Betty Hill

The name Betty Hill does not ring a bell to most Angelenos, but until her death in 1960, she was a well-known African American civil rights and political activist. She was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP, was a Republican Party activist, a promoter of women’s rights, and found jobs for Black Angelenos where none existed before.

Betty Hill was born Rebecca Perkins near Nashville, Tennessee, around 1890, the granddaughter of a freedman who bought his wife out of slavery, and the daughter of school teacher who founded a “colored” school outside Nashville. After attending local private schools outside Nashville (Negro and “colored” children were segregated out of the school system), she and her family moved to the big city and went to the public school. From there she attended Roger Williams College and studied religion. Somewhere along the way she met and married Abraham Houston Hill, a Buffalo soldier, a sergeant in the 24th Infantry who fought in the Spanish-American War and later Indian wars. Together they went to the Philippines during the conflict there where she ministered to the soldiers. When Col. Allen Allensworth, the highest ranking African American in the military, retired as chaplain, she briefly took over some of his duties in a civilian capacity. She was only about twenty years old at the time.

Abraham Hill retired from the Army in 1913 and they moved near the downtown area of Los Angeles , in 1655 West 37th Place. Still in her early twenties, she joined others, such as the Somervilles , in forming a Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP. After a few years she served in different capacities, from executive committee person to vice-president. She took an active role in fundraising and membership drives.

In the late 1920s, she founded the Woman’s Republican Political Studies Club (later known as the Woman’s Political Studies Club — the WPSC), first in Los Angeles , then throughout the state. Women of all ages met and discussed politics on a national and local level. They became a political force and were regularly met by political leaders. Betty Hill and the WPSC, with support from publisher Charlotta Bass, supported the re-election campaign of Los Angeles District Attorney Buron Fitts. Later, Mrs. Hill became active in the re-election campaign of Senator Samuel Shortridge.

As a civil rights activist, she organized the Westside Property Owner’s Association in 1920 after the Los Angeles Playground Commission initiated a policy of discriminating against negroes. Determined to win through persistence, she went to court 25 times over a period of several years and lobbied each city councilperson individually until 1931 when Judge Walter S. Gates decided that the Playground Commission could not continue its policy of discrimination. This became known as the infamous “swimming pool case.”

Betty Hill and the WPSC eliminated the Jim Crow dining room at Los Angeles General Hospital, obtained the placement of the first Negro intern, the first Negro in the Department of History, and the first resident physician of internal medicine at Los Angeles General Hospital; the first African American instructor in the Riverside public school system; and the first African American in the Los Angeles County Department of Charities, Collection Department. Although officially President Franklin Roosevelt ended racial discrimination in the military, it still existed sub rosa. When the military refused to bring back World War II fighter pilot Captain William R. Melton to active duty, Betty Hill, WPSC, and Congressman Gordon L. McDonough went to work and got results. On February 6, 1949, Captain Melton received his orders to report to duty. Betty Hill and the WPSC also encouraged education and gave out scholarships for needy students to further their education. She was an active supporter of Zeta Phi Beta.

Beyond her activities with the NAACP and the WPSC, she helped initiate the Urban League’s Los Angeles Chapter; was a State Central Committeewoman of Southern California, 63rd District; was active with the Eastside Settlement House, and the National Council of Women; was the first chairperson of Girls Reserve of the YWCA, 12th Street Branch; the Vice-President of the Organization of National Defense, West Coast; and was also a 1940 delegate to the 1940 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. During a visit to Washington , D.C. , she saw first-hand the segregated facilities that existed during the Jim Crow era. In response, she wrote a bill to end racial discrimination in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., there was little support for the bill and it died in committee after being put forward by Congressman McDonough. Mrs. Hill was also a talented songwriter who wrote and published songs mainly for the WPSC in support of women’s rights.

Betty Hill continued to be active until old age slowed her down. She died on May 12, 1960. While the NAACP and Urban League continued to grow, with her death the WPSC lived on for only a few more years.

– contributed by Richard Mendoza, 2004