Joan Williams, 82, of Pasadena, holding a portrait of herself wearing a crown from when she was selected as “Miss Crown City” by her colleagues in City Hall in 1958 and was supposed to ride on the city-sponsored Rose Parade float. When city officials found out she was black, they took that honor away saying, the city couldn’t afford a float that year. Now nearly 60 years later, Williams will ride on the opening banner float during the 2015 Rose Parade. Walt Mancini/Staff Photographer
By Sarah Favot, Pasadena Star-News
Nearly 60 years after she was promised a seat on a Rose Parade float, only to have that honor taken away when city officials found out she was African-American, Joan Williams will be seated at the head of the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day as it cruises down Colorado Boulevard.
Williams, 82, was named “Miss Crown City” in 1957, an honor bestowed upon one City Hall employee who would ride on a city-sponsored float during the Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 1958. The honor was like the Rose Queen title — Miss Crown City would attend numerous events leading up to the parade, representing the city.
Williams, then 27 years old and a mother of two young children, was thrilled.
“I was young and it was exciting,” Williams said.
A couple of months later, however, she experienced a grave disappointment, according to Jet Magazine.
“For when word spread that light-complexioned Mrs. Williams was a Negro, fellow employees in the municipal office where she works as an accountant-clerk suddenly stopped speaking to her,” the magazine reported in January 1959. “And Mrs. Williams did not ride on a float, because the City of Pasadena neglected to include one in its own parade. Too many others were already entered, explained an official,” the article continued.
Williams said she never bought that reasoning. If the city didn’t have enough money, it wouldn’t have named a Miss Crown City months before the parade, she said. The city had even paid for a portrait of Williams in a gown, corsage and tiara.
Williams attended a city employees picnic at Brookside Park where a photographer from Jet wanted to take her picture with the mayor at the time. The mayor refused, she said.
“It was one of the first times, as an adult, I began to grow up and realize what racism is,” she said.
Advertisement
“Somehow I wasn’t the person they wanted on that float anymore just because of my heritage,” Williams said. “You can imagine the slap in the face that is.”
CIVIL RIGHTS ERA
In 1957, Pasadena’s hometown hero Jackie Robinson had retired from Major League Baseball the year before and Martin Luther King Jr. came here to speak at Caltech.
King basically gave his “I Have a Dream” speech to about 200 faculty, students and others who were in attendance at the keynote speech at the Athenaeum, according to a Caltech press release from the 40th anniversary of King’s visit.
Race relations were still percolating in 1957 in the City of Roses. The Civil Rights Act would not be enacted until 1964. Pasadena’s public schools did not desegregate under court order until 1970.
NO APOLOGY
Fifty-six years have passed and Williams will be riding in the Rose Parade, but the city is still struggling with race relations in the wake of the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Kendrec McDade.
And officials are not apologizing for what happened to Williams.
Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard said the city hasn’t offered her a formal apology, but he contacted Williams and invited her to lunch after he heard her story.
“We didn’t dwell on what happened in the past,” he said. They talked about their families.
“She’s a very nice person, I’m delighted to have come to know her and now consider her a friend,” Bogaard said.
Bogaard was then contacted by the Tournament of Roses to arrange a meeting with Williams.
Tournament of Roses Executive Director Bill Flinn said he was asked if there was a float that Williams could ride on. There was a spot on the banner float, where Williams will ride. The float carries the parade’s theme “Inspiring Stories,” and appears at the beginning of the parade.
“We’re pleased to have Mrs. Williams riding in the Rose Parade,” Flinn said.
For Williams, it took convincing from her children for her to agree to participate.
“It doesn’t mean the same for me in 2015 as it would have in 1958,” she said.
Williams said she had mixed emotions and that she “let this injustice go a long time ago.”
“I want to honor the community and especially the African-American community who were so vocal about feeling the city needed to make an apology,” she said. “It wasn’t a big deal in my life for me to harbor that for the rest of my life.”
She said it was an especially poignant moment amid all of the protests around the country and the slogan “black lives matter.” She said she believed it was a sign that the city wants to move forward.
“When I think on that and when I think about the disrespect shown to me as a young woman by electing me to an honor and to not fulfill it and now allowing me to fulfill it, and how disrespectful that was to me for my feelings, I’m not bitter, I just have a lot of various feelings about it.”
Williams said her three children grew up knowing the story and her four grandchildren asked her about it. They saw the portrait hanging on the wall of their grandma wearing a tiara.
“Now I’m expecting a great-grandchild and now with that great-grandchild when he sits on my lap and I tell the story, it will have a happier ending,” Williams said.
