About Pepperdine’s Relationship with South Los Angeles
George Pepperdine College was established in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood of South Los Angeles on September 21, 1937. The college became Pepperdine University in 1971, after opening a new campus in Malibu. Between 1937-1981, George Pepperdine College was deeply connected to and shaped by the South Los Angeles community. George Pepperdine, the college’s founder, was an elder at Normandie Church of Christ, where Carroll Pitts (Pepperdine alumnus and faculty member, and late husband of narrator Bernice Pitts) was a minister and one of our interviewers (and current Pepperdine faculty member), Dr. Stanley Talbert, is currently the minister. Narrator Billy Curl was the minister of Crenshaw Church of Christ, where many Pepperdine faculty, staff, and students attended. Los Angeles was an epicenter for national civil rights and Black liberation movements, which were active on college campuses, including George Pepperdine College. During this time, a significant Black community was taking root in South Los Angeles. In 1956, reflecting this shift, 10% of George Pepperdine College’s student population was Black, growing to at least 22% by 1970.
In 1968, an opportunity to expand the university emerged, made possible by a gift from the Marblehead Land Company of 138 acres of land in Malibu. In 1981, the difficult decision was made to close the original campus. The university continues to value and support partnerships with the South Los Angeles community through initiatives such as the Foster Grandparent Program, where narrator Loretta Randle is an important leader. Through collaborations between community members, student leaders, faculty and staff, and university administration, the university remains connected to its roots, which began in South Los Angeles.
About Pepperdine’s Relationship with South Los Angeles
George Pepperdine College was established in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood of South Los Angeles on September 21, 1937. The college became Pepperdine University in 1971, after opening a new campus in Malibu. Between 1937-1981, George Pepperdine College was deeply connected to and shaped by the South Los Angeles community. George Pepperdine, the college’s founder, was an elder at Normandie Church of Christ, where Carroll Pitts (Pepperdine alumnus and faculty member, and late husband of narrator Bernice Pitts) was a minister and one of our interviewers (and current Pepperdine faculty member), Dr. Stanley Talbert, is currently the minister. Narrator Billy Curl was the minister of Crenshaw Church of Christ, where many Pepperdine faculty, staff, and students attended. Los Angeles was an epicenter for national civil rights and Black liberation movements, which were active on college campuses, including George Pepperdine College. During this time, a significant Black community was taking root in South Los Angeles. In 1956, reflecting this shift, 10% of George Pepperdine College’s student population was Black, growing to at least 22% by 1970.
In 1968, an opportunity to expand the university emerged, made possible by a gift from the Marblehead Land Company of 138 acres of land in Malibu. In 1981, the difficult decision was made to close the original campus. The university continues to value and support partnerships with the South Los Angeles community through initiatives such as the Foster Grandparent Program, where narrator Loretta Randle is an important leader. Through collaborations between community members, student leaders, faculty and staff, and university administration, the university remains connected to its roots, which began in South Los Angeles.
Note on South Central vs. South Los Angeles
The Los Angeles City Council voted in 2003 to replace the name “South Central Los Angeles” with “South Los Angeles”. In interviews, you will hear narrators refer to the area using both terms and you will also hear narrators reflect on that change.
Note on South Central vs. South Los Angeles
The Los Angeles City Council voted in 2003 to replace the name “South Central Los Angeles” with “South Los Angeles”. In interviews, you will hear narrators refer to the area using both terms and you will also hear narrators reflect on that change.
Project Team
Project Team
Bailey Berry
Bailey Berry is the Librarian for Digital Publishing, Curation, and Conversion at Pepperdine University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Studies with a concentration in Archives from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work focuses on digital access to cultural heritage and she has worked with institutions including the National Museum of the American Indian, the archives at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and the Los Angeles Contemporary Archives to help develop digital interfaces for collections. Bailey began to study the important history of South Los Angeles as an Independent Archivist working on the Leslie N. and Margaret Ann Shaw family papers and as a Contract Archivist with the California African American Museum. Her oral history work has included leading a project around the pearl shell button cottage industry in rural Delaware for the Smithsonian Environmental Archeology Lab. Bailey has acted as project lead for the Preserving the History of South Los Angeles grant initiative since she began working for Pepperdine in 2022. She has been honored to partner with Tabatha Jones Jolivet, Stanley Talbert, and each of the extraordinary narrators and their families.
Bailey Berry
Bailey Berry is the Librarian for Digital Publishing, Curation, and Conversion at Pepperdine University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Studies with a concentration in Archives from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work focuses on digital access to cultural heritage and she has worked with institutions including the National Museum of the American Indian, the archives at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and the Los Angeles Contemporary Archives to help develop digital interfaces for collections. Bailey began to study the important history of South Los Angeles as an Independent Archivist working on the Leslie N. and Margaret Ann Shaw family papers and as a Contract Archivist with the California African American Museum. Her oral history work has included leading a project around the pearl shell button cottage industry in rural Delaware for the Smithsonian Environmental Archeology Lab. Bailey has acted as project lead for the Preserving the History of South Los Angeles grant initiative since she began working for Pepperdine in 2022. She has been honored to partner with Tabatha Jones Jolivet, Stanley Talbert, and each of the extraordinary narrators and their families.
Stanley Talbert
Stanley Talbert is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University. His research focuses on theology and ethics, liberation, and African American studies. Talbert earned his PhD in Systematic Theology and African American Studies from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He received his master of philosophy ('19) and master of divinity from Union ('16), his BA from Pepperdine University ('12), and his AS from Southwestern Christian College ('10).
Stanley is also the recipient of the Carl R. Holladay Award with the Christian Scholars Foundation, the Louisville-Institute Doctoral Fellowship, the Forum for Theological Exploration Doctoral Fellowship, the Seaver Faculty Fellowship, the Wittenberg Fellowship (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany), Union Theological Seminary's Hudnut Preaching Award, the Charles Augustus Briggs Award, and the Academic Excellence Award.
Additionally, Talbert is the managing editor for the Black Theology Papers Project at Columbia University and serves on the executive board for the Society of Study of Black Religion. Stanley Talbert answers his call to community consciousness and engagement as a core member of the Clergy for Black Lives in Los Angeles, and the minister of Normandie Church of Christ.
Stanley Talbert
Stanley Talbert is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University. His research focuses on theology and ethics, liberation, and African American studies. Talbert earned his PhD in Systematic Theology and African American Studies from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He received his master of philosophy ('19) and master of divinity from Union ('16), his BA from Pepperdine University ('12), and his AS from Southwestern Christian College ('10).
Stanley is also the recipient of the Carl R. Holladay Award with the Christian Scholars Foundation, the Louisville-Institute Doctoral Fellowship, the Forum for Theological Exploration Doctoral Fellowship, the Seaver Faculty Fellowship, the Wittenberg Fellowship (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany), Union Theological Seminary's Hudnut Preaching Award, the Charles Augustus Briggs Award, and the Academic Excellence Award.
Additionally, Talbert is the managing editor for the Black Theology Papers Project at Columbia University and serves on the executive board for the Society of Study of Black Religion. Stanley Talbert answers his call to community consciousness and engagement as a core member of the Clergy for Black Lives in Los Angeles, and the minister of Normandie Church of Christ.
Tabatha Jones Jolivet
Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet, PhD is an educator, minister, community organizer, and Seaver College alumna (‘97, ’03). She is an associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches doctoral-level courses on equity and social justice, leading change, and research inquiry. A community-engaged scholar, she grounds her praxis in the intellectual traditions of “love, study, and struggle” and the spiritual legacies of prophetic Christian faith, Womanist worldmaking, and Black women’s grassroots organizing. She strives to upend oppressive ideologies, systems, and social institutions while nurturing liberatory and life-affirming conditions for flourishing. She specializes in the intersectional study of systems and cultures of domination (e.g., racism, sexism, classism, etc.); abolitionist and rehumanizing pedagogies; sacred resistance and social movements; and building life-affirming institutions and societies. She founded and leads the Womanist & Black Feminist Abolition Collective, a research consortium that incubates creative intellectual projects that cultivate womanist, Black feminist, and abolitionist dreams, visions, theories, and praxis. She co-authored White Jesus: The Architecture of Racism in Religion and Education (Peter Lang, 2018) and leads several community-based, participatory action research projects. She spent over twenty years in university leadership at Pepperdine.
Tabatha Jones Jolivet
Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet, PhD is an educator, minister, community organizer, and Seaver College alumna (‘97, ’03). She is an associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches doctoral-level courses on equity and social justice, leading change, and research inquiry. A community-engaged scholar, she grounds her praxis in the intellectual traditions of “love, study, and struggle” and the spiritual legacies of prophetic Christian faith, Womanist worldmaking, and Black women’s grassroots organizing. She strives to upend oppressive ideologies, systems, and social institutions while nurturing liberatory and life-affirming conditions for flourishing. She specializes in the intersectional study of systems and cultures of domination (e.g., racism, sexism, classism, etc.); abolitionist and rehumanizing pedagogies; sacred resistance and social movements; and building life-affirming institutions and societies. She founded and leads the Womanist & Black Feminist Abolition Collective, a research consortium that incubates creative intellectual projects that cultivate womanist, Black feminist, and abolitionist dreams, visions, theories, and praxis. She co-authored White Jesus: The Architecture of Racism in Religion and Education (Peter Lang, 2018) and leads several community-based, participatory action research projects. She spent over twenty years in university leadership at Pepperdine.