Rep. Mike Levin, D-Dana Point, introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday to name a U.S. Postal Service office in Oceanside after a pioneering Black woman.
The late Charlesetta Reece Allen opened the first Black-owned storefront and restaurant in Oceanside, was the first president of the North San Diego County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and founded the Oceanside Girls Club, according to a statement from Levin’s office.
She “was a trailblazer for the Black community in Oceanside and her contributions improved the lives of residents of North County,” Levin said. “We are beginning the process of naming this post office to highlight Mrs. Allen’s service to Oceanside and hope that it will provide inspiration to residents for decades to come.
He called the proposed action “the least we can do to honor someone who did so much for Oceanside.”
The postal office is located at 517 Seagaze Drive, near Mission Avenue and Coast Highway.
The bill is co-sponsored by the full Orange County and San Diego County Congressional delegations. The measure also received support from Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez, the Oceanside City Council, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond and the current president of the North San Diego County NAACP, Satia Austin.
Sanchez noted that Allen “especially focused her efforts on Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton.”
The woman “had deep ties to Oceanside and continues to be honored and remembered for her contributions to our community,” she said. “She is an excellent choice for this honor.”
According to biographical information from Levin’s office, Allen was born in Texas in 1913 to Thomas and Stella Reece and was the oldest of eight children. She came to Oceanside in the 1930s, where she met and married local resident John Callen Mann.
They eventually moved to the Eastside neighborhood in Oceanside, as Allen is believed to have become just the third Black woman to live in Oceanside. She established the Church of God and Christ in 1941 with her sister and served as the minister of the church.
“Ms. Allen, like [civil rights activist] Dorothy Height, used herself to work for justice and freedom,” Austin said. “This is especially true for the Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton she fed and cared for.”
Allen worked as a cook in the Casa Blanca restaurant in downtown Oceanside before she began to cater food out of her home and eventually opened her own restaurant, the first Black-owned storefront in Oceanside, according to the statement from Levin’s office.
Her restaurant was a popular social gathering spot for Black residents who started to arrive during and after World War II. After her husband John’s death, she married Rev. Wesley H. Allen, a pastor of an Eastside church.
Allen died on Sept. 28, 1983. Although she never had kids, she is survived by many nieces and nephews, some of whom still reside in Oceanside.
– City News Service
