Historic Belmar Park will host Continuum: Honoring Belmar History & Black Santa Monica from noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 11. The free, all-ages celebration will feature KCRW DJs, live music, a vendor village curated by Black Market Flea and discussions with award-winning journalist Sam Sanders.
The event highlights Santa Monica's little-known history as home to one of the oldest African American settlements in a California seaside community.
KCRW DJ Tyler "Boogie" Boudreaux, a Los Angeles radio host, producer, organizer and activist, will perform. Sanders, host of "The Sam Sanders Show," will discuss Belmar history and Black Santa Monica through a lens of Black joy and preserving legacy. He will be joined by historian Alison Rose Jefferson, artist April Banks, archivist Carolyne Edwards of Quinn Research Center and Maurice Harris of Bloom & Plume.
Cure For Paranoia, this year's NPR Tiny Desk winner and a project of rapper Cameron McCloud, will also perform. So will Party In My Living Room, a 1990s- and 2000s-inspired house party and concert series presented with GV Black. That set will be hosted by founder THURZ with the jazz, hip-hop and soul collective Katalyst. Songs with Strings, led by conductor Vincent Ott and musician Andrew Loper, will be backed by the string quartet wholesoul, founded by violist Drew Alexander Forde. The set features Adanna Duru, My Favorite Color, NomBe, Ramir, Robyn L and VANS!
At a "Give Someone Their Flowers" Bloom Bar hosted by Santa Monica floral studio Viola Floral, participants can make mini bouquets for local elders. The bouquets will be donated through the Black seniors group Memories & Movement and Meals on Wheels West, which delivers food to homebound seniors.
Visitors can also explore historical panels developed by Jefferson and a monumental red sculpture by Banks titled "A Resurrection in Four Stanzas." Art-making activities and a photography and multimedia installation will feature archival images and works from Quinn Research Center, Santa Monica Conservancy and ZEAL, a worker-owned creative arts cooperative.
Continuum is produced by Go As If Productions. It is part of the 2026 Ocean Way Festival community benefits package developed with the city and the California Coastal Commission. Its partner is GV Black, an employee-led Goldenvoice initiative that supports Black, Indigenous and people of color voices in event production. The Ocean Way Festival is scheduled to return to Santa Monica in 2027.
For more information, visit santamonica.gov.
Edited by SMDP Staff