"The Little Fuehrer Invades Los Angeles": The Emergence of a Black-Jewish Coalition after World War II

The preponderance of the literature exploring the history of black-Jewish relations focuses on New York City. Indeed, an overwhelming number of the writers who have examined relations between the two groups do not acknowledge that their analyses derive exclusively from the example of New York.¹ But were one to examine the interactions between black and Jewish communities in other settings, strikingly different historical accounts might well emerge. Such is the case in the example presented here.

After World War II, blacks and Jews in Los Angeles proved able to cooperate in struggling against racism and antisemitism, successfully developing a citywide, biracial (sometimes multiracial) coalition to that end. For Jews, that they were members of a community that had much in common with people of color reduced any reluctance to participate in coalitions formed with blacks that may have existed. For blacks, the postwar period once and for all provided proof of the power of unity, not only within the black community but with other groups as well. And for both groups, the struggle specifically against the doctrines of white supremacy and antisemitism espoused in Los Angeles by Gerald L.K. Smith led to recognition of the value of constructing coalitions and struggling jointly in areas of common interest.

Economic and demographic changes in Los Angeles caused by World War II created an environment ripe for Smith's arrival in the spring of 1945. Profound shifts in the economy, together with the presence in the city of black defense workers and Jewish veterans, contributed to a heightened level of anxiety among whites in the city. By August 1942, 20,000 jobs in the aircraft industry were available because of the military draft; and between 1940s and 1943, an estimated 550,000 new jobs were created by the demands of the war effort and the increasing industrialization of Los Angeles. As for the city's changing racial composition, by the summer of 1943 blacks were arriving at the rate of more than 10,000 per month. Between 1940 and April 1944, the black population of Los Angeles grew from 55,114 to 118,888. By the end of the war, 150,000 veterans had moved to the city, many of whom were black or Jewish; and by 1948, Los Angeles housed more than 700,000 veterans, more than any other city in the United States.²

Changes of this magnitude along with others sources of instability (for example, the Zoot Suit Riots) provided fertile ground for social conflict characterized by antisemitism, anti-black racism (racism against Asians and Latinos was longstanding in Los Angeles), and white supremacist organizations. It was under such circumstances that Gerald L.K. Smith, "the Little Fuehrer," entered the city's life. Born in Paredeeville, Wisconsin, in 1898, Smith had been ordained as a minister early in his life, but in the wake of the Great Depression he embraced a new set of challenges by joining Huey Long's campaign for the presidency. Following Long's assassination in 1936 by Carl Weiss (a Jewish doctor), Smith undertook to carry out his mission by developing a social movement to "preserve America, the America which had grown out of the dynamic of Christ's personality." To build his movement, ostensibly one of Christian nationalism, he envisioned Los Angeles as its beachhead.³

In 1945, Los Angeles faced an invasion of the worst kind, though it was hardly the invasion that many Angelinos had come to expect from Japan. It was not inherently violent or precipitated by a brigade of soldiers. Within an environment replete with instability and uncertainty, white supremacy invaded Los Angeles. As war veterans returned home and the uncertainty of America's future confronted them, white Angelinos were increasingly willing to accept and openly support white supremacist rhetoric. Blacks, women, and other minorities were working in...