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flight ensued, those same investors purchased the remaining homes and sold them to
black families eager for change. What would result is the Crenshaw district, and South
Los Angeles as a whole, becoming a booming heart of black Los Angeles.
But a black presence was not the only one to be felt in the area. Pre-World War II,
a strong Japanese-American community was building in South Los Angeles in the
1930’s. After Pearl Harbor, many of these families were held in internment camps. With
the close of the war in 1945 coupled with the integration of South Los Angeles, the
community was largely rebuilt as Japanese-Americans moved back to the region.
Dorsey was no exception to this change. Yearbooks from the 1930’s display a
predominately white school with the occasional student of color. But the yearbook
archives display how the school changed with the community. Dorsey’s 1941 yearbook
pictures a predominately white school, with a few African-American and Japanese-
American students. By 1963, black and Japanese-American students had increased even
more so and the photos display a diverse student body, complete with an African-
American “May Day Queen.”
“I’ve always felt that diversity is very important and if there is an opportunity for
diversity so much the better. I think that in itself tends to allow you to look at things from
a different perspective.” said Willard Love, an alum and former vice principal of Dorsey.
Love attended Dorsey High School for three years in the 1950s and has felt a deep
connection to the campus ever since. When he attended Dorsey, he said, the campus did
not just look diverse but felt diverse—a characteristic that he has always considered an
advantage in his life during his time at Dorsey and beyond.