Frederick Madison Roberts (September 14, 1879 – July 19, 1952) was an American newspaper owner and editor, educator and business owner; he became a politician, the first known man of African-American descent elected to the California State Assembly. He served there for 16 years and became known as "dean of the assembly." He has been honored as the first person of African-American descent to be elected to public office among the states on the West Coast.
In 1865, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Andrew established A.J. Roberts and Son, the first black-owned mortuary in the city. The Roberts had a second son, William Giles Roberts. The family quickly became prosperous within the Los Angeles African American Community.[2]
In 1912, Roberts returned to Los Angeles, where he founded The New Age Dispatch newspaper (later called New Age), which he edited until 1948.[6] When he partnered with his father in the mortuary business, they named it A.J. Roberts & Son. Eventually he took it over.[5]
Roberts, a newspaper editor and business owner, emerged as a prominent figure in the burgeoning African-American community of Los Angeles. During the 20th century, he witnessed the influx of people migrating from the South to various Northern, Midwestern, and Western states, known as the Great Migration. Additionally, Roberts actively participated in the Methodist church and held memberships in two influential organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League. These associations, established in the early 20th century, aimed to advocate for the political and civil rights of black people.[7]
Beginning in the late 1930s and the early 1940s, the second wave of the Great Migration brought tens of thousands of African Americans from the Southern United States to the Los Angeles area for jobs in the growing defense industries. In 1946, Roberts campaigned for the 14th Congressional District against incumbent Helen Gahagan Douglas, but she kept her seat.[7] A few years later, Douglas lost a hotly contested U.S. Senate race to Republican Richard M. Nixon.
On July 18, 1952, a few days after returning from the 1952 Republican National Convention, Roberts sustained serious injuries in a car crash in front of his Los Angeles home. He died the next day. Roberts is interred at Evergreen Cemetery.[9][10]
Legacy
1957 - The city of Los Angeles dedicated Frederick M. Roberts Park, in his memory.[9][10]
February 2006, Mervyn M. Dymally of the California State Legislature featured the biography of Frederick M. Roberts on his website to honor early political leaders as part of Black History Month.[11]
12Wallace, Pebbla (2024-02-18). "Frederick Madison Roberts". LA City Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2024-05-29. Retrieved 2025-09-21.
Delilah L. Beasley, Negro Trail Blazers of California, Los Angeles: 1919, pp.137, 215–16. (An early picture of Roberts appears on p.40.)
Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008
Shannon Lanier and Jane Feldman, Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2000 (with photos of Jefferson descendants on both sides)
