This is a scrimshawed portrait of Nick Gabaldon from one of the few
photos that exist of him. Art: Peter Spacek
#6. Nick Gabaldon
Nick Gabaldon was surfing’s Rosa Parks. Born in 1927, Gabaldon taught himself to surf in the 1940s at a segregated section of beach in Los Angeles called “The Inkwell,” located 12 miles north of Malibu. Sometime in the late ’40s or very early ’50s, Nick, not owning a car, made the long paddle to Malibu, surfed all day, then paddled all the way back. After following the same routine for nearly a month, some of the local surfers began giving him a lift, quietly speaking volumes and defying conventions in an America that, by enforcing racist legislations (that weren’t formally dismantled until 1965) prevented many blacks from entering the ocean or swimming pools.
On June 5th, 1951, Nick Gabaldon surfed a solid south swell at Malibu. He was killed after riding into the pier. On February 7, 2008, a plaque in Santa Monica was dedicated to Gabaldon’s contributions to the sport of surfing, and June 1st was named “Nick Gabaldon Day.”
While not much is known of his early childhood (probably because of society’s view on race at the time), Gabaldon was a student at Santa Monica High. The barriers he broke were indicative of the direction America was moving at the time, and his hands were on a small part of a larger wheel.
