"Broken Piece of the Promised Land Sits in Exile from the Rest of the State"

"They were the great exception to America’s great migration. Unlike millions of other blacks fleeing the South and Southwest, liberation for them wasn't Detroit or Chicago or New York City. Liberation wasn't even Los Angeles or San Francisco, although some had worked in the shipyards and factories for a time. Liberation was the fields of white gold in the middle of California."

In a 2002 Los Angeles Times article, Mark Arax tells the story of the "Black Okies of California's Tulare Lake Basin."