The Pentagon said Phelan would leave office immediately.
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“On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy,” said chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. “We wish him well in his future endeavours”.
His firing comes at a critical moment, with US naval forces enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports and ships, and maintaining a heavy presence around the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes during peacetime.
Although the Pentagon gave no official reason for the dismissal, reports indicate the decision was linked to internal disputes, including tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Phelan’s removal is part of a broader pattern of dismissals and restructuring within the US military under President Donald Trump’s administration – including during the current war.
So, who is John Phelan, and what impact could his firing have on US military strategy?
Who is John Phelan?
As the US Navy’s top civilian official, Phelan had various responsibilities, including overseeing recruiting, mobilising and organising, as well as construction and repair of ships and military equipment.
He was appointed in 2024 as a political ally of Trump, despite having no prior military or defence leadership experience.
Before entering government, Phelan was a businessman and investment executive, as well as a major Republican donor and fundraiser — a background that is fairly common among Trump appointees and advisers. The US president’s two top diplomatic negotiators, for instance, are Steve Witkoff — a real estate businessman with no prior diplomatic experience – and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
According to the Reuters news agency, Phelan’s tenure quickly became controversial. He faced criticism for moving too slowly on shipbuilding reforms and for strained relationships with key Pentagon figures, including Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg.
In addition, Phelan was reportedly under an ethics investigation, which may have weakened his standing in the administration.
Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao, who was also reported to have a difficult relationship with Phelan, has become acting secretary. Fifty-four-year-old Cao is a 25-year Navy veteran who previously ran as a Republican candidate for the US Senate and House of Representatives in 2022 and 2024 respectively, but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
Democrats have criticised Phelan’s removal, calling it “troubling”.
“I am concerned it is yet another example of the instability and dysfunction that have come to define the Department of Defense under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth,” said Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Who else has the Trump administration fired since the war with Iran began?
Phelan’s removal is the latest in a series of senior military leaders being fired or are leaving during the US-Israeli war on Iran, in addition to others since Trump was re-elected.
Among the most notable dismissals was Army Chief of Staff General Randy A. George, in the first week of April. George was appointed in 2023 under former US President Joe Biden.
According to reports, Hegseth also fired the head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, a unit concerned with modernising the army, and the Army’s chief of chaplains. The Pentagon has not confirmed their dismissal.
Why is Phelan’s dismissal significant?
The 62-year-old’s removal comes during a fragile ceasefire with Iran, as the US continues to move more naval assets into the region.
The Navy is central to enforcing Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports to restrict Iran’s oil exports and apply economic pressure on Tehran, as the US president looks eager to wrap up the war, which is deeply unpopular to many Americans.
However, there are no indications that Trump is willing to end the blockade or other naval operations in the Strait of Hormuz, as negotiations between Washington and Tehran have come to a standstill.
Tensions have escalated in recent days after the US military seized an Iranian container ship. The US claimed it was attempting to sail from the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
Tehran responded by describing the attack and hijack as an act of “piracy”.
Iran has since captured two cargo ships and fired at another.
Just two weeks ago, President Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilization if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz. Days later, he said any Iranian “who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
Yet on Wednesday, after Iran seized two ships near the Strait of Hormuz, the White House was quick to argue the action was not a deal breaker for potential peace negotiations.
“These were not U.S. ships,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News. “These were not Israeli ships.” Therefore, she explained, the Iranians had not violated a cease-fire with the United States that Mr. Trump has extended indefinitely.
She cautioned the news media against “blowing this out of proportion.”
The surprisingly tolerant tone from the White House suggests Mr. Trump is not eager to reignite a war that he started alongside Israel on Feb. 28 — a war that has proved unpopular with Americans and has gone on longer than he initially estimated.
The president on Tuesday extended a cease-fire between the United States and Iran that had been set to expire within hours, saying he wanted to give Tehran a chance to come up with a new proposal to end the war.
The American military has displayed its overwhelming might during the war, successfully striking thousands of targets. But it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will accomplish the political objectives of the war.
The Iranian regime, even after its top leaders were killed, is still intact. Iran has not agreed to Mr. Trump’s demands to turn over its nuclear capabilities to the United States or significantly curtail them. And the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for world commerce that was open before the war, remains closed.
Nevertheless, the White House has repeatedly highlighted the military successes on the battlefield as evidence it is winning the war.
“We have completely confused and obliterated their regime,” Ms. Leavitt said on Fox Wednesday. “They are in a very weak position thanks to the actions taken by President Trump and our great United States armed forces, and so we will continue this important mission on our own.”
The oscillation between threats and a more conciliatory tone has long been one of Mr. Trump’s signature negotiating strategies.
Potential peace talks between the two countries are on hold. Vice President JD Vance had been poised to fly to Islamabad for negotiations. But the trip was postponed until Iran can “come up with a unified proposal,” Mr. Trump said.
The United States recently transmitted a written proposal to the Iranians intended to establish base-line points of agreement that could frame more detailed negotiations. The document covers a broad range of issues, but the core sticking points are the same ones that have bedeviled Western negotiators for more than a decade: the scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Mr. Trump has not spoken publicly about the cease-fire, other than on social media. On Wednesday, he also posted about topics including “my Apprentice Juggernaut” — a reference to his former television show; the Virginia elections, which he called “rigged”; and a new book about Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan speaks, as President Trump listens, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Dec. 22 in Palm Beach, Fla.
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WASHINGTON — Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his job, the Pentagon abruptly announced Wednesday, the first head of a military service to depart during President Trump’s second term but just the latest top defense leader to step down or be ousted.
No reason was given for the unexpected departure of the Navy’s top civilian official, coming as the sea service has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports and is targeting ships linked to Tehran around the world during a tenuous ceasefire in the war. Another Trump loyalist is taking over as acting head of the Navy: Undersecretary Hung Cao, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House in Virginia.
Phelan’s departure is the latest in a series of shakeups of top leadership at the Pentagon, coming just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George. Hegseth also has fired several other top generals, admirals and defense leaders since taking office last year.
The firings began in February 2025, when Hegseth removed military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force. Trump also fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Showing how sudden the latest move was, Phelan had addressed a large crowd of sailors and industry professionals on Tuesday at the Navy’s annual conference in Washington and spoke with reporters about his agenda. He also hosted the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee to discuss the Navy’s budget request and efforts to build more ships, according to a social media post from his office.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X that Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately.”
Phelan had been a major Trump donor
Phelan had not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service before Trump nominated him for secretary in late 2024. He was seen as an outsider being brought in to shake up the Navy.
Hung Cao speaks during the Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee.
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Phelan was a major donor to Trump’s campaign and had founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. According to his biography, Phelan’s primary exposure to the military came from an advisory position he held on the Spirit of America, a nonprofit that supported the defense of Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Phelan’s office for comment. The White House did not answer questions and instead responded by sending a link to Parnell’s statement.
Phelan is leaving during a busy time for the Navy. It has three aircraft carriers deployed in or heading to the Middle East, while the Trump administration says all the armed forces are poised to resume combat operations against Iran should the ceasefire expire.
The Navy also has maintained a heavy presence in the Caribbean, where it has been part of a campaign of strikes against alleged drug boats. It also played a major role in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
New acting Navy secretary ran unsuccessful bids for Congress
Taking over as acting secretary is Cao, who ran a failed U.S. Senate bid in Virginia to try to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in 2024. He had Trump’s endorsement in the crowded Republican primary and gave a speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Cao’s biography includes fleeing Vietnam with his family as a child in the 1970s. In a campaign video for his Senate bid, he compared Vietnam’s communist regime during the Cold War to the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
During his one debate with Kaine, Cao criticized COVID-19 vaccine mandates for service members as well as the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said from the debate stage. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are the young men and women that are going to win wars.”
Trump and Hegseth have railed against DEI in the military, banning the efforts and firing people accused of supporting such programs.
When he ran for Congress in Virginia in 2022, Cao expressed opposition to aid for Ukraine during a debate against his Democratic opponent.
“My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. … But right now we’re borrowing $55 billion from China to pay for the war in Ukraine. Not only that, we’re depleting our national strategic reserves,” Cao said.
Cao graduated from the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, before attending the U.S. Naval Academy.
He was commissioned as a special operations officer and went on to serve with SEAL teams and special forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia before retiring at the rank of captain, according to his Senate campaign biography.
Cao also earned a master’s degree in physics and had fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Since becoming Navy undersecretary, Cao has championed returning to duty service members that refused a Biden-era mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
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