Los Angeles, Aug. 5, 2026 – Harvard Boulevard Block Club President Joe Crosby died in July from a stroke at 78-years old. He and Essie Crosby started the Block Club in 1987, which expanded to include other streets in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Club was unique in its emphasis on building unified community relations and featuring speakers and activists with messages relevant to the needs of the people living in South Central Los Angeles. The events spanned from holiday parties to protests in close collaboration with then the Service Employees International Union Local 660 (SEIU) against the bank foreclosures that hit Black and Brown communities the hardest.
The funeral service raised the continuation of work empowering communities and was insisted upon by the surviving family, neighbors and community leaders. Joe was also a veteran, understanding the challenges of other veterans denied care. At the service, many pastors from various Black churches, from as far away as San Diego, paid their respect for Joe. And they saw his life as a reflection of Jesus Christ and, without contradiction, some saw it as a reflection of the best of humanity working towards a better world right here.
Sekou Parker, Maggie Vascassenno and John Parker were members of the Harvard Boulevard Block Club. John, in addition to being a pallbearer, was assigned to give one of the reflections on the life of Joe Crosby, which follows below:
I don’t know if I deserve to speak about Joe, and I could go on for hours about this beautiful, important person – but I’ll keep to my two minutes.
Let me make a list about Joe: selfless leader of our community; had a political understanding of this system’s contradictions; would not tolerate injustice and imperialist wars targeting people who looked like us; would not tolerate the wars here against the hard-working people here from other lands; would not tolerate a world of poverty and the denial of the wealth built on our labor.
And in doing this, he would prioritize the needs of our community with conversations to check in on our families.
He and his beautiful wife, the mother and father of our community, made sure that our neighbors had a place to raise concerns, to exchange gifts, to help replace police intervention with a process of community safety through organization with the Harvard Boulevard Block Club – and providing a place where we have Block Parties – a day of communal partying with children, to play dominoes, eat hotdogs, sing karaoke and – just feel the warmth of our neighbors.
You don’t have to be a revolutionary to see and feel the benefit of their work, and Joe made sure even after the death of his loved one Essie, that the road to revolutionary change to a better world would continue.
Everyone may not understand the importance of the example Joe set in his life; they may not understand how love and concerns and conversations in community are the building blocks for a better world – but the first time our family came here, we could see it in our first conversation with Joe.
Joe also let you know what your responsibility to community was – and I know I have not done enough, but that look from a tall, intense leader when you haven’t been doing what you needed to be doing – that picture in our heads will keep our family on the path of love and keep us passing on that joyful message to our universe.
Thank you, Joe. We love you.
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