Roosevelt Winbush, a leader in Orange County’s African American faith community, has died. He was 93.
Winbush died as a result of complications from a fall on June 20, family members said. A memorial service was held Friday, July 7 at Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim.
Born and raised in Dawson, Georgia, during the Jim Crow laws era, Winbush wanted a safe and better life for his family. In order to escape the Ku Klux Klan, he took his wife and four daughters to his mother’s house before he fled Georgia to Orange County in 1958.
He found employment in construction in Yorba Linda, working on projects such as the development of the 91 and 57 freeways. In the late 1950s, once he got his footing on the West Coast, Winbush sent for his wife and four daughters to join him from Georgia.
“When we came to Orange County in 1958, there were only certain places that would rent to Black people,” said one of his daughters, Liz Edwards. She said her father worked two jobs in order to provide for his family.
Winbush became an active member of Community Temple Baptist Church in Santa Ana and served there about 30 years, becoming the head deacon and chairman of the deacon board.
With a deep love for gospel music, he sang at churches around Orange County. His lifelong journey as a gospel singer began in Georgia in the “chitlin’ circuit,” which was an informal network of venues where Black performers could entertain during the era of segregation.
Edwards said that the Winbush family encountered “traumatic” racism in Orange County, but found refuge in the faith, and in her father’s service as a deacon and gospel singer.
“Community Temple was a community where Black people can meet once or twice a week and feel safe,” Edwards said.
Tony Simon, now a pastor of the Covenant City Church in Santa Ana, was a member of Winbush’s quartet group. He said that Winbush inspired him to start singing.
“I watched him sing with the energy he did, and it…
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