In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

59  Struggling for PoliticalVoice Race and the Politics of Welfare in Los Angeles Through a case study of the War on Poverty in Los Angeles, I investigate how African American leaders forcefully challenged city government and voicedalternativevisionsofcitizenshipinthe1960s.1 Duringthistime, black middle-class leaders transformed the War on Poverty programs, especially the Community Action Program, into a significant channel through which new political opportunities could be pursued. These efforts resulted in a change in the political status of African American residents in Los Angeles . While analyzing how these African American leaders embraced and reshaped the War on Poverty, I also discuss such issues as divisions among the black residents and the feminization of poverty in Los Angeles. By so doing, I shed light on the complexity of the struggle for political access in Los Angeles. Los Angeles would be a contested political space where multiple political actors would fight for their visions of the War on Poverty. Revisiting Black Los Angeles in the 1960s In the field of African American urban history, northern and northeastern cities such as New York and Chicago have been treated as the epitome of the American city. Yet in terms of the impact the 1965 uprising made on the civil rights movement, the OEO, and the Johnson administration, Los Angeles was far from marginal. Los Angeles provides a significant case study for the black urban experience in the 1960s. In the early twentieth century, Los Angeles was labeled a city called “heaven” for African Americans. In 1913, W. E. B. Du Bois, the senior officer in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), wrote that “Los Angeles is wonderful. Nowhere in the United States is the Negro so well and beautifully housed, nor the average efficiency and intelligence in the colored population so high.” In fact, in 1910, 60 · STRUGGLING FOR POLITICAL VOICE Los Angeles showed one of the highest percentages of homeownership for African Americans. While 36.1 percent of black Angelenos owned their own homes in the City of Angels, only 2.4 percent of black residents in New York City were homeowners. Central Avenue became a “hub” for black residents, providing space for black businesses, the offices of black physicians and dentists, jazz clubs, and the famous Hotel Somerville, later renamed the Dunbar Hotel. Historian Lonnie G. Bunch thought of Los Angeles from 1900 to the stock market crash in 1929 as a “golden era” for black Angelenos, explaining that the “quantity and quality of the black owned homes” was one of the key elements in the high reputation of Los Angeles.2 As historian Douglas Flamming argues, however, black Los Angeles was only “half-free and locked in struggle.”3 Racial discrimination was persistent in the City of Angels, and in fact, with the large-scale influx of black and white migrants from the South, residential segregation hardened . Du Bois noted that “Los Angeles is not paradise . . . the color line is there and sharply drawn.”4 In 1926, a local court decided to take no action on a Los Angeles city policy that restricted the use of bathhouses and pools by “colored groups.” In 1929, the California Supreme Court declared that residential restrictions were valid, legitimizing restrictive covenants that were widely used to keep people of color out of white neighborhoods. While the 1920s was a remarkable period in the musical and literary movement , it was also a time of spatial segregation for black Angelenos.5 The 1930s and 1940s saw a massive increase in the African American population in Los Angeles. During the Great Depression, many black migrants joined in the journey to California, searching for better economic opportunities. In Los Angeles County, the black population increased from 46,425 (2.1 percent of the total population) in 1930 to 75,209 (2.7 percent) in 1940. The number of migrants continued to grow when A. Philip Randolph organized the March on Washington to protest job discrimination by defense industries. As a result, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which ordered defense contractors to eliminate discrimination in their hiring practices. Since Los Angeles was a regional center for defense production, black workers pursued opportunities there. Between 1940 and 1950, 130,000 black migrants headed to Los Angeles. In 1950, the number of African American residents in Los Angeles County rapidly increased to 217,881 (5.2 percent). Yet Los Angeles became at the same time a much more highly segregated place in the 1950s. The African...

Share