Members of two families greet each other on the lawn of a small white and green house on Coronado Island with laughs and teary eyes.
It’s the descendants’ first meeting, but the Thompson and Dong families are permanently linked by kindness and solidarity against a system that failed them.
Gus Thompson was born enslaved in Kentucky.
After being freed, he moved to Coronado and bought this house on C Avenue. He turned the property next to it into a stable for a successful horse business.
Miriam Matthews Collection / UCLA
After the federal government passed racially restrictive housing laws, Thompson was one of the only people in Coronado who would rent to non-white people and immigrants.
Thompson and his wife Emma eventually moved to the upper floor of the stable and rented out the small three-bedroom house.
In 1939, Lloyd Dong, a Chinese-American gardener, moved in with his wife Margaret and their son Ron.
They eventually bought the house from the Thompsons.
Now that Ron Dong and his brother Lloyd Dong Jr. are ready to sell it, they want to pay back the Thompsons’ kindness by giving their share of the proceeds — about $5 million — to the Black Resource Center at San Diego State University.
Lloyd Dong Jr. said the Thompsons gave his family a chance at the American Dream — a house — and the stability it created allowed the following generations to get an education.
The brothers want the same opportunity for Black students in San Diego.
The donation earned them naming rights to the center.
They chose to rename it after Gus and Emma Thompson.
The Thompsons’ great-granddaughter, Lauren Few, said Gus and Emma Thompson would never have been able to imagine the legacy of their kindness.
She hopes it will inspire others to pay it forward.
“Everything can’t be a million dollars paid forward, but just do something nice for somebody without expecting anything, or if something is done for you, whether it’s mentoring somebody or just a kind word,” she said.
The families agreed: The world needs more of the Thompson-Dong spirit.
