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*Class and place within the Los Angeles African American community, 1940--1990

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*Class and place within the Los Angeles African American community, 1940--1990

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note w ill indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographicaUy in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UM I directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M l 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. U M I" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CLASS AND PLACE WITHIN THE LOS ANGELES AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY 1940-1990 by Paul Langham Robinson A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (GEOGRAPHY) August 2001 Copyright 2001 Paul L. Robinson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3054797 ____ ________ (f t UMI UMI Microform 3054797 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARR LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90007 This dissertation, written by under the direction of h .J L .f. Dissertation Committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re quirements for the degree of im son DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dean of Graduate Studies Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Paul L Robinson Dr. Curtis Roseman ABSTRACT CL ASS AND PLACE WITHIN THE LOS ANGELES AREA AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY: 1940-1990 Contemporary understanding ot' urban African American residence has been influenced by the notion that the processes of class polarization and geographic separation between "middle class Blacks” and "the Black underclass” are paramount to understanding continued racial disparities. However, little evidence exists for the notion that Black middle class families have been participating in a widespread exodus aw av from the ghetto. Trends in geographic separation between class strata in the Los Angeles African American community are examined over a fifty-year period. 1940-1990. The key questions being: 1) to what extent have higher income African Americans become geographically isolated from the core ghetto community, and 2) as the spatial patterns of Black residence changed, how did inter-class relations evolve over time'.1 A review of one hundred years of literature on the topic of urban African Americans revealed a break from work done by earlier scholars. To address this, a two-pan methodology was constructed consisting of 1 1 quantitative spatial analysis of census trends, and 2) a focused review of archival resources. The research showed that rather than allowing dissipation into the suburbs, the LA area real estate market has tended to steer the majority of Black Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. population growth towards the fringes of the existing ghetto, or out into one of a few areas of suburban Black concentration. During the period 1940-1960. kev organizations worked as a cohesive force in the Los Angeles Black communitv to effective!} mobilize the populace across class i'm upini’s. in the struggle for civ il rights. After the turbulent events of the 1960s. Los Angeles's Black socio-economic and territorial structure diversified, and these institutional structures eroded during the 19"tfk. causing Black inter-class and territorial conflict to increase, especially among the youth. This research confirms the suggestion that u n d e rc la ss rhc o r \ o-v il v s iis originally formulated fails to capture the complexity of the Black urban experience as it misses important social dvnamics. To address this there is a need to develop a more empirical understanding of the actual interclass relationships and geographies of metropolitan African Americans. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION To my Mother and Father, Capt. P.E. Robinson and Mrs. Jeraldine Robinson, whose tireless love and support made all this possible. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest appreciation to my advisors: Dr. Curtis Roseman, Dr. Jennifer Wolch and Dr. Michael Preston. I would also like to thank my wife Angelia Robinson, and my colleagues Dr. Jan Lin and Mr. Adrian Dove. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES ix INTRODUCTION 1 Blacks Urbanites in the North and West Towards Redirection of Research....... 1 Background to the Study.............................................................................................. 3 Regional Geography and African American Urban Residence..............................5 Racial Classification and Class Status: Concepts, Terminology, Definitions 7 CHAPTER II 14 One Hundred Years of Research on the African American Ghetto.....................14 W.E.B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, and the Birth of a Scholarly Tradition....................................................................................................................... 14 Post*DuBois: Early Literature on African American Urban Communities....... 24 An American Dilemma and the Transformation of Black Urban Scholarship.. 28 Drake and Cayton’s Black Metropolis................................................................... 31 Myrdal’s Aftermath: More Researchers, Different Perspectives, Less Substance......................................................................................................................33 Geography Discovers the Black Ghetto..................................................................35 The Late 1970s into the 1980s: The Rise of the Urban Underclass Fallacy. 45 Existing Literature in Retrospect: Gaps and Needed Research_____________ 51 CHAPTER III 58 Politics of Class Stratification: Linking Old Research with New Theories... 58 Historical Models and Theories of the Black Social Structure.............................59 The Poor and the Semi-criminal Classes.................................................................61 The Working and Middle Classes... .......... 64 The Upper Classes (The Talented Tenth).............................................................. 66 DuBois’s Legacy: Other Theorizations on Black Urban Life in the North. ...68 Class Structure, Criminality and Political Activity............................................... 74 The Latter Twentieth Century: Class Structure Matures and Diversifies......... 81 Models of Class Structure in the Late Twentieth Century...................................88 Polarization Theory Gone Wild: Social Stratification, 1970-1990 ......................94 CHAPTER IV 106 Social Theory and Black Urban Residence...........................................................106 The Evolution of the Concept of Region in Geographic Thought..................... 107 CHAPTER V 125 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Social and Territorial Development of Black Los Angeles, 1940*1990............. 125 GIS and Statistical Analysis—Studying Regional Geographic Process............ 126 Data and Methodological Issues........................................................................... 128 Historical Development of Black Los Angeles, 1940*1990................................. 131 Understanding the Core: Time/Space Clusters in Los Angeles Ghetto, 1940- 1990_______________________________________________________________ 132 Pre World War II (Cluster I): The Early Core o f Black Settlement in Los Angeles.............135 Cluster 2: The Period o f Three Distinct Communities.............................................................. 135 Cluster 3: The Westside Opens Up in the 1950s........................................................................ 138 Cluster 4: The 1960s, Westward H o!...........................................................................................139 Cluster 5: More Recent Areas o f Black In-movement................................................................140 Cluster 6: Peripheral Settlement Areas........................................................................................141 Regional and County-wide Trends and Changes................................................. 143 Geographic Polarization by Class Status in the Black Community?................ 150 Rich Black/Poor Black: Race and Class Relations in 20,h Century Los Angeles......................................................................................................................165 More than Fifteen Miles A w ay...................................................................................................... 167 Ten to Fifteen Miles Away.............................................................................................................. 168 Five to Ten Miles Aw ay.................................................................................................................. 168 Less than Five Miles Away.............................................................................................................170 Four to Five Miles Aw ay................................................................................................................ 170 Three to Four Miles Away..............................................................................................................171 Two to Three Miles Away............................................................................................................... 172 One to Two Miles Away...................................................................................................................172 Less Than 1 Mile A w ay...................................................................................................................173 Black Poverty in Los Angeles County: A Comparative Analysis....................... 173 CHAPTER VI 176 Internal Perceptions of African American Communities.................................. 176 Internal Perspectives on Black Community Development, 1940-1990............. 178 Setting the Temporal Backdrop: Max Bond’s The Negro in Los Angeles....... 179 Epoch 1—Community Organization and Social Change, 1940-1960............... 185 Epoch 2—Internal Strife and Identity Conflicts, 1960s..................................... 197 Epoch 3—Social Freedom, Economic Crisis, and Social Breakdown, ‘70s— ‘80s-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------214 Thomas Bradley, LA’s only Black Mayor 1970s—1980s...................................220 From Sharecropper to Mayor: The Rise of Mayor Bradley.............................. 222 The Bradley Regime and Los Angeles Development.......................................... 227 CHAPTER VII 237 Conclusion.................................................................................................................237 Quantitative Findings............................................................................................ 238 Qualitative findings................................................................................................240 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Study Limitations ..............................241 Implications and Suggestions for Future Research............................................242 BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The African American Class Dilemma................................................. 20 Figure 2: Income Distribution for Blacks Residing in Seventh Ward............... 59 Figure 3: Black Community, Chicago, 1920...........................................................70 Figure 4: Characteristics of Black Population, Chicago, 1920 ........................... 71 Figure 5: Occupational Class and Women Workers, Chicago 1920's ...............72 Figure 6: Black Class Structure, Chicago 1940's....... ...............................84 Figure 7: System of Class Mobility............................................................................84 Figure 8: Billingsley's Reproduction of Drake and Cayton's Black Class Structure System...................................................................................................... 89 Figure 9: Blackwell's Reproduction of Black Class Stratification Structure.....91 Figure 10: Class Structure of Black Subterranean Class...................................... 91 Figure 11: Harold Rose's Black Class Structure Pyramid................................... 93 Figure 12: Black earning quintiles, LA county 1970-1990.................................. 102 Figure 13 : Results of Clustering Procedure....................................................... 133 Figure 14 : Space Time Clusters in South Los Angeles, 1940-1990................... 134 Figure 15: Racial Transition, Howard Community, 1960-1970........................ 142 Figure 16: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1940.......................... 156 Figure 17 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1950_____________ 157 Figure 18 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1960.........................158 Figure 19 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1970.......................... 159 Figure 20: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1980........................... 160 vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 21: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1990........................... 161 Figure 22: Places in Los Angeles County, 1995.................................................. 169 Figure 23: Comparative Analysis of Black Families in Los Angeles, 1934...... 181 Figure 24: Comparative Analysis of Black Families in Los Angeles, 1934...... 182 Figure 25: Comparative Analysis of Black Families in Los Angeles, 1934...... 183 Figure 26: Black Gang Territories, LA County, 1996....................................... 235 Vlll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Regional Distribution of the Black Population 1960 and 1990........... 144 Table 2: Growth of Black Population, Los Angeles County 1940-1990.............146 Table 3: Places where Black Population Exceed 10%, Los Angeles County, 1990...............................................................................................................................148 Table 4: Correlation Matrix of Population Densities in Los Angeles County, 1990...............................................................................................................................150 Table 5: Total Black Population in Each Status Area, Los Angeles County, 1940-1990.................................................................................................................... 152 Table 6: Statistics of African Americans Living in High Home Value Census Tracts........................................................................................................................... 167 Table 7: Distances from Lower Status Black Areas by Race.............................. 170 Table 8: Ratio of Poor to Non-poor Households in Los Angeles County. 174 Table 9: Community Educational Differences, Adams/La Brea vs. Westmont/West Athens............................................................................................ 218 IX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION Blacks Urbanites in the North and West Towards Redirection of Research Many minority ethnic groups living in the United States of America have been subjected to hostility and discrimination from the individuals and institutions that represent the collection of “Western” traditions that constitute the mainstream American society. However, only one ethnic group has had their geographic/national origin used as the basis for nearly two hundred and fifty years of involuntary chattel slavery. This unique history has led to a peculiarly divergent social and territorial trajectory for African Americans and the places that they predominate. The shared history of social isolation and separate institutional and territorial development has acted upon African Americans in many ways— some being positive, others negative. Racial animosity, often of the violent variety, has been one of the most consistent themes in American history. Many legal barriers to African American equality have been toppled. However, despite many years of sincere effort to alleviate the situation, wide disparities still exist between the quality of life and life outcomes of African Americans of all social class levels, when compared with the American population as a whole. One of the main issues that continues to be important in understanding Black urban class structure revolves around the growth of Black middle and upper class groups and how they relate to other Blacks. The question of how the growing Black middle class organize themselves socially and geographically i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. remains highly misunderstood. The common assumption among many researchers and scholars is that as African Americans acquire more personal wealth, they are able to use it to move away from the “ghetto underclass” and join others in “mainstream areas," thus achieving all the rights and privileges that accompany suburbia. Contrarily, this is not how the dynamic system of social mobility operates for Black middle and upper class individuals. Also poorly conceptualized are the social and geographical relationships which middle and upper class urban African Americans are forming with lower income African Americans, especially with those who have been labeled as “underclass.” In an attempt to address this issue, the following questions were developed: 1) how has the geographic structure of African the American community changed over the period 1940- 1990; and 2) within the transforming geographic structure of the metropolitan Black community, have higher status African Americans been successful in isolating themselves from the core Black community? In order to answer these questions, in subsequent chapters, we will examine the development of literature on urban African Americans living in cities in the North and West. Much emphasis will be placed on various theoretical constructs that have dominated our understanding of the issue. The conceptual approach is guided by the writings of early researchers into the African American community. Two empirical case studies were conducted based on fifty years of development in the Los Angeles African American community (1940-1990). A Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. quantitative analysis of historical census data that reveals continued spatial clustering of the Los Angeles Black population with important potential social consequences, and secondly, a more qualitative analysis of archival sources on the changing social relationships between different social strata in the Los Angeles Black community and the impact of the racism and discrimination that Blacks were forced to cope with regardless of social and economic positions. The analysis is driven by a conceptual approach that is largely derived from two specific bodies of literature: 1) the proposed writings of earlier scholars who have studied the dynamics of urban Black residence, social structure and theoretical models of urban Black residence; and 2) theories from contemporary human geography which emphasize the dynamic socially constructed nature of places and regions. Although seemingly unrelated, when considered in combination, these literatures provide a starting point for carrying out research into this issue. Background to the Study Most African Americans living in urban areas outside the South are the children or grandchildren of the folk who participated in what is often referred to as the “great migration.” This term refers to the tremendous migration of African Americans out of the southern states into urban areas in the North and West which took place in the fifty or so years between World War I and 1965 (Morrill, 1965, 339). More recently, certain cities have received large numbers of African and/or Caribbean Blacks, but when compared with those Black Americans whose origins are in the South, their proportion remain small. The migration from the South to the urban North and the subsequent isolation of these migrants and their offspring 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. into restricted housing markets has led to the development of a socially constructed urban Black reality which is entirely different from that experienced by members of “mainstream” American society. Regional geographers often discuss the importance of such long-term territorial and social constructions. But there remains a paucity of literature, which actually incorporates “the new regional geography” into its research design and methodology. This is especially true with respect to the study of African American urban life. This is unfortunate because in actuality, regional geography, along with the work of early Black sociologists, can contribute to the advancement of research into the urban African American condition. From the period following World War II until the present, much of the literature on African Americans living in urban areas has focused on the various aspects of poverty that beset many of the inner city residents in the North and West. While the research has proven fruitful in some cases, such research is usually carried out to the neglect of also learning about the actual relationships that exist between poor inner city and the non-poor segments of the metropolitan African American community. Many of these residents live in the same communities, as do the poor. Because of this tendency to focus solely on the “urban underclass,” and the failure to include an analysis of entire class structure of the urban African American community, many of the existing works fall short of real understanding. Improper conceptualization of the problem has resulted in a condition whereby although well meaning, much of the research into the subject 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Black urban life and culture has failed to provide useful policy recommendations. It is suggested here that much of the failure to develop and implement sound policy concerning African Americans in cities stem from a poor conceptualization of the phenomenon. Regional Geography and African American Urban Residence In the wake of the quantitative revolution in geography, a renewed emphasis on the geography of social concerns developed. What initially began as a humanistic backlash to the mathematical rigor, en vogue within the field, has matured into a disciplined approach to doing human geography. With this newfound “theoretical strength,” contemporary human geographers are now in a position to utilize theories and methodologies from both the “soft” social sciences and the “hard” more mathematically based sciences. One sub-discipline of geography that has benefited tangibly from this new era is regional geography. The “new regional geography” represents a viable vehicle for the utilization of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. A central theoretical framework that facilitates the research of this school of regional geographic thought is social constructionist theory (Jackson and Penrose, 1994, Murphy, 1991). New regional geographic thought demands that, in order to fully comprehend any region one must research the power relations that over time have developed from both individual and institutional practices. Understanding the development of a region’s institutional structure will allow a researcher to uncover the often hidden institutional and ideological “worlds” that we all inhabit. 5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This is a departure from more traditional regional geography that tended to concentrate on gathering information about the material (economic, cultural, physical) characteristics of a region. Traditional theory building was directed towards adding to theoretical “tool sets” that assisted individuals and organizations in finding new ways to exploit the world for profitable gain. The new regional geography however, can have a different emphasis by attempting to understand the social, psychological and territorial borders that people produce and in turn are affected by. A research focus that attempts to achieve a better understanding of any region’s socially constructed realities represents a different use of knowledge than what was typical in the more traditional forms of regional geography practiced during the “modem age.” This new regional geography strives to go beyond a simple positivistic collection of facts about objective level objects so as to improve the ability of the political and economic power holders in a given national, or corporate unit’s ability to control nature and society. Instead, the new regional geography attempts to move from the mere collection of objective knowledge for technological gain towards a more practical and ultimately liberating use of “scientific” knowledge. An awareness of the social constructions of a given place allows people to see beyond the mechanisms that work to divide them by class, ethnicity and nationality thus perpetuating inequality and injustice. The new regional geography has the potential foremancipation (Paasi 1986, 107). Although the role of 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. institutional development and the related social implications of that development on urban African Americans were recognized by early Black sociologists, scholars of that period lacked the level of theoretical understanding of these processes that is now available. Contemporary regional geographic theory can contribute to our understanding of the Black urban situation because it openly acknowledges the importance of the social and historical relationships that resulted in the formation of any one place and culture. When regional geographic thought is considered (as it relates to the work of the early scholars who considered African American urban residence) a sounder framework for inquiry emerges. Racial Classification and Class Status: Concepts, Terminology, Definitions Throughout this work, the terms Black, African American and Negro will be used according to their politically correct era assignment to describe those persons of African descent living in the United States. It is recognized that while ancestrally similar to the native bom African Americans, those Black Americans who themselves, or whose parents/grandparents participated in one of the ever increasing twentieth century immigrant streams out of Africa and the Caribbean, clearly do have distinct cultural backgrounds. However, in the American system of racial classification, most non-United States bom African origin immigrants tend to get blended in with native-born Blacks, and sometimes share residential space with native Blacks. For this reason the terms African American, Black, and Negro are used unilaterally to refer to Black Americans regardless of national 7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. origin, all the while acknowledging the existence of non-United States native Blacks and their distinct sub-cultures. Another set of terms that are used here revolves around the concepts of social class, and/or socio-economic status (SES). These terms are used to refer to related notions that, in the interest of definitional clarity, merit further discussion. Class stratification is a well-known and highly researched topic. Sociologists especially, have delved deeply into the meanings and definition of social class differences. In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx proposed that all history could be understood as a struggle between two classes. The ownership class sought to make profit off of the property and the machines that they owned, and the laboring class was forced to operate the machines and tend the land in return for wages paid to them out of the profits of the ownership class (Marx, 1888). For Marx, this situation led to a constant class struggle, which would eventually end when the laboring classes, through political action, would rise up and overthrow the ownership class. This dualistic model, while no doubt highly applicable in nineteenth century Europe, is less useful in understanding the concept of class in contemporary American urban areas. In the early twentieth century, another German scholar, Max Weber, developed a theory of class and social inequality. Weber defined “class” as any group of persons who occupied the same class status. Weber’s criteria for a class required that: 1) a number of people have a specific causal component of their life chances in common; 2) this causal component be represented exclusively by 8 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income; and 3) this causal component be expressed through the conditions of the commodity and labor markets (Weber, 1968). A central theme in Weber’s class analysis is the notion of “life chances.” He defines it as “ the kind of control or lack of it which the individual has over goods or services and existing possibilities of their exploitation for the attainment of receipts within a given economic order” (Weber, 1968). A person’s class situation then is determined by one’s access to “a supply of goods, external living conditions, and personal life experiences.” Property, or the lack of property, were thought by Weber to be “the basic categories of all class situations, in that one’s life chances are primarily determined by the differentiation of property holdings, and power is derived from the ownership and control of property." The existence of social classes led Weber to acknowledge that there are various social strata. Social status, according to Weber, was based the ability to lay claim to social prestige. These prestigious claims include: a) mode of living; b) a formal process of education and the subsequent acquisition of the corresponding mode of living; or c) via the prestige of birth or through a highly paid occupation. Based on this framework then, Weber defined social stratum as a plurality of individuals who, as a subset of the general population, enjoy a particular kind and level of prestige by virtue of their position. As Weber said: One might thus say that “classes” are stratified according to their relations to the production and acquisition of goods; whereas “status groups” are stratified according to 9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special “styles of life” (Weber 1968). Another scholar, Vilfredo Pareto (1935), proposed that the vast majority of the population is incapable of governing themselves. Based on this, he theorized that there was an “elite” class of individuals that was composed of the brightest and most talented members of the masses of society. This elite class, because of its superior ability, would always rule the masses because simply put, the masses are incapable of leading themselves. Both Pareto and another leading elite theorist, Gaetano Mosca. believed that this ruling class always emerged out of the masses, and that there was a constant process of movement of individuals between the masses and the ruling class. The elite itself was in a state of constant transformation, with new elite groups arising out of the masses to seize social and political power and displace old elite groups (Berberoglu, 8). Functionalism remains a popular notion of social class in American academic circles. The functionalist approach views class stratification as an essential part of any social system. Princeton University’s demographer- sociologists, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore’s 1945 Some Principles of Stratification states, “a society must somehow distribute its members in social positions and induce them to perform the duties of these positions.” For a functionalist, it is society’s role to motivate its members to work hard and live up to social values. The social system is maintained by the allocation of “variable rewards,” with positions requiring greater skill, training, talent or ability getting a greater share of the monetary rewards. Functionalists claim that class stratification 10 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is a universal constant because it is the result of the differential reward system that humans use to ensure that the most important positions are filled by capable people. Critics, who point out the negative aspects of a system based on differential rewards, and the resultant social inequality, have increasingly questioned the functionalist approach. They have pointed out that functionalists, in their acceptance of the stratified structure of capitalist society as a given, are either consciously or unconsciously participating in the perpetuation of the dominant capitalist ideology and the maintenance of the existing social order (Berberoglu, 4). There are clearly many different ways to conceptualize social status. There is nearly universal agreement that social stratification does exist in most modem societies, and that it is fundamentally related to the type of system a given society has developed for determining who has access to and control over resources, especially those that are at a scarcity. This point of agreement shall serve as the basis for the definition of the various terms used to describe class stratification within the African American communities studied in the project here. Considered at its most basic level, “class position” can refer simply to one’s economic capability. High income is often assumed to correlate with high socio-economic status. However, other factors, such as family background, education level, and occupation are also factors in determining a person’s class status. These more intangible measures of social status have historically been important in the Black 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. community, due to the denial of economic opportunity to even highly skilled African Americans by the dominant society. In urban areas outside the South however, as Black social structure has developed over the twentieth century, income alone seems to have grown more and more important as the main determinant of social status. Other factors, such as education and professional occupation remain as key vehicles through which a more adequate income can be obtained, but the amount of social prestige that accommodates these factors seems to be dwindling— a phenomena that will be addressed in a later chapter. In the discussions that follow, the terms social class, SES, social status, and socioeconomic position, etc., will be used to describe both economic capability and social position. Care will be taken to clearly define their contexts so as to leave little doubt about what aspect of “social class” each usage of the term refers to. The relationship between social class status and geography has been contentious issues for urban African Americans. The territorially and socially proscribed nature of Black life in the city has caused secondary dilemmas of class and identity. These dilemmas will continue to plague the Black community into the twenty-first century. Class and identity conflict among Blacks in urban America results directly from the territorial and social separation that urban Blacks confront. The chapters that follow will explore how class and territory have been reformulated over the latter half of the twentieth century within the African American urban community. 1 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the following chapters, a focused literature review on the existing work on Black urban settlement will be presented. This literature, along with the work of contemporary regional geographers, will then be used to direct a case study of 50 years in the development of the Los Angeles African American community. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II One Hundred Years of Research on the African American Ghetto The social science literature of the early twentieth century on African Americans in Northern and Western metropolises was almost exclusively carried out by one of a few prominent Black social scientists. Today however, scholars of all types and disciplines write about the “Black ghetto.” This change in the level of scholarly interest reflects the fact that in the early part of the century, the African American presence in cities outside the South was minimal, but by the end of the twentieth century many American inner cities were and remain predominantly African American. Unfortunately however, literature on Black urban residence has evolved in a way that leaves earlier identified gaps in our understanding still unaddressed. Reclamation of the research directions followed by early Black sociologists— lost for so long to social science research on the subject—can contribute to contemporary research on African American urban communities. This chapter demonstrates how the literature on African Americans living in America’s urban areas changed direction, with respect to both methodology and research focus after the World War II era, especially in the aftermath of Swedish sociologist, Gunner Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944). W.E.B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, and the Birth of a Scholarly Tradition As African Americans migrated from the South into cities in the North and West, the communities that they formed eventually attracted scholarly attention. 14 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Philadelphia Negro (1899). by scholar, scientist and activist, W.E.B. DuBois, was the seminal study of one of these burgeoning urban African American communities. DuBois, a recent Ph.D. in Sociology at Harvard University, came to Philadelphia on a one-year appointment at the University of Pennsylvania to study the Black community in the city’s Seventh ward. Written in 1896, when it was widely believed that African Americans were genetically inferior to Whites, even avowed racists could not discredit the scholarly quality of DuBois’ work. The Philadelphia Negro set the standard for what has developed into a long line of sociological inquiry into the African American urban condition. It was not only DuBois’ painstaking methods of research and his attempts at objective interpretations of the evidence that makes The Philadelphia Negro a masterpiece in sociological literature, it was that DuBois brought a thoroughly sociological point of view to bear on his collected evidence. The significance of The Philadelphia Negro is even clearer when its historical context is considered. The last five years of the nineteenth century was a period when White supremacist attitudes were at a peak globally. The year 1896, when DuBois was commissioned to come to Philadelphia, also marks the year that Britain’s Queen Victoria celebrated the “Diamond Jubilee.” This event was a joyous celebration of the accomplishments of British “civilization” that had recently conquered and brutally subjugated most of Africa as well other parts world. Stateside, the 1890s were a time when the many of the recent gains made by newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction were being lost. !5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nationally, more than 200 African Americans were documented as being lynched in 1896 and 1897, and the actual number is believed to be greater (Christian 1995, 283-284). Not only were social conditions worsening, but also many of the political rights obtained after emancipation from slavery were gradually being undone. White Southerners had begun to discover ways to re-disenfranchise Blacks. Led by Louisiana, most Southern states began adopting “grandfather clauses” into their constitutions. Typically grandfather clauses specified that a person would only be able to vote if his father or grandfather had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867, or if he or his ancestor had served in either the Confederate or the Union Army. These measures were effective in barring much of the Black vote. Another example of the political and legal snares which tum- of-the-twentieth century Southern legislatures instituted to roll back the rights of the newly freed Blacks were the contract laws. Contract laws allowed people who were (often fraudulently) found guilty of minor crimes (usually Blacks) to work out their sentences on private plantations. Southern States passed laws that provided that any laborer, working for a share of the crop or for wages, who takes advances and then “willingly and without just cause fails to perform the reasonable service required of him” could receive a fine or imprisonment. Blacks were easily convicted of breaking such laws, whether they had actually committed the crime or not. This system was extremely profitable for Southern agricultural planters (Christian 1995, 283). 16 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although migration to the urban North and West did offer relief from the South’s brutal methods of Black subjugation, African Americans faced new challenges upon arrival in Northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago. West Coast cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco also received a steady, but far less voluminous number of African American in-migrants during the post Civil War period. A Northerner by birth, DuBois had witnessed First hand what conditions were like for southern Blacks. Prior to his stint in Philadelphia, DuBois studied at Fisk University in Nashville, where he taught school-aged children in rural Tennessee during the summers. He had also completed graduate work at Harvard and traveled and studied in Europe. As an aspiring member of the Black intelligentsia, DuBois’s The Philadelphia Negro, is an example of what Gaines (1996, 2) has termed “uplift ideology.” Popularized by Booker T. Washington, the prominent Black leader and educator, uplift ideology held that it was the moral imperative of the elite, educated members of the "Negro race” to challenge the racial essentialism found in the “Social Darwinistic” theories that had pervaded American sociology since the 1880s. In seeking to combat the view that Blacks were destined to remain an inferior caste-like subgroup in American society, many of the Black elite of the late 1890s and early 1900s tended to stress the existence of class and cultural differentiation within the African American community. For these elite, the answer to the problems of the Black “race” would 17 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. be found in such principles as racial solidarity, self help, chastity, temperance, self-discipline and patriarchal authority. Often referred to as the “Talented Tenth,” the early members of the Black elite took upon themselves the responsibility to prove to the outside world that the proponents of social Darwinism and racial essentialism were wrong. Further, if Blacks were given the proper exposure to education and culture, they could transform themselves over time into full-fledged American citizens, thus changing the White supremacist views that were held by the majority of the unsympathetic American population. Although the early Black elite have often been characterized rather simplistically as proclaiming race uplift ideology while themselves attempting to adopt the lifestyle and culture of White people, the reality is much more complex. Rather, the desire for the early African American elite to define themselves as different from the masses of the Black population should be understood as an attempt to maintain a positive sense of self-worth and identity. The infusion of racist beliefs that characterized White American society at the turn of the twentieth century made it very difficult for worldly, educated, African Americans like DuBois to feel good about their dubious class and professional status. As a rebuttal to this inferior way of thinking, an ideology of class stratification, self-help, and Black economic interdependence and solidarity was forged. The American inference of sameness with all classes of Blacks was a popular subject of discussion for educated and successful Black Americans in the 18 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. early twentieth century as depicted in a 1913 edition of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) news journal, The Crisis (Figure 1). In the depiction, four men, an upper class White and an upper class Black along with an obviously poor White and a poor Black man are shown. The upper status White man has little to do with and bears no responsibility for the poor White man (possibly a southern or eastern European immigrant). On the other hand, the upper status Black man is held responsible for everything the poor Black man (possibly a migrant from the Deep South) does and is and may become. The artist’s message is clear: class status is conceptualized differently for urban Blacks than for Whites, primarily to the social disadvantage of Blacks. It is obvious that the circumstances of early Black men of professional stature were problematic. In emphasizing class and culture, the early Black elite often espoused a similar ideology to that of the White ruling class. The reasons for the conservative sounding positions taken by early Black scholars however, are complex. Unfortunately, these overly moralist tones have turned many scholars away from the substantive body of work that these early Black American thinkers have left, albeit to the detriment of an overall understanding of the Black urban condition. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1: The African American Class Dilemma. Source: Smith and Feagin, 1995 2 0 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In The Philadelphia Negro, rather than accepting social Darwinistic arguments that the problems of urban Blacks were simply due to inferiority, DuBois’s focused on the social environment rather than on hereditary causes. DuBois emphasized the importance of obtaining a better understanding of how class stratification operates within the Black community and argued that much of the racial inequality that existed was the result of class and societal forces rather than natural inborn differences. There is a far mightier influence to mold and make the citizen, and that is the social atmosphere which surrounds him: first his daily companionship, the thoughts and whims of his class; then his recreations and amusements; finally the surrounding world of American civilization, which the Negro meets especially in his economic life (1899, p.309). In the quote above, in the 1890s DuBois recognized the importance of the social world of African Americans in determining their fortunes. Also, in the last sentence of this quote, DuBois brings up the notion of the impact of the external relations that Black Americans have with “the surrounding American civilization.” DuBois refers to the institutionalized racism that African Americans dealt with in the 1890s, and were still tolerating in the 1990s. DuBois recognized that this institutional discrimination was most damaging to the “economic life” of American Blacks. However, writing in the late 1890s, DuBois did not fully understand the all-encompassing nature of the modernist Western European project and its implicit racism and sexism. In his later years, DuBois himself admitted that at the time of the book’s writing he had adopted too much of what he had been taught at 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Harvard and in Europe without questioning its validity. In his final autobiography, written while an expatriate in Ghana West Africa where he died, DuBois wrote that in his youth, he did not fully grasp the implications of colonial imperialism and its implicit racism (Gaines, 1996, 5). A major theme of the Philadelphia study was that too much emphasis was being placed on the lowest classes of the Black urban population, while middle and upper class Blacks were ignored. To the average Philadelphian the whole Negro question reduces itself to a study of certain slum districts [...]. Continued and widely known charitable work in these sections makes the problem of poverty familiar to him; bold and daring crime too often traced to these centres reminds him of a problem of crime, while the scores of loafers, idlers and prostitutes who crowd the sidewalks here night and day remind him of a problem of work (DuBois 1899, 6). DuBois criticized the propensity for mainstream critics to focus on the lowest segments of the Black community, and to ascribe that reality to all Blacks. In pointing out the deficiency of such an approach, DuBois painstakingly detailed the areas in Philadelphia where Blacks lived and documented the variety between and within these communities. He found that Philadelphia Blacks had spread far from the traditional Black communities of St. Mary’s, Seventh and Lombard, and Twelfth and Kater. Thus today the Negroes are scattered in every ward of the city, and the great mass of them live far from the whilom centre of colored settlement. What then of this great mass of people? Manifestly they form a class with social problems of their own— the problems of the Thirtieth Ward differ from the problems of the Fifth, as the Black inhabitants differ.. Here are social questions and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. conditions, which must receive the most careful attention and patient interpretation (1899 p.7). Not only did DuBois distinguish the middle classes from the slum class, DuBois also identifies Black Philadelphia's upper class as a distinct group: Scattered throughout the better parts of the Seventh Ward, and on Twelfth, lower Seventeenth and Nineteenth streets, and here and there in the residence wards of the northern, southern, and western sections of the city is a class of caterers, clerks, teachers, professional men, small merchants, etc., who constitute the aristocracy of the Negroes. Here too are social problems— differing from those of other classes, and differing from those of Whites of a corresponding grade, because of the peculiar social environment in which the whole race finds itself, which the whole race feels, but which touches this highest class at most points and tells upon them most decisively (1899, p. 8). These observations by DuBois begged a question that still plagues our understanding of African American life in cities today. DuBois. writing in the 1890s, identified not only internal class differences, but also the overarching effects of the social constraints placed on all Blacks, regardless of class position by the outside American society. Regrettably one century later, DuBois calls for researchers to gain a more thorough understanding of the internal class stratification within African American communities, as well as how this class structure has been impacted by the persistence of external institutionalized racism, and have been neglected, especially by researchers working after 1950. Rather, much of the research into Blacks in urban areas has continued to gravitate towards the problem(s) of the Black poor. DuBois wrote: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nothing more exasperates the better class of Negroes than this tendency to ignore their existence. The law abiding, hard working inhabitants of the Thirtieth Ward are aroused to righteous indignation when they see that the word Negro carries most Philadelphians’ minds to the alleys of the Fifth Ward or the police courts (p.310). Now, more than one hundred years after DuBois’s research and investigations, many observers of Black urban society remain fixated on the poorest segments much to the detriment of overall understanding of the Black urban consciousness. In tandem with this failure to advance conceptual understanding. Black urban problems have persisted and in many instances worsened in Philadelphia as well as other cities. Further discussion on DuBois and his studies proceed in chapter three. Post-DuBois: Early Literature on African American Urban Communities During the first two decades of the twentieth century little scholarly attention was paid to the Black urban communities outside the South. For a long period, DuBois's book, The Philadelphia Negro continued to stand as the major example of sound scholarship into the non-Southern, African American urban experience. Meanwhile, it was a time of ever worsening conditions for Black Americans. In the early twentieth century, the majority remained trapped in the Jim Crow South, a place where, just as in South Africa under apartheid, a system based upon social inequality between Blacks and Whites was being socially and politically institutionalized (Myrdal, 1944; Frederikson 1981, 1996). In 1914, a chapter on the topic of the urban Negro was published in the American Academy of Political Science’s volume, The Negro’s Progress in Fifty 24 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Years (1914). This book included pieces by W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and many other prominent scholars. Of interest here is the chapter entitled “Conditions among Negroes in the Cities,” written by George Edmund Haynes of Fisk University. Haynes detailed the increases in Black urban population nationally that occurred between 1890 and 1910 and discussed the impacts of this increasing Black urban presence, the problem of segregation, and its affect on race relations. With separation in neighborhoods, in work, in churches, in homes and in almost every phase of life, there is growing up in the cities of America a distinct Negro world, isolated from many of the impulses of the common life and little known and understood by the White world about it... Now, the outcome of segregation in such a serious situation is first of all to create an attitude of suspicion and hostility between the best elements of the two races [...]. The White community is thus frequently led to unjust judgments of Negroes and Negro neighborhoods, as seen in the sobriquets of “Little Africa,” “Black Bottom,” “Niggertown,” “Smoketown.” “Buzzards Alley.” Chinch-row,” and as indicated by the fact that the individuals and families who live in these neighborhoods are lumped by popular opinion into one class (Haynes 1914, 111). Here, fifteen years after DuBois, another reference is found that discusses the tendency for Black intra-class distinctions to be ignored, overlooked, and disregarded. Also, Haynes identifies the development of a separate “constructed reality” for African Americans in cities. Both of these themes are crucial to the present study. The basic idea is that America has always consisted of separate “social worlds” and that being White (or of European Ancestry) qualified one for membership in “mainstream” American life, with all its benefits. Those groups Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. outside this exclusive designation were denied equal access to the ‘fruits’ of American wealth. Probably more than any other group in United States history, African Americans have been kept outside of the mainstream. The theme of a separate institutional world for African Americans is one that has matured and been further developed throughout the twentieth century. As will be discussed further in subsequent chapters, late twentieth century theories on race and ethnicity can have great utility in any consideration of the African American condition. Despite the apparent paucity of literature on the subject that was written during that period, the first two decades of the twentieth century were important years for the formation of contemporary African American ghettos outside the South. Many initial centers of Black urban population grew substantially over the time span. Chicago’s Black population for example, rose from 30,150 to 109.458 between 1900 and 1920, and this early wave of Black migrants was accompanied by growing hostility from the Whites of that city, culminating in open warfare during the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 (Spear 1967, 201). In response to this increasing urban conflict, several substantial pieces of literature that addressed the issue of African Americans living in cities outside the South were written during the period between the 1920s and the 1950. In the early ‘20s, Charles Johnson, an African American student of the Park and Burgess’s Chicago School of Sociology, researched and published literature on the Negro housing problem in Chicago (Bracey 1971, 70). Also written during the 1920s 26 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was “Negro Problems in Cities” by T. J. Woofter, Jr., (1928). “Negro Problems” was a study of a “new phenomenon” of large concentrations of Negroes in America’s cities. “Problems” chronicled aspects of Negro life and residence in several American cities. “Negro Problems” was in some respects, a continuance of the tradition established thirty years earlier by DuBois. Rather than take a hereditary perspective, “Negro Problems in Cities” also recognized the importance of the social environment. Many people attribute excessive Negro death rates from tuberculosis, pneumonia and the diseases of infants to inborn racial traits, others attribute crimes of violence and irregularities in family life to peculiar emotional equipment of people of African descent. Regardless of whether these traits are influenced to some extent by heredity or not, this analysis of the city environment indicates that they are also profoundly influenced by the conditions of life in cities (Woofter 1928, 18). Despite remaining equivocal, the author was espousing a perspective that many of his contemporaries did not share. Sadly, this age-old argument of whether environment or heredity is responsible for the problems of the urban Negro remains an issue for some in the 1990s. In the 1930s, a young Black scholar named E. Franklin Frazier emerged as the pre-imminent sociologist studying the Black urban condition. Frazier’s 1932 book, The Negro Family in Chicago was published out of Frazier’s Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Chicago. A product of the Chicago school of sociologists, Frazier, like DuBois before him, called on scholars to better understand Black intra-class distinctions and not to lump all Blacks together into one class. 27 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The majority of studies of Negro life have taken the Negro group as an undifferentiated mass [...]. The assumption of the present study has been that the career of the Negro in America has not only brought about considerable social disorganization but has created wide differences in cultural development which are obscured by treating Negroes as a homogenous group (Frazier 1932, p.255). Another important work on non-Southem Black communities of the 1930s was Max Bond’s 1936 dissertation, “The Negro in Los Angeles.” The work of both Bond and Frazier will be addressed in more detail in a subsequent chapter. An American Dilemma and the Transformation of Black Urban Scholarship In the early period of literature on Black urban residence, African American sociologists did almost all of the work. The 1940s however, would bring about a change in writers, the content of their work, and how much was written on African Americans living in America’s Northern and Western metropolises. Whether the increase in non-Black scholarship on the “Black ghetto” has been helpful or not, is debatable. A pivotal event in the mainstream academy’s understanding of the Black American situation occurred when Gunner Myrdal, a Swedish social scientist, published a book entitled An American Dilemma (1944) as discussed in a previous chapter. The history behind this very influential book is interesting but the manuscript also sheds light on certain aspects of the development of literature on urban Blacks. Ironically it was Myrdal, also a Swedish national, who appears to have been instrumental in bringing more mainstream American attention to “the Negro problem.” Myrdal was commissioned by then-president of the Carnegie Commission. Frederick P. 28 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Keppel, after an intensive search for a social scientist of unquestioned talent and ability to direct “the definitive” study of Blacks in the United States. After compiling a long candidate list of American and European scholars, Keppel decided that American scholars both Black and White, had too many prejudices to be able to write an objective and fresh study (Southern 1987,4). Keppel also decided to rule out Europeans from nations with imperialist interests, which limited his search to Switzerland and Scandinavia. When first approached, Myrdal thought the offer to be odd. considering that his previous contacts with Black Americans had been limited to “elevator operators, lowly hotel workers, and Red Caps in train stations.” He is said to have remarked to his wife after reading the offer letter, “these Americans, they are a funny lot” (Southern 1987, 5). Myrdal turned the initial offer down, but after a monetary increase was offered from Carnegie, agreed to direct the research. The appointment of a Swedish scholar to conduct such a large scale study of “the Negro problem” met with opposition from many American social scientists, especially White Southern academicians like Howard Odum, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Southern 1987, 18). When the book was published, many Southern conservatives ignored it. Southern liberals praised the work with reservations, and many took issue with Myrdal’s anti-segregationist views. Initially, Black scholars also met Myrdal with suspicion, some possibly feeling slighted by the commissioning of a White European outsider to study the 29 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. problems of their people. Eventually Myrdal’s respect for the Black perspective and his Swedish social democratic political ideals won over many Black scholars, but a contingent, including Carter G. Woodson, the renowned Harvard-trained historian of Black America, remained critical of Myrdal. Overall however, relations between Myrdal and African Americans appear to have been harmonious. Myrdal brought in several Black scholars as collaborators on the project, including a contingent of professors and graduate students from Howard University (Southern 1987, 20). Dilemma was mostly national in scope, and much of its content focused on the social structure of the segregated South, which he likened to a “caste” system. It also included some discussion on Blacks living in the bigger cities. An American Dilemma quickly became a “bible” for the Civil Rights movement. In the minds of many liberal Whites, Myrdal’s prestige as an established European scholar no doubt lent credence to his calls for the application of democratic social ideals to the “Race Question.” For a number of Whites who lived in Northern and Western States, Dilemma represented their first exposure to the harsh reality of the segregated South and the injustices visited upon African Americans in that region. For many years. Myrdal’s book was a standard reference in NAACP civil rights cases, including the famous Shelley vs. Kraemer litigation of 1948 that ended judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants, as well as, the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling. One 30 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reason Dilemma was so useful to civil right litigants was that in addition to hard “scientific” research, it included eloquent rhetorical passages that weighed heavily upon many liberal Whites consciences. For example, Myrdal’s final chapter entitled “America Again at the Crossroads” linked the United States’ treatment of the Negro to its international reputation and status as a world power. The main international implication is, instead, that America, for its international prestige, power and future security, needs to demonstrate to the world that American Negroes can be satisfactorily integrated into its democracy (1944, p. 1016). Drake and Cay ton’s Black Metropolis Working independently— although concurrent with Myrdal— two Black social scientists, St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton published a monumental study of Chicago’s Black community. Their study was labeled, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945). and it followed in the academic tradition established by DuBois half a century earlier. The authors, who discuss the influence of DuBois’ work on their thoughts, openly acknowledged this lineage. In reference to the DuBois research on Philadelphia's Black population and his study of the social relations within and between the city’s different Black class elements, they state: This emphasis upon the social— in family, clique, church, voluntary associations, school, job— as the decisive elements in personality formation is generally accepted. The authors feel that it should also be the guiding thread in a study of “class” rather than a more arbitrary approach of defining classes by looking for “breaks” in a statistical distribution of income or rents. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. All serious students of Negro communities since DuBois have been concerned with the nature of social stratification among Negroes and with the relative importance of the various factors upon which power and prestige are based (1944 p. 788). Here, Drake and Cayton make clear their agreement with the belief that in order to understand Black urban communities researchers must go beyond simple statistical description and incorporate an analysis of the social world that urban Blacks must live in and the power relations found within that society. In Metropolis. Drake and Cayton present a frank and comprehensive picture of Black life in South Side Chicago during the 1940s. Like earlier scholars they recognized the development of a distinct, socially constructed reality for urban African Americans. Since the eighteenth century, a separate Negro institutional structure has existed in America. Through the years it has been developing into an intricate web of families, cliques, churches, and voluntary associations, ordered by a system of social classes. This “Negro World” is, historically, the direct result of social rejection by the White society. For Negroes, however, it has long since lost this connotation, and many White people never think of it as such. It is now the familiar milieu in which Negroes live and move from birth till death (1945, p. 122). Obviously, Drake and Cayton made some of the same observations about African American social life that DuBois, Haynes and Frazier had made years earlier. By the 1940s the separate institutional world of the Negro had become even more entrenched. Understanding this constructed reality is key to understanding Black urban residence. Research on Black urban communities, which fails to incorporate an analysis of this Black “social reality” into the 32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. project, is hindered by the lack of an adequate conceptualization of the Black urban condition. This Black social reality must include an analysis of all class elements of the Black population as well as how they both interact with each other and with the outside world. We will delve more deeply into this question as well as into the theoretical models of Drake and Cayton’s Black Metropolis in later chapters. Overall, the World War II era was an important period for urban African American studies. In the wake of a world war to stop the racist Nazi regime, and the reception given Myrdal’s monumental work, it seemed to many as if real breakthroughs were being made in the African American struggle for justice and security. It also seemed that social science (via the success of works such as Myrdal’s An American Dilemmat would play a leading role in the uplift of African Americans all over the country. These hopes have yet to be fully realized. A possible reason for this is the subject of the next section. Myrdal’s Aftermath: More Researchers, Different Perspectives, Less Substance The high profile and widespread acclaim of An American Dilemma brought new attention to the African American situation. During the 1950s and 1960s, research into urban African American communities gained “mainstream status.” No longer was this topic the domain of only a few African American social scientists. Increasingly, it became fashionable for outsiders to write on the “Black ghetto.” During this period, the general quantitative turn in the social sciences penetrated academic research on Black urban communities as well. 33 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Unfortunately, it appears that in the rush towards more “scientific” evidence of the trends and patterns in Negro residence many researchers chose to disregard the sound body of theory and methodology for studying the “Black ghetto” that had been developed by the previous generation of Black scholars. An example of this trend is Otis and Beverly Duncan’s, The Negro Population of Chicago (1957). Unlike Black Metropolis, the Duncans’ book tended to approach the question of Black urban residence as a phenomenon that could be studied strictly through census data trends, with no other forms of empirical analysis. One of the self-professed goals of writing The Negro Population of Chicago was to “advance the scientific understanding of the structure and development of the contemporary urban community” (p. ix). However, the authors made no attempt to research the changing social practices and institutions that underlay observed changes in the residential patterns of Black Chicagoans. Instead, in keeping with the scientific bent sweeping through the social sciences at the time, the Duncans relied mostly on the spatial population patterns and other census trends that were revealed by statistical analysis. Duncan and Duncan chose not to address the calls made by earlier scholars, who had stressed the need to better understand internal Black social class stratification, nor the impact of the legacy of institutionalized discrimination upon the internal class structure of metropolitan African Americans. These earlier scholars had identified this knowledge as being fundamental to America’s ability to solve the “Negro problem,” yet their declarations were obviously not taken seriously. When one 34 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. considers the Duncan work in relation to the tradition established by earlier researchers on the “Black ghetto,” who tended to employ a more rounded approach which incorporated “hard data” and more qualitative research into the same project, the Duncan collaboration clearly falls short in terms of its contribution. Another example of work on the Black ghetto that relied heavily upon statistical data was Karl and Alma Taeuber’s Negroes in Cities (1965)— a book similar to the Duncans’ publication—except it was national in scope. In Negroes in Cities, the Taeubers researched trends in the racial succession of neighborhoods from White to Black by studying the index of segregation between the two groups. Like the Duncans, the Taeubers chose not to fully address socio-economic distinctions within the Black community, and instead simply acknowledged that the data seemed to indicate that there was a degree of residential segregation among different social class groupings for Blacks in American cities. No analysis of this internal class segregation within the Black community was presented (Taeuber and Taeuber, 1965, 180). Geography Discovers the Black Ghetto The urban rebellions of the 1960s that were rooted in the African American ghettos of cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and New York, further fueled public interest in urban Black communities. Because of the massive destruction of property and the loss of life that took place during these events, the federal government appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (usually called the Kemer Commission after its 35 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chair Otto Kemer). At the time, sociology held unquestioned dominance over the study of urban Blacks. However, continued ghetto growth, urban revolts, and a growing Black nationalist movement brought Black urban American life and culture more and more into the public media. It was inevitable that scholars in other academic disciplines would begin to address the Black ghetto. One such discipline that made contributions to the study of urban Blacks after 1960 is geography. Prior to the 1960s, geographers had shown little interest in urban African American issues. Those that did address the African origin population living in North America, such as Hartshome (1938), Wesley and Nelson (1956), and Hart (1960) did not focus on the urban context. Beginning in the mid-1960s however, a flurry of interest in urban African Americans developed which continued until 1980. Geographers' interest in urban Blacks waned again for most of the 1980s only to pick up in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Much of this latest flurry of interest is attributable to the journal, Urban Geography, which, since its inception in 1979, has published 42 articles on African Americans— more than any other geography journal. The Annals of the Association of American Geographers places second, with 38 articles published over a much longer 88-year history (Dwyer, 1997,443). One of the earliest scholars to apply geographical concepts to the study of urban Blacks was Richard Morrill, who helped to catapult geographers headlong into the debate surrounding the Black urban condition. Morrill's 1965 article “The 36 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Negro Ghetto: Problems and Alternatives” which appeared in The Geographical Review influenced subsequent research not only a within geography but in other disciplines as well. Using the city of Seattle as a case study, Morrill developed a temporal and spatial model of Seattle's Black population that was based upon a census tract’s “migration probability field,” a probability that Morrill calculated based on a set of conditions in both the sending and receiving census tracts. Factors that determined a tract’s probability of receiving new Black migrants included the number of Black in-migrants to the city, the income level of Whites in the destination tract and the distance of the destination tract away from the already established Black areas. Morrill used the migration probability model to simulate the growth, between 1950 through 1970, in Seattle’s Black community. Amazingly, his geographic model rather closely approximated the actual growth of the Seattle Black community over that time period. One of the more compelling aspects of Morrill’s model is that it attempts to incorporate “intangibles” such as “White prejudice” into a general quantitative model. He identifies four main forces that he says operate to isolate Blacks as: prejudice of Whites against Negroes, characteristics of Negroes, discrimination by the real estate industry and associated financial institutions and, legal and governmental barriers (1965, p. 344). An important finding of Morrill’s article was that Whites seemed willing to accept only 5-25% (with a mean of 10%) Black influx within a community before that community would rapidly transition over to an all minority area. Morrill’s basic conclusion was that a real reduction in Black “ghettoization” 37 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. would require “governmental, not a voluntary regulation of the urban land and housing market—enforced open housing ordinances” (1965, p. 360). Morrill goes on to state: 'T he strongest force... in maintaining the ghetto may well be real estate institutions: the real estate broker and sources of financing." However, in explaining the second major force that he says isolates Blacks Morrill reveals a key fallacy in his argument. The Negro himself contributes, however unwillingly, to ghettoization. It is difficult to be a minority group, but more difficult to be a minority alone. Consequently the desire to escape the ghetto and move freely in the larger society is tempered by the realization of the problems in store for the “pioneer” and hesitancy to cut neighborhood ties with his own kind [...]. The Negro today suffers from his past [...]. The far lower levels of Negro income and education, no matter how much they are due to direct neglect and discrimination by the White majority, is nevertheless, a strong force to maintain the ghetto. Studies show that Whites will accept Negroes of equivalent income, education and occupation (1965, p.345). Although Morrill is accurate on many points, his work is undermined by the fact that he categorizes all Negroes into the same category, irrespective of class and social standing. As will be discussed later, evidence shows that in many cases, “pioneer” Black families who move into White areas are often of a higher income level than many of the White families living in the newly integrating area, yet the Whites still flee. Morrill’s references to “the Negro today,” his “family instability,” and his “far lower levels of income and education” as one of the reasons that Blacks remain ghettoized are antithetical to the truths of internal class stratification that exists within all urban Black communities. 38 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As discussed above, Black internal class stratification was clearly identified and discussed at length by DuBois in 1896 Philadelphia, again by Frazier in 1920’s Chicago, and again by Drake and Cayton in 1940’s Chicago. Not only did these scholars identify differences in Black social structure, they also showed that for middle and upper class Blacks, any preference for Black neighbors extended only to Blacks of the same or higher class status (Frazier 1932 p. 110). Upper class Negroes in Chicago were shown to be caught in an endless game where they had to move further south— often into all White neighborhoods— in order to escape living near “low class Negroes.” However within a few years, the very same “low class Negroes" that they were attempting to escape mysteriously reappeared in neighboring houses. By failing to take this process into account, Morrill misses some of the complexity of the ghetto formation process. The reality of Black upper class life in urban America, must be linked to the tendency for outside observers to stay blind to intra-class distinctions within the Black community. This blindness is not only found in the social sciences, it is also commonly held by everyday Americans. Under the assumption that all Blacks were the same, in periods of racial transition, White landowners sold or rented without regard to class and family status. The failure of White absentee landlords to consider the class of Blacks to which they turned over property tended to undo any chances for spatial segregation between Blacks of different socioeconomic groups to occur in 39 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. racial transitioning areas (Frazier 1932, 110). This long-term tendency, as well as its consequences will be discussed in the chapters that follow. In 1971 African American geographer, Harold Rose, published The Black Ghetto: A Spatial Behavioral Perspective (1971). His publication represented what is likely the first book ever written by a geographer exclusively about African American urban communities. In The Black Ghetto, Rose present:: a hypothetical model of the "spatial class structure” of the Black urban residence (the model is presented in chapter three, in a more detailed discussion). However, after introducing this compelling notion. Rose fails to develop it, other than to state: During the embryonic state of ghetto development, spatial class crystallization is not highly evident, because the Black population within the confines of the ghetto tends to represent a rather heterogeneous group. Once the population reaches some critical size threshold, say for instance 25,000, then one begins to see evidence of territorial variations in the economic characteristics of its population. The Black Ghetto however, although it introduces the notion of class differentiation, does not include any analysis of the internal class structure of the Black ghetto, or its spatial characteristics. The flurry of geographic research into Black urban communities started by Morrill and others the mid-1960s, died out rather quickly by the mid-1970s. Despite being somewhat flighty, when geographers did focus on the Black ghetto, they often made valuable contributions. Roseman, Christian and Bullamore’s Factorial Ecologies of Urban Black Communities (1972) stands as one of the rare 40 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pieces of geographic literature that specifically addresses internal class variation in Black urban communities. The authors conducted a principal components- analysis of twenty-one census tract variables for three large cities. During their research, they found that three factors; economic status, family status, and ethnic status explained a sizable proportion of the variance in a set of 2 1 socioeconomic variables, and that each factor displays a distinct spatial pattern. In the case of economic status, spatial differentiation among Blacks is much the same as that among total urban populations; however, it is expressed in a spatial pattern that is concentric with respect to the center of the city (Roseman, Christian and Bullamore 1972, 255). Roseman et al.’s, study was mostly descriptive however, and like Rose, they did not seek an explanation for the observed spatial patterns. The authors acknowledged that the answer to the questions lies in the social processes that created and maintain the ghetto, but they do not develop this idea further. Many of the participants in this explosion of research activity, by academic geographers that took place in the 1960s and 1970s, tended to focus on statistical description and model building. However, there were other geographic scholars who employed more qualitative and/or theoretical approaches to the conceptualization of the Black ghetto. Bunge (1971), using a mix of maps, photographs and text, conducted what is probably the most extensive historical and geographic study of a single Black community— the Fitzgerald neighborhood of Detroit. The work was controversial and “radical” for its time as well— a fact that delayed its publication two years as Bunge searched for a publishing house that would publish it. The Bunge publication stands out among geographic 41 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. literature because it includes a short discussion of intra-class attitudes within Fitzgerald’s Black community. First Bunge interviews the rough and tumble, 16- year old ’'street fighter,” Howard Robertson, who was raised in an economically depressed section of inner city Detroit. He had recently moved to Fitzgerald, a more middle-income inner suburban Black community that was divided between the tough kids and the not-so-tough kids. In a statement that reveals simmering class tensions that existed in a 1970s suburban Black community, young Robertson describes his feelings about the more educated and/or economically successful Black residents of Fitzgerald. "The elites” (pronounced e-Iights, by Robertson) are the people who do not fit in. They think they are better than other people”(Bunge 1971, 207). Then, Bunge interviewed Mayme Mitchum, a "middle class” Black teenager who. while “shocked” by the idea of dating anyone from "the streets,” had recently become more conscious of her Black heritage and more concerned with Black politics (Bunge 1971.209). Another piece of geographic work that addresses the issue of urban Black America is David Ley’s 1974 publication, The Black Inner Citv as a Frontier Outpost. Ley conducted extensive fieldwork in a section of the Black community of Philadelphia, including administering a door-to-door survey of 116 residents which was designed to provide information about the social “transactions” in which residents engaged in. The results of the study clearly indicated that 1970’s Philadelphia exhibited the same zonal pattern with respect to social class 42 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. differentiation that DuBois, Frazier, Drake and Cayton and others had found in the pre-1950’s era. Ley contrasted his findings of internal heterogeneity with the popular, mainstream White image of Black urban communities as homogenous, hostile place, threatening to outsiders (p. 58). Ley accurately attributed this popularly held image of Black urbanity to a combination of social segregation and media propaganda (1974, p. 58). Another contribution of Ley’s study was in his analysis of the social transactions of the residents of his study area. He found a very closed world, with most social contacts occurring in a constrained geographic area around one’s residence. Ley found that 74% of all of the residents of the area of his study had moved to this area from older, more central parts of the Philadelphia ghetto. The migration of African Americans into this district (at the edge of the ghetto at the time) had occurred as part of a narrowly defined spatial system with remarkable connectivity with older more established Black residence areas. Again, these findings are consistent with what the early Black sociologists had written about the separate institutional and social world that had developed in the African American urban community as a result of isolation and discrimination. Outside of geography, but about the same time, Gerald Suttles’s The Social Order of the Slum (1968) and The Social Construction of Community (1972), were among the few works which explicitly approached the African American ghetto as a socially constructed territory. One of Suttles’s stated 43 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. purposes was to “show how residential groups use territory, residence, distance, space and movement to build up collective representations which have communicative value.” He also attempted to “show how residential groups and locality groups are inevitably partial structures whose very existence and character depend on their relationship to a wider society” (1972, p. 7). Suttles stated, “The identity and boundaries of community areas may rightfully be regarded as truly collective representations. They do not emerge solely from the crescive (sic) internal development of relations among co-residents, but also from the broader application of folk models about what can and should distinguish residential groups” (p. 54). The majority of Suttles’s methodology was theoretical and ethnographic. Social Construction provided an insightful look at the Douglas Park community in Chicago, noting that the area had a rich history as one of the first major Black settlement areas in Chicago. It had given rise to the city’s first Black political machine, and for a time had been a place where Blacks and Whites lived side by side in relative prosperity. The knowledge of this history had been broken however, by slum clearance and the construction of large housing developments. Most of the Black residents living in this area at the time of Suttles’s study had little knowledge of its rich heritage. I concur with Suttles that the role of socially constructed “realities” in urban America is key to understanding the state of its Black communities. 44 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Suttles’s understanding of the ghetto as a socially constructed place held the potential for the development of an important new theoretical angle that social scientists could use to gain a better understanding of the Black urban experience. However to date, many years after Suttles, most scholars on the Black urban situation have yet to fully incorporate social constructionist theory into research on the African American ghetto. The Late 1970s into the 1980s: The Rise of the Urban Underclass Fallacy By 1980, many African Americans had been successful in leaving traditional Black ghettos (but not the trouble of the ghetto). Their numbers were growing steadily, but the overwhelming majority of Black urban residents of cities outside the South remained trapped in spatially isolated segregated communities. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the ideas of William Julius Wilson were seized upon by many as the basis to place blame on the worsening conditions of Black central city dwellers squarely upon the shoulders of the Black “middle class and upper classes.” These were ideas reflected in two of his early publications. The Declining Significance of Race (1978) and The Truly Disadvantaged (1987). One of Wilson’s main hypotheses was that those African American individuals who succeeded in gaining education or employment skills inevitably moved out of the ghetto, destroying the social fabric and leaving behind the worst elements of Black society. Further, their actions lead to pathological behavior in the population group that remained in the central city. Wilson (1987) termed people who remained in the ghetto areas as being members of a Black urban “underclass.” 45 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As the 1980s unfolded, urban underclass theory became very important in academic debates on the Black urban condition. The terms “urban underclass” or “Black underclass” appeared on the pages of numerous books and articles throughout the 1980s on into the early 1990s (Glasgow, 1980; Wilson, 1987; Galster, 1992; Lynne and McGeary, 1990, Katz, 1993). Researchers used the term underclass to identify and isolate a specific segment of America’s urban population, and also provide a basis for analysis of the problem. The general premise was that the urban underclass is characterized by high rates of unemployment, teen pregnancies, educational failure, and government assistance. These social dislocations are the result of long-term, well-entrenched poverty (Galster 1992,43; Wilson 1987, 8; Lynne and McGeary 1990, 11; Hughes 1989, 187). However, there was much disagreement among those who researched the urban underclass about exactly who constituted the group. Researchers failed to reach a consensus upon the specific criteria that qualified an individual for underclass membership. Despite the lack of a concrete definition, most scholars tried to identify the underclass. They agreed that the underclass was disproportionately made up of African Americans who live in inner-city communities, particularly in the older cities of the Northeast and North Central regions (Galster 1992,43; Ricketts and Sawhill 1988, 321; Hughes 1989, 195; Lynne and McGeary 1990; 36). 46 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Scholars who wrote about the underclass created various reasons for its existence. Depending upon the writer, the causes of the underclass were either structural, economic, or due to governmental policy. Glasgow (1980) for example, attempted to identify the social networks that function as a maintenance system for the underclass. The primary network is the program of public welfare that although intended to provide temporary aid to persons in need has become a conglomeration of services that maintain a large portion of the nation’s poor. The second maintenance network which serves to preserve the underclass is the network of law enforcement in the inner cities- courts, prisons, parole boards, local police as well as social rehabilitation programs (1980, p. 11-12). According to Glasgow, although this network is widely purported to be re directive. it rarely provides justice or rehabilitation and instead becomes a network through which young Blacks cycle from one program to another. Another maintenance network identified by Glasgow was the broad range of health and social services found in the inner city, which are frequently characterized by being understaffed and maintaining crowded conditions. These conditions make adequate education and health care very difficult to obtain. Other scholars who have examined the underclass hypothesis place less emphasis on the negative affects of government programs but instead stress the relationship that members of the underclass have with non-underclass individuals. Galster (1992, 190-215) developed a cumulative causation model composed of seven elements that are organized under three general rubrics: people, place, and labor market. The people category consists of two groups, the underclass 47 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (ghettoized African American poor) and everyone else (the White poor and the non-poor of all races). Like other scholars, Galster defines the underclass group as being plagued by low income and education, higher criminal activity, welfare dependency, chemical dependencies and illegitimate births (Galster 1992, 193). According to Galster, there are also important psychological distinctions that lead to prejudicial attitudes between the Black underclass and other groups. The place category includes the segregation of the underclass into deteriorated central city neighborhoods and the persistence of individual and institutional practices that serve to exclude them from suburban communities. The labor market is divided into primary and secondary sectors and the existence of individual and institutional practices that hamper the entry of the underclass into the more desirable primary sector. Training for primary sector jobs is usually unique to a particular firm or industry Often, primary sector employment requires that employees learn a particular set of skills that increase their value to the company. Primary sector employment offers seniority privileges and job security. Primary employment provides health benefits and retirement options. Secondary employment is made up of low skilled positions that are characterized by poor working conditions, job instability, low pay and few benefits. Underclass individuals are often relegated to jobs in the secondary sector (Galster 1992. 193). For Galster, these seven elements: the underclass, the non-underclass, prejudicial attitudes, segregation in crumbling inner city neighborhoods, discrimination from 48 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. better housing, the primary employment sector, and the secondary employment sector, are all interrelated in a process of cumulative causation. Under Galster’s model, the complex system of relationships that exists among the seven elements is crucial to the maintenance of the underclass. These relationships manifest themselves through tangible institutional practices and individual behaviors, as well as through the modification of the perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs held by underclass and non-underclass people. Although many sociologists and other scholars accepted underclass theory, and it was subsequenty adopted by the mainstream news media, urban geographers were more skeptical of this notion. For example, Hughes (1989, 1990) attempted to redirect the debate away from a focus on “underclass” behavior to a concentration on the geographic dimensions of urban deprivation. Hughes’s work suggested that while proponents of the underclass idea often sprinkle their discussions with geographical language, spatial categories such as “neighborhood” have been poorly conceptualized, thus impoverishing the underclass theory. As he said: The point is that by having a rather permeable boundary (that is, unbounded conceptually) when it comes to providing explanation and unbounded geographically when it comes to understanding neighborhood, the “underclass idea” has misdirected research and policy regarding the transformation of the inner-city. Geographical analysis provides the means to redirect this research along more profitable lines (Hughes 1990. 188). The most important concept in Hughes work is that of the “impacted ghetto.” According to Hughes, an impacted ghetto is a contiguous space within a 49 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. metropolitan area that has borne the brunt of changes located outside itself in the surrounding metropolitan, national and international system. These areas are a subset of the conventional ghetto defined by poverty and/or ethnicity. Hughes indicated impacted ghetto tract to be one showing twice the median value for that metropolitan area in four key distress indicators: • The percentage of families with children that are headed by a female; • The percentage of males 16 and over who worked less than 26 weeks during the previous year; • The percentage of households receiving public assistance such as AFDC; and • The percentage of older teenagers not in high school and not holding diplomas. Using this measurement strategy, Hughes’s findings indicate that impacted ghettos are typically located within the oldest parts of the postwar Black ghettos of the fifty MSAs Hughes studied. These places were mostly found located adjacent to the central business district of the city (Hughes 1989, 195). Hughes found that, contrary to Wilson’s specific theory of Black out-migration, when one utilized the typical indicators of the Black underclass (i.e., high unemployment, high teen pregnancy, poor educational attainment, and major dependency on public assistance), White underclass areas were also developing in certain Rustbelt cities, Cleveland and Ohio. Also challenging Wilson’s ideas, Massey (1994,425-445), found that middle class Blacks tend to have less intra-urban mobility than poor Blacks— a finding that does not support a theory of class specific migration. Obviously, there 50 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is a need for a more satisfactory geographic conceptualization of Black inner city poverty and the relationships that those urban African Americans who remain mired in poverty have with urban Blacks of the middle and upper classes. The terms ghetto, central city, and inner city usually kindle some understanding among people within and outside of social scientific circles, but such terms have proven inadequate at providing a sound platform for scholarly debate on Black urban residence, as many different class elements often share the same inner city communities, making Black urban residence more complex. Existing Literature in Retrospect: Gaps and Needed Research The existing literature on African American urban communities has been misdirected from the path that early pioneers such as DuBois and Frazier had hoped it would follow. The failure to heed the calls of early scholars to better understand the internal class and social structure of Black urban communities has caused many scholarly inquiries into the Black urban condition to be characterized by misunderstanding, improperly formed hypotheses and poor empirical evidence. The shortage of empirical evidence is understandable when one considers the chronic hostility that has historically existed between Whites and Blacks in this country. White scholars seeking to do empirical research on the ghetto are subject to avoidance, or are answered only with guarded responses by many urban African Americans, who quite naturally, considering the divisive racial history in the United States, often treat unfamiliar Whites with suspicion and caution. The divergence in experienced reality between many of the scholars in the American 51 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. academy, whose paradigms and experiences tend to be European-based, and the actual experiences of everyday African Americans appears to have weakened the analytic content of research on the Black ghetto. Much of the work done on the ghetto remains shallow and paternalistic. Many scholars have “rallied to the Black cause,” but the seemingly intractable divisions between the races have often led to people backing down and having only a fleeting and temporary engagement with the study of urban Blacks before moving on to other more easily researched issues of social justice. Unfortunately, academia’s resistance or inability to fully explore the African American urban experience has led to a failure to build sound theory and provide useful policy suggestions. Part of the blame for this, no doubt is due to the scarcity of African American researchers. Although not true in all cases, in general African American scholars have a more internal perspective on the issues because they must live in the same racially divided world that they are researching. As researchers, they can develop alternative data gathering techniques, and can uncover information that remains hidden to observers from the outside. Unfortunately, the very reasons that has led researchers to feel a need to study urban Black communities (inequality, racism, discrimination, etc.) have limited the number of available Black academics to do research on the issue. An outcome of this is that the dynamics of intra-group distinctions and the different roles played by the various class and social elements within African American urban communities remains poorly theorized. 52 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This is especially true with respect to the importance of economic class differences and the related internal social structure of the urban African American populace in determining the socio-spatial form of Black metropolitan residence area-wide. Understanding how class operates within the Black community is key, however, to understanding urban process, and should not be overlooked. The relationships that exist within and between the diverse classes and social groupings of Black society are prime determinants in the livelihood and welfare of the entire Black urban population. Research on African Americans has tended to view Blacks as a monolithic problem population and focused on the poor and distressed. Although middle and upper class Blacks have always existed as a portion of the Black urban population, their importance in influencing overall Black residential trends has been for the most part, ignored. Fainstein discussed the need for a better understanding of the internal class structure of urban Black populace, and the ramifications of the intra-class dynamic on Blacks in general (1993, 216-245). Fainstein pointed out three basic flaws in underclass theory, and then one important outcome of its improper theoretical construct: 1. Underclass terminology offers a way of speaking about race in a language of class that implicitly rejects the importance of race; 2. Research on the underclass tends to study the attributes or behaviors of a category of the population that is nominally separated from other groups and from processes that affect larger populations; and 3. Underclass thought espouses a belief in the increasing concentration and isolation of the ghetto poor, which 53 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. has resulted in significant part, and ironically, from the success of working and middle class Blacks in escaping the ghetto. These basic (and flawed) premises of the underclass theory have had an important outcome. Through misrepresentation, underclass thought permits the role of the Black middle and upper classes to be ignored, and opens the way for non-poor Blacks to be blamed for the ills of their inner city brethren and sisteren. Repudiations of the underclass fallacy by Fainstein and others stress that the underclass narrative is misleading and harmful because it tends to obscure the actual relationship that middle and upper class Blacks often share with poorer Blacks, both socially and geographically. Thus we arrive at the final element of the underclass narrative, namely, that it does not need to tell the story of African Americans who are in the “stable” working and middle class. These Blacks, perhaps two thirds or more of the Black population, are assumed to have benefited from increasing educational attainment and better employment, using these advantages move out of the ghetto. Where they have moved is not an object of discussion, but it is assumed to be nice city neighborhoods or the suburbs. Justifying this lacunae in the research agenda is an even deeper premise that racial residential segregation must have decreased substantially or that at worst, better off Blacks live in all Black neighborhoods far away from impoverished Blacks, receiving advantages of spatial economic segregation similar to their White counterparts. Rarely are these assertions tested with evidence by the active voices of the underclass discourse (Fainstein 1996, 219). Fainstein then presents an empirical data analysis that clearly shows that if anything, the reverse of Wilson’s hypothesis is true. Fainstein’s research shows that: Black median household incomes increased by less than $1000 dollars, in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. real terms, between 1973 and 1990; the Black middle class slightly contracted between 1973 and 1990; because of persistent discrimination, middle class Blacks are less able to spatially separate themselves from the Black poor; and overall, Blacks at all class levels remain equally segregated from their White counterparts. Robinson (1997) also has used census data to show that that the Black middle class has been steadily declining since 1970 and that there has been a “squeezing” effect. This means that some African Americans have climbed out of the middle class and up into the higher classes, while many more have dropped out of the middle classes into the lower classes. After identifying the flaws in the theoretical construct of the underclass. Fainstein uses the example of the popular 1989 movie, “Boys “ n the Hood” as being more representative of proper narrative with which to view Black urban America. The plot is well known. Hard-working Black people, some with professional careers, occupy a reasonably attractive Los Angeles Black neighborhood. Within that same neighborhood live lower-income Blacks. The streets and schools where adolescents spend their lives are a constant source of exposure to temptations and dangers, which lead to economic failure at best, and death at worst. Some of the sons and daughters of working and middle class Black families escape this environment unharmed (though none are benefited by it); many others succumb. This is not the underclass narrative. It is the other narrative of a racially segregated and segmented society where class means one thing for Whites and another for Blacks, where for African Americans, class (in the White sense) is not nearly as important as race, and may actually be declining in significance, (p.238) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This narrative, which Fainstein identifies by means of a contemporary big screen Film, is actually an old narrative. John Singleton’s depiction of the unhealthy atmosphere of forced social class mixing in a Black Los Angeles neighborhood is not only familiar, but similar processes were identified as early as 1899 by DuBois as one of the main problems facing urban Blacks of all class spectrum. The problem of Black intra-class exposure and the reasons for it will be dealt with more extensively in the next chapter. Another related problem found within existing literature on Black urban communities is, for various reasons (many previously discussed), there is a dearth of more recent empirical research and verification into the urban African American social and geographical structure, especially with respect to regional patterns of class difference. One wonders whether researchers have tended to assume the veracity of what someone else theorized, or have in some cases simply postulated on questions that in other comparable research situations would demand empirical verification. This negligent attitude, and the tendency towards reliance on secondary sources is possibly the result of the low priority generally placed upon research into the condition of urban Black Americans, except of course after the periodic urban riots, which are usually accompanied by a short flurry of research activity. The lack of sound empirical research hampers even the most sophisticated attempts at explaining the ghetto. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the following chapter, I examine the specific models— both territorial and social— that have been proposed concerning African Americans in urban areas with the goal of developing a more inclusive framework of understanding. 57 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III Politics of Class Stratification: Linking Old Research with New Theories As demonstrated in chapter two, much of the post 1950 scholarship on the urban African American condition suffers from poor conceptualizations of the problem. In order to address these issues, it is necessary to develop a different theoretical framework. A first step in this direction is to reconsider the work of Black sociologists in more detail. This will be accomplished via a detailed review of the most important conceptualizations and theoretical models that they have proposed. This is a vital task because as discussed, in the previous chapter, the bulk of the post-Myrdalian scholarship into African American urban residence has tended to miss, ignore, or not place emphasis on the contributions of early sociologists and their methodologies. Given the direction that research into Black urban settlements have taken after World War n, there is much to learn from the work of early Black sociologists. It has long been apparent, when one considers this body of work, that prior to the 1940s, there was class stratification within Black residence areas. Despite having been historically denied access to the broader metropolitan housing market, within the accepted Black zones internal variation in the geography of different class groups has always existed. The specific processes through which geographic differences in Black class structure has developed, especially in the post World War II era, remains an open question. 58 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Historical Models and Theories of the Black Social Structure The Philadelphia Negro is the genesis of African American urban analysis. One of the most important elements of the study is DuBois’ explicit analysis of the socioeconomic structure of the Negro residents in Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward. DuBois recognized early how, due to the peculiarities of American racial constructs, the urban African American’s social class standing depended on more than income alone. Acknowledging this, DuBois chose to consider income and class to be separate, albeit related phenomenon (DuBois 1899, 311). DuBois’ data was derived from extensive house-to-house surveys of the Philadelphia Black community. DuBois claimed to have personally interviewed 5000 individuals, to generate self-reported income statistics for the Seventh Ward. However, he only used these raw figures as a basis for a classification system that also considered education and social standing as determinants of class position. The income distribution of Blacks in the Seventh Ward is presented in Figure 2. Ro.0r FAM ILIES COMPARISON • S « LESS # 5 - 1 0 #10-15 # 1 5 -2 0 O K N Eff 100.00% TOTAL Figure 2: Income Distribution for Blacks Residing in Seventh Ward Source: DuBois, 1899. 59 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DuBois considered only about 20% of the population in this early urban Black community poor. In the DuBois classification, a majority (greater than 70%) of African Americans living in 1896 Philadelphia were considered to be working or middle class. Almost ten percent were upper middle or upper class in income. By combining family income with other observations made during his door-to-door visits. DuBois classified the Seventh Ward’s 1890s African American population into four class grades: Grade 1: Families of undoubted respectability earning sufficient income to live well; not engaged in menial service of any kind; the wife engaged in no occupation save that of housewife, except in a few cases where she had special employment at home. The children not compelled to be breadwinners, but found in school; the family living in a well kept home. Grade 2: The respectable working class, in comfortable circumstances, with a good home and having steady remunerative work with the younger children in school. Grade 3: The poor; persons not earning enough to keep them at all times above want; honest, although not always energetic or thrifty, and with no touch of gross immorality or crime. Including the very poor, and the poor. Grade 4: The lowest class of criminals, prostitutes and loafers; the “submerged tenth.” The language used in defining these categories is clearly the product of a less socially liberated era and appears to have been influenced by the work of Charles Booth’s (1889, 1891, 1892 (1892-97- 9 volumes)) writings on the London poor of the same period. DuBois had studied in Europe and his language and classification scheme is similar to Booth’s. DuBois’s work may have been inspired by Booth’s study of the London poor, however, the observations made by 60 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DuBois about spatial and other characteristics of the different grades of the Philadelphia African American population, provide a solid starting point for understanding the future evolution of internal urban Black class structure. The Poor and the Semi-criminal Classes DuBois’s definition of Grade 4, the “submerged tenth,” reminds one of what was often said about Black urban underclass in more recent literature. It is important to reiterate that one of DuBois’s biggest frustrations concerned the fact that the so-called submerged tenth (a very small fraction (less than 10%)) of the Negro population), tended to receive most of the attention given to urban Blacks by outside observers. These details often served as the model for the outside world’s images of Negroes (DuBois 1899, 309). DuBois’s distinction between the poor and the criminal class, and his analysis of the unfortunate relationship between these two is worthy of further elaboration. Although different in lifestyle. one of the things that bonded the two classes together was their geography. The alleys near, as Ratcliffe street. Middle alley, Browns court, Barclay Street etc., are haunts of noted criminals, male and female, of gamblers and. prostitutes, and at the same time of many poverty-stricken people, decent but not energetic (pg. 60). DuBois viewed this mixing of the simple poor and the criminal elements as being detrimental to the overall class position of Blacks. It was also a direct result of the discrimination practiced against African Americans by mainstream Philadelphia society. Often, the poor were southern migrants who, although decent and law-abiding upon arrival in Philadelphia, were by virtue of their poverty alone, forced into slum areas. 61 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The new immigrants usually settle in pretty well defined localities in or near slums, and thus get the worst possible introduction to city life (pg. 81). They are to be found partly in the slums and partly in those small streets with old houses, where there is a dangerous intermingling of good and bad elements fatal to growing children and unwholesome for adults [...] (pg. 81). Investigators are often surprised in the worst districts to see red-handed criminals and goodhearted hard-working, honest people living side by side in apparent harmony (pg. 81). Thus they (recent migrants) find themselves hemmed in between the slums and the decent sections, and they easily drift into the happy go lucky life of the lowest classes and rear young criminals for our jails (pg. 82). The themes introduced in these quotes written in the 1890s, are crucial to understanding Black urban residence in 2000 and beyond. It is likely that the effects of this early social corruption whereby the offspring of poor but decent migrants from the South were subjected to prolonged, unavoidable exposure to established urban “criminal elements” has a long-term, downward impact on the overall class status of general urban African American population. In describing the lowest group. DuBois attempts to identify his submerged tenth distinctly, both geographically and socially. The majority of the well dressed loafers whom one sees on Locust street near Ninth, on Lombard near Seventh and Seventeenth, on Twelfth near Kater, and in other such localities, are supported by prostitutes and political largesse, and spend their time in gambling. They are absolutely without home life, and form the most dangerous class in the community, both for crime and political corruption. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The urban “criminal class” is nothing new to cities in America or any other part of the industrialized world. For urban African Americans living in cities outside the South, the persistent and unjust circumstances of violent social control, “ghettoization,” and employment discrimination from the outside, have caused the attractiveness of the “shady” way of life to be exaggerated. This exaggeration has had an effect upon the entire urban Black population and has distorted outsider’s interpretation of urban Black society. This point was further elaborated on by DuBois in his series of articles, “The Black North in 1901: A Social Study” that appeared in the New York Times during November and December of 1901: The crime of Negroes in New York is not natural or normal. It is the crime of a class of professional Negro criminals, gamblers, and loafers, encouraged and protected by political corruption and race prejudice. The only sort of Negro that is generously encouraged in Philadelphia is the criminal and the pauper. The Black man who wants charity or protection in crime in the Quaker city can easily get it. But the Black man who wants work will have to tramp the pavements many a day. Thus crime is encouraged, politics corrupted, energy and honesty discredited, and a reception prepared for simple minded Negro immigrants (DuBois 1969,45). Along three “lines of effort,” DuBois outlined the remedy for the ills of poor Black urban northerners: 1. The systematic search for work. 2. Better homes. 3. Political reforms. 63 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To DuBois then, outside political influences upon Black communities in the urban north were important. White politicians and police officials routinely accepted bribes in return for “protection” from arrest and prosecution. Non-Black organized crime interests, such as the Italians or the Irish, could pay off the officials who allowed them to base their shady operations in the poorer sections of the Black ghetto, thus avoiding mainstream scrutiny and the resultant backlash and crackdown. The Working and Middle Classes In The Philadelphia Negro. DuBois described the non-poor segments of the Black population as well. He describes the “great mass of the Negro population,” as those hard working domestic servants, porters, laborers and others that together comprised the middle class. Although he praises the attempts of these individuals to “establish homes,” he identifies two great hindrances that made their life difficult: I) the low wages of men. and 2) the high price paid by Blacks for rent. The low wages of men and the high rents make it necessary for mothers to work, and in several cases work away from the home several days in the week. This leaves children without guidance or restraint for the better part of the day- a thing disastrous to manners and morals (1899. pg- 193). A second insidious affect of the low wages and high rents that DuBois identified was the necessity to open up one’s home to lodgers. As a consequence 38 percent of the homes in the Seventh Ward have unknown strangers admitted freely into their doors. The result is on the whole, pernicious, especially where there are growing children (1899, pg. 194). 64 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Often, DuBois refers to the lodgers as male waiters, who were home during the day between meals. With the housewife gone away on domestic service “growing daughters are left unprotected” (pg. 194). It is easy to condemn DuBois’ thoughts on this type of “sexual corruption” as the ravings of a patriarchal zealot. However, links between early sexual activity and future economic hardship were likely quite strong at the time. Even today, it remains true that for many middle class Black families, an unplanned pregnancy can be financially disastrous. Historically, religious and cultural beliefs of most middle class African American families make abortion socially unacceptable. If a pregnancy resulted from the sexual liaisons of a struggling young Black lodger and the young daughter of the hard working Black couple that he roomed with, the introduction of the baby would strain the already tenuous financial position of both the family and the lodger. DuBois’ research showed that nearly all the Black middle class housewives were aware of the negative affect that the sublet system was having on their children’s development and deplored the system and the high rents for Blacks which caused them to work so far away from home (pg. 195). The need for middle income Blacks to take in sublease space within their homes may have caused them to be classified in the same social class as the Black poor since the lodgers that were leasing space were often of a lower socio-economic strata and had less stable family background. Within the Black middle and working classes of 1890s Philadelphia, it is likely that that the subletting system led to unwanted, often injurious but economically unavoidable mixing of social 65 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. elements. As mentioned above, it is likely that through subletting, Philadelphia’s Black middle and working classes were often forced to confront the same types of issues as the “decent poor,” although not as pervasive as the social mixing between the Black poor and the “criminal classes.” The Upper Classes (The Talented Tenth) The final class assessment made by DuBois concerned the Negro upper class. Again he returns to the theme of geographic proximity between different class strata. North of Lombard, above Seventeenth, including Lombard street itself, above Eighteenth, is one the best Negro residence sections of the city, centering about Addison Street. Some undesirable elements have crept in even here, especially since the Christian league attempted to clear out the Fifth Ward slums, but still it remains a centre of quiet, respectable families, who own their own homes and live well (1899 p.196).1 From this quote we can conclude the same theme that was discussed in relation to the poor and the middle classes. Even for the wealthiest Blacks in 1890s Philadelphia, constraints placed on them by the predominant White society led to an inability to fully enjoy the fruits of their professional status or isolate themselves and their families from the less prosperous socioeconomic strata. While the ethical implications of geographic and social class stratification are open to interpretation and debate, it is important to make explicit the fact that this 1 "The almost universal and unsolicited testimony of better class Negroes was that the attempted clearing out of the slums of the Fifth Ward acted disastrously upon them; the prostitutes and gamblers emigrated to respectable Negro residence districts, and real estate agents, on the theory that all Negroes belong to the same general class, rented them houses.” says DuBois (1899. p 196).“ 6 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. constriction in residential mobility in a given metropolitan area was a major factor in the development of today’s urban Black communities. The effects of this must be better understood before the social sciences can advance their understanding of the Black urban condition. African Americans have been subjected to constraints that acted above and beyond the normal social, political and economic factors that affect the housing situation for most residents of a given metropolitan area. Black urbanites in America have historically been denied the geographic mobility and voluntary class isolation which economic success has brought about for other ethnic groups. The early identification of this trend by DuBois is an important theme in the development of the theoretical framework for the present study. DuBois’s account demonstrates how. as early as 1896, all class levels of African American families who attempted to follow the typical American model of class mobility and isolate themselves and their children from disruptive internal class conflict were hindered by the actions of “outside forces.” The frequent and long term use of direct territorial control measures such as restrictive covenants, violence, employment discrimination and other tactics served to set the African American urban experience apart from those of other ethnic groups. As remains the case today, in nineteenth century Philadelphia, “slum clearance” was not a solution and more often than not, it merely contributes to the movement of the “problem.” Displaced inner city residents moved into previously stable class-homogeneous established Black communities. Doubtless in the minds 67 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of the Black upper class at least, the proximity of the members of DuBois’s poor and the criminal classes has also had a negative affect upon the socialization of children in these Black upper class areas. DuBois’s Legacy: Other Theorizations on Black Urban Life in the North The question of whether the lodging problem was having a deleterious effect upon all segments of urban African American life outside the South was a troublesome issue for the early Black sociologists. Twenty-three years after DuBois, Charles Johnson made observations of the housing situation for Black Chicagoans. The prevalence of lodgers is one of the most conspicuous problems in the Negro housing situation. It is largely a social question. To meet these rents they have taken over large buildings in better localities and in better physical condition but with much higher rents. To meet these rents they have taken in lodgers. It was seldom possible to investigate the character of the lodgers [...]. Where there were children and lodgers together, a considerable number of instances were found which suggest probable injury to health or morals, and sometimes both. Even where lodgers are relatives, impairment of health and morals is threatened in certain circumstances, especially if the overcrowding is flagrant (Bracey 1971, 72-73). E. F. Frazier also made similar observations of life for Black Chicagoans in The Negro Family in Chicago (1932). His study of the Black Belt of 1920’s Chicago found that the Black Belt actually was composed of seven different zones each of which had different class characteristics. These zones and their characteristics are shown in Figures 3 ,4 and 5. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As the Negro community has expanded southward, through the process of selection, different elements in the Negro population have tended to become segregated in different zones within the community (1932, pg. 98). Just as was the case in 1890’s Philadelphia, this segregation was based upon the desires of some African Americans of the middle and upper classes to attain better housing stock, and to isolate themselves and their families from the social ills of the ghetto. When viewed as static “snapshot” in time, there was clearly stratification in Chicago’s Black community. However, when this social stratification is understood as part of a process, it takes on a different meaning. In the inner sections of the city, poor but decent southern migrants were often rudely introduced to urban life. Addressing this situation in the inner zones of Chicago (zones 1 and 2). Frazier states: ‘in these areas of deterioration the poorer migrant families are often forced into association with the vicious elements the city” (1932, pg. 98). Detrimental mixing between hardworking, but poor migrants and the slick urban criminal classes was clearly a main motivational factor for many Black Chicagoans to move south. Frazier goes on to state, “As migrant families have gradually become established in the city, they or their children have moved out of the areas included in the first and second zones into the “better neighborhoods” (Frazier 1932, 101). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. zoNr MAP s o u t h ' s i d e NEGRO COMMUNITY CHICAGO IS20 LEGEND CENSUS TRACT BOUNDARY ZONE ROUNOARr N ' + €> Figure 3: Black Community, Chicago, 1920 Source: Frazier, 1932. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C h a r a c t e r is t ic s o f t h e N e g r o P o p u l a t io n i n S e v e n Z o n e s o r t h e So o t h Sid e N e c r o C o m m u n it y , C h ic a g o , I l l in o is , 1930 Ra t s r t a H o w d ix d o r t b x F o n u u u x Zone I Zone U Zone III Zone IV Zone V Zone VI Zone VU H eads of families: southern born............................................ 77-7 77-0 74-7 73-8 7 3 . 6 6 9 . 0 65 * * M ulattoes: fifteen years and over M ale........................................... 1 9 9 1 9 . 0 33-5 1 9 . 3 33.8 31-3 49-7* Fem ale....................................... 77.3 *3-8 40. 3 3 4 . 0 *4-7 33-8 4 8 . 5 * Persons illiterate: ten years and over............................................. «3 4 4-6 3 7 *•3 3-3 7-9 3-7 * For one census tract only, indudinc the an a between Sixty-third and Sixty-seventh streets. Figure 4: Characteristics of Black Population, Chicago, 1920 Source: Frazier, 1932. Again, just as was detailed earlier by DuBois in Philadelphia, attempts by successful Blacks to increase class segregation within Chicago’s Black urban community is revealed. This scenario was the case in Philadelphia 30 years earlier. These attempts were hampered by the highly racial realities of urban Black life. In discussing outer zones 5, 6, and 7, Frazier stated, “In the eastern part of these zones, better class families, who had sought to escape the oncoming deluge of poor, ignorant and disorganized Negroes in the areas farther north, were soon overwhelmed by the same people from whom they had escaped” (p. 110). Frazier backed up his observations with quotes from individuals. These quotes give us an indication that the class based attitudes of middle and upper income African Americans towards less educated and prosperous African Americans is similar to the aspirations and ideologies of the middle and upper classes of other ethnic groups in 1920s Chicago. 71 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T h e D is t r ib u t io n o f O cc u pa tio n a l C l a sses and t h e P e r c en ta g e o f W o k e n E m plo y ed in t h e S e v e n Zo n e s o f t h e So u th Sid e N e g r o C o m m u n ity in C h ica g o, I l l in o is, 1920* R a t s m Hom an E m p lo y ed P o p u la tio n , Tim Y e a as or Acs a n d O v e s Zooe I Zone n Zone III Zone IV Zone V Zone VI Zone VII Professional and public service, trade, and clerical: Male.................................... 5-8 5-s 10.7 I I . 2 *3-5 *3-4 34-3 Female................................. 3 -o 6 . 5 *3-3 *3 3 1 4 .8 *5.2 33 3 Skilled: Male.................................... 6 . 2 10.8 12.3 *3-6 I I . I *4-4 *3-0 Female................................ 3 9 3-9 7-5 7-7 7.8 7-4 1 6 .6 Railroad porterst.................... 1-4 3-9 6-7 6-5 7-5 7-7 * 0 .7 Semi-skilled, domestic service, and laborers: Male.................................... 8 6 .1 7 8 .8 6 8 .9 6 7 .9 6 8 .6 6 3 .6 4 1 . 6 Female................................. 9 2 . 9 8 8 .3 78.4 7 8.1 7 6.* 7 6 .8 4 6 . 9 Percentage of women employed 4 6 .1 4 8 .1 43-3 45-3 39-7 3 6 .6 34 5 * The Negro wage-earned as given in the United States census for igio have been dis tributed according to eight occupational « • ! ■ « « » « , which have been created from occupations significantly related. Therefore, it has been necessary to ignore, on the whole, the major occu. patiooal divisions given in the census. The eight occupational classes which have been used in our analysis are constituted as follows: P rtftuiam al u rrict.—The professiooal-service group in our classification remains just as it is given in the census, except for showmen and healers. PtM ie service.— This class has been created out of the occupations given in the census with some additions and omissions. Laborers found under this group have been placed in a separate dasa while those listed under "All other occupations" have been placed under "Semi-skilled workers.” Mail-carriers and railway mail clerks, who are placed under "Transportation" in the census, are also included. There may be some question as to the consistency of including watchmen and guards in this group, but since many Negroes in this group represent a higher economic class, with a keen sense of their superior status in the Negro group, they have been retained in th is class. Trad*.—This class includes bourgeois, petit bourgeois, and all those included in the differ* ent census classifications except clerical, who are generally designated the “white collar" class. Fanners and atock-raisers who are entrepreneurs are also included in this group. CUri cul.—This class is the same as the census classification except that messenger, bundle, and office boys and girls arc placed in the semi-skilled class. Skillad workers.— This group is made up of all occupations under manufacturing and me* chanical pursuits except apprentices, laborers, managers and superintendents, manufacturers, and officials. Apprentices are placed under "Semi-skilled workers,” while laborers are under the (Footnote * continued on following page] f Presumably Pullman porters. Figure 5: Occupational Class and Women Workers, Chicago 1920's Source: Frazier, 1932. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The following quote is from an African American nurse: When we bought this place here, all our neighbors were White except two colored families who had owned their property for thirty three years, and three other colored families who had owned their homes for a shorter period. Soon after we moved in, the neighborhood began to change rapidly. A poor group of migrant families with large numbers of children moved in. Some of the colored property owners moved out. A White man bought one of their homes and rented it indiscriminately to colored people. A colored man who owned the building on the comer had sought only good colored tenants, but the White speculator who bought his house paid no attention to the class of colored people who rented the house (Frazier 1932, pg. 110). A Negro professional had this to say: The neighborhood rapidly degenerated. Negroes passing by at all times of the night on their way to State, Dearborn, and Federal where they lived, used the vilest language and engaged in fights. The neighborhood became so bad that I was forced to move. At any time during the night you would hear a shot, and the worst kind of cursing. My wife had a young baby and could not stand the nervous strain. We moved out to 51st and Michigan Avenue. It was beautiful out there, the lawns well kept, and everything inviting. But the same thing is happening out there. The same class of Negroes who ran us away from 32nd street are moving out there. They creep along slowly like a disease (Frazier 1932, pg. 110). Here is a recurrence of the theme introduced by DuBois, the reference to unwanted class mixing and its perceived deleterious effects in an urban African American community. It is important to note that this class mixing, in both the cases of 1920’s Chicago and 1890’s Philadelphia was virtually unavoidable and resulted from outside territorial actions which limited the available housing supply for African Americans into small portions of the total land area of the city. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This theme was unquestionably important to Black sociologists. However, the theme seems to be strangely absent from much of the Post-1950 literature on the African Americans living in Northern and Western cities. Instead, underclass theory is the most popular way of conceptualizing the urban Black situation. When one considers the early work of Black sociologists however, this notion appears to be rather misdirected. A more accurate view of the interplay of race, place, and class mobility in urban America must also recognize the impact upon many of the youth of the Black middle and upper classes. These youth, who when faced with hatred and discrimination from the outside society, are known to turn inward and often commit “class suicide,” ending up actually dropping from their parents socio-economic position. The negative effects of outside discrimination may possibly do far more damage to the overall class position of Blacks than does the out movement of successful Black families from the ghetto. Class Structure, Criminality and Political Activity A main theme that emerges from reading the early literature on urban Black communities is the existence of a separate well-institutionalized social and political world that urban African Americans were forced into. This racially proscribed reality enveloped all aspects of life and was the direct product of discrimination in employment and housing. Historically, Black urban social life consisted of a closely-knit collection of clubs, churches, and other community organizations that were meant to serve the Black community exclusively. DuBois's research suggested in the Black community of 1890’s Philadelphia the “semi-criminal classes” were a very small percentage of the population and had 74 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. absolutely no social standing whatsoever. In DuBois eyes, this lack of social standing extended to the “crime bosses” as well, despite the copious amounts of money they possessed. The disdain that DuBois held for “the Black criminals” is a major theme in all his early work on Blacks in cities. He was unable to fathom the increasing refinement of the urban Black criminal classes in 1890s Philadelphia. To DuBois, the “shrewd laziness, shameless lewdness and cunning crime of this small segment of the urban Black population was a “baffling and sinister phenomena” (pg. 311). Using crime data he estimated the proportion of this “criminalistic class” to be only 5.8% of the city's Black population (pg. 314). Despite the small numbers and proportion of individuals involved, however, the crimes committed by its members were the subject of fixation by the outside society and were often used as the example by which the average White Philadelphians formed their images of all other Negroes (1899. 6). In fact, scientific validation of the “corrupt, semi-criminal vote of the Negro Seventh Ward” was the main reason DuBois was brought to Philadelphia by the University of Pennsylvania (Gaines 1996. 153). The consideration of the causes and characteristics of Black crime in Philadelphia is of interest here. Remarking on the increase in the literacy rate of Blacks convicted of crimes Dubois states: The rapid increase of intelligence in Negro convicts does point to some grave social changes. First, a large number of young Negroes are in such an environment that they find it easier to be rogues than honest men. Secondly, there is evidence of the rise of a more intelligent and therefore more dangerous crime from a trained criminal 75 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. class, quite different from the thoughtless ignorant crime of the masses of Negroes (pg. 254-255). This increase in literate criminals that DuBois identified can be linked to reductions in economic opportunity that DuBois chronicled as coinciding with the arrival of European immigrants into Philadelphia. DuBois attempted to demonstrate the unjust nature of racial economic discrimination by his analysis of literacy rates. Comparing the literacy rates of Philadelphia’s Blacks to its foreign bom European population. DuBois found that while 81% of the city’s Black population was literate, only 74% of the Irish, 69% of Hungarians, 60% of Poles. 58% of Russians and 36% of Italians were literate. Only German immigrants at 85% literacy exceeded the rate for African Americans. Despite these high illiteracy rates European immigrants were able to easily displace Blacks from important labor markets. Whiteness was the only competitive advantage needed. In his analysis of crime and politics. DuBois identified the rise of a social grouping that later Black sociologists would call the “shadies.” Virtually every ethnic groups living in industrial cities across the world have witnessed the rise of an urban criminal class, the intense spatial isolation, and educational and employment discrimination experienced by urban African Americans. This discrimination has caused the “shady” way of life appear to become a more attractive life path than has been the case for many other urban ethnic groups. Over the course of the twentieth century this Black urban criminal class that DuBois introduced has continued to develop and transform. At the dawn of the twentieth century, in Black communities all over the country, it still is easier 76 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for many youth to start a career selling illicit drugs (usually to Whites who drive into the ghetto), than to graduate high school with a decent education and go on to college. DuBois’s ideas about how political and social forces act in concert to maintain the status quo are of the most important, but often overlooked contributions of his early work. In the 1890s, most Black Philadelphians participated in the Republican Party machine. They were fiercely loyal to the Republican Party for two reasons. First, nation-wide, African Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tended to bloc vote Republican, because of the symbolic power of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican emancipator. In the South the Democratic Party was the party of the dominant conservative racists. Secondly, and probably more importantly, the Democratic Party in 1890s Philadelphia was the party of the Irish, the main antagonists in the increasing trend for White Philadelphians to lockout Blacks from access employment and housing (Blackwell and Janowitz 1974, 37). DuBois felt that too many Blacks were “willing tools” of the Republican machine. However, he admitted that a small number of Blacks did receive tangible benefits from political participation. Remarkably, DuBois linked Republican machine politics with the “urban criminal classes” introduced previously. DuBois’s research showed that the Republican Party made protection available, for votes of course, to folk engaged in low-level organized crime (i.e., prostitution, gambling, and the selling of contraband). For poor Blacks, not 77 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. engaged in vice and crime, the Republican Party also ran political houses that were open for folks to relax and socialize without having to pay. The Republican machine even doled out token jobs to policeman, schoolteachers and city clerks, making it the largest employer of Blacks in non-menial positions in 1890’s Philadelphia (Blackwell and Janowitz. 1974, 37). Throughout the period of migration, African Americans moving to urban centers such as Philadelphia were quickly exposed to the system of machine politics that was entrenched in many United States metropolises up until the municipal government reform movements of the early-mid twentieth century. While the Democratic Party concentrated their recruitment efforts mostly on European immigrant communities, the Republican Party of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries capitalized on the symbolic value that being the party of Abraham Lincoln held in the minds of African Americans. In fact, African American continued to bloc vote for the Republican Party up until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. Gosnell (1935) described the situation of class mixing, isolated institutional development and the effect of this situation upon political participation in the 1930’s Black communities of Chicago. Although the Negroes living in the South Side area are not homogeneous from the standpoint of cultural attainments, they are forced together by the persistent hostility of the White world. In the colored community, unskilled laborers, domestic servants, gamblers, policemen, prostitutes, clerical workers, bootleggers, teachers, mail carriers, Pullman porters, lawyers, businessmen, physicians, clergymen and others are all 78 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. surrounded by a wall of prejudice erected by the White world. Because the Negro World is smaller than the White world, an individual in it has a wider range of acquaintanceships through the various social, economic, and other stratifications than a White person in a similar position in his own world (p. 22). Gosnell goes on to relate this isolated social world to the idea of racial consciousness and racial solidarity. “A discriminatory act or threat against any member of the group, whatever his standing may be, is regarded as an attack upon the entire community” (p. 22). Exclusively Black organizations like the Pullman Porters Union, Black churches, social clubs and other organizations served as the channels through which racial solidarity was given expression. This solidarity has persisted throughout the twentieth century, and thus Black urban residence has a dimension that transcends the geographic boundaries of the ghetto. Forged out of shared injustice, urban African Americans participate in organizations and institutions that are apart and unknowable by White society. This political and social isolation of Black urban life served the interest of certain segments of the outside society. As discussed by Gosnell (1935), White politicians have long known of the tendency for African Americans to bloc vote, and have sought to influence the Black vote via Black leadership. Although there were a variety of conflicting interests, “race consciousness” leads to like voting behavior at the ballet box by most African Americans. As Gosnell stated, “the churches, the press, and the economic and social groups of the Negro community have a stronger hold upon the rank and file than corresponding institutions have in other local communities” (p. 114). 79 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1930’s Chicago, the Republican political machine was mobilized through the use of the Black Press, the Black church, and professional and fraternal organizations. Also, race uplift organizations such as the NAACP were beginning to be politicized. White politicians gave gifts as large as 550,000 to a single church, in exchange for votes and political favors (Gosnell 1935, 96). However these types of institutions were used mainly to influence the law-abiding folk. A different mechanism was required to win the votes of those outside of mainstream Black urban social life. The relationship between Black members of “the underworld” and politicians in 1930’s Chicago, was one of mutual gain. Under several administrations, bootleggers, racketeers, gambling-house keepers, panders, thieves, and other hoodlums have enjoyed extraordinary immunities from interference on the part of the law enforcement agencies. The gangsters and other criminals realize that this freedom from restraint depends upon how useful they can make themselves to politicians” (Gosnell 1935. pp. 115- 135). Organized criminals from Chicago’s White communities chose to base their illicit operations in the Black communities of the city’s, south and west sides. As observed by Gosnell (1935, 116): “It is in such areas as are open to Negroes that the White underworld leaders frequently locate their activities. Here they are more secure from molestation since the Negroes cannot protect themselves as well as other groups.” The tendency for vice and crime operations to be located in Black communities had a destabilizing effect upon life for the non-criminal residents of the area. Gosnell also remarked upon this issue: The so-called transitional or blighted areas nearest the business center of the city where many of the migrants 80 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. first settled contained the old “red-light district. As the Negro expanded outward there was a tendency for the vice areas to expand with it. The reports of the Committee of Fifteen, the records of the law-enforcement agencies, and other sources that are confidential all show the attempts of the vicious elements to invade the regions newly inhabited by colored people. Everywhere the self- respecting colored citizen, singly or in groups, have fled to new neighborhoods free of vice as a haven for their children and families, fast on their heels vice has followed in the wake (Gosnell 1935, 116). Because of this relationship between city hall, the underworld, and the Black community. Whites engaged in organized criminal activity gravitated to Black areas where it was easier for the collusion between criminals and politicians to remain hidden from mainstream public attention. Additionally, the economic success that these protected businesses enjoyed, coupled with the widespread economic discrimination against Blacks, forced many African Americans into employment in the various aspects of the underworld. In I930’s Chicago, virtually all porters and maids at the “houses of ill repute,” as well as the entertainers at the late night cabarets, were Black (Gosnell 1935, 120). It would be hard to place a calculated figure on the negative effects of this social condition, but it has definitely been the experience of most metropolitan areas with large African American community areas. This topic will be revisited later. The Latter Twentieth Century: Class Structure Matures and Diversifies By the 1940s. Black urban sociologists had observed and documented two class systems through which urban African Americans could achieve social mobility. These two groups have often been referred to as the “respectables” and 8 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the “shadies.” Understanding how this dual social structure has developed within the Black community is crucial if one is to properly conceptualize urban Black society. In 1944, Myrdal discussed the exaggerated attractiveness of “the shady life” to urban Black youth. After characterizing the upper, middle and lower levels of the “ordinary” class structure of the Black American community, Myrdal stated: In the bigger cities where prostitution, gambling and other types of “protected” businesses reach considerable importance, there is, parallel to the ordinary “respectable” class structure, a less respectable or “shady” class structure. Its upper class consists of the successful racketeers. The middle class may be said to consist of their lieutenants and the less successful independents. The lower class would then consist of hangers on and petty criminals. Wealth and power is the main criterion of status in this society. Education, family background, and respectability have no significance. The upper and middle classes of this shady society have a certain prestige with the lower classes of the general Negro society in the cities. For this reason, vice and crime can appear as a desirable career to almost any lower class urban youth. This shady Negro society has a parallel in the White world, but the shady White society probably has less general prestige (Myrdal 1944, 704-705). For Myrdal, it was not surprising that, although the upper class shadies were not yet accepted by the members of the “respectable” Black upper class, they had a great deal of status in the eyes of many Negroes. Shady enterprises that willing Black entrepreneurs could make money at included, policy (numbers running), pool hall ownership, selling reefers (marijuana), goofy dust (cocaine) and also religious based scams such as faith healing. Eager for legitimization, the shady elite tended to be very generous towards the community. Often, upper class Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. shadies in Black communities had considerable political influence, and often were able to secure employment for members of their constituency. Myrdal gives several reasons for the growing importance of the Black underworld. There are several reasons why it is to be expected that the Negro community should be extreme in sheltering a big underworld. One reason is the very great restriction of economic and social opportunities for young Negroes in ordinary lines of work, and the consequent experience of frustration. This is particularly strong in the North where educational facilities are flung open to Negroes, and public policy and public discussion are permeated with the equal itarian principles of the American Creed. The low expectation on the part of White people generally and the quite common belief, particularly in the lower classes of Whites, that Negroes are “bom criminals” must also have demoralizing effects. The Negroes respect for law and order is constantly undermined by the frequent encroachments upon Negro rights and personal integrity (Myrdal 1944. 332). Like scholars of the Black urban condition before him, Myrdal realized that Black Americans living in the urban centers of the North and West faced a particularly difficult situation. Their world was isolated and separate, and because of migration, their social position was more tenuous than that of southern Blacks, whose social roles were well entrenched. In 1945 Drake and Cay ton’s Black Metropolis presented the first explicit model of Black urban class structure. Metropolis’s authors stated up front that their work was an academic descendant of DuBois early work. The conceptual model put forth by Drake and Cayton (shown in Figures 6 and 7) is the most well developed of all theorizations of Black urban class structure. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 6: Black Class Structure, Chicago 1940's Source: Drake and Cayton, 1945. ’ CLUBS • CHURCHES’ RACE IEADERSMP G B fflE M A N RACKETEERS UPPER CLASS MIDDLE CLASS LOWER CLASS The wide spaces indicate absence of “social” participation between indi viduals in the adjacent segments. Broken lines indicate some “social” contact between the groups. Figure 7: System of Class Mobility Source: Drake and Cayton, 1945. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Metropolis goes beyond the tendency to discuss class as a static phenomenon and makes a distinction between “class structure” (Figure 6) and “the system of class mobility” (Figure 7). The authors derive class structure strictly from statistical measures of educational attainment, rental price, and occupation. Driving this general class structure however, Drake and Cayton identified processes through which African Americans in 1940’s Chicago could attain social status. Drake and Cayton identified three main class formation systems at work in Bronzeville (a popular term for Southside Chicago in the 1940s). In all classes, people could be categorized as participating in one of three distinct social systems of upward (and downward) mobility: 1) the church centered system 2) the non church centered “respectables,” and 3) the “shadies". As Figure 5 shows, the majority of the upper class Negroes tended to be members of the “non church centered respectables” group. This group was made up of “an articulate social world of doctors, lawyers, school teachers, executives, successful business people, and the frugal and fortunate of other occupational groups.” These were the “elite” of Chicago’s Black community. Residentially these people were most likely to live “way out South” away from traditional Black areas (pg. 601). The non-church centered respectables shared upper class status with upper class church centered Blacks as well as with upper class shadies. For the traditional Black upper class (church centered and non-church centered respectables), social status was achieved through education. 85 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. professional status, and lifestyles. Income was not the main criteria for classification in this group (pg. 529). Upper class shadies had high incomes but lacked education and professional occupations. This group had obviously gained status among the general Black population in the years between DuBois’s 1896 work in Philadelphia, and Drake and Cayton’s 1940’s Chicago. When individuals and their families rose to the top of the shady class spectrum, respectable upper class African Americans found it politically advantageous to accord them some measure of social recognition. Upper class shadies on the other hand held the opinions of the upper respectables in high regard. They sought to seek the acceptance of the “respectables" by adopting aspects of their behavior, and by attempting to become community leaders via entry into the social organizations of the upper and middle classes (Drake and Cayton, pg. 524). The propensity for the “shady class structure" to expand and diversify in mid-twentieth century Chicago was a typical trend for Black communities in other cities as well (Myrdal 1944, 704). The trend toward more and more young people participating in the “illicit” and/or “immoral” economy was viewed with alarm by the early Black sociologists, but was clearly nothing more than a natural human response to the intense discrimination and oppression from dominant society. Many Black youth witnessed their parents, uncles and/or aunts doing all the things that American society said would lead to success (work hard, obtain an education, uphold clean morals), yet continue to remain unemployed or 86 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. underemployed, or have to work incessantly just to maintain the household. These examples of honest work not paying off stand in sharp contrast to the high visibility of those few who have made it outside the system. Inequalities of urban Black life in America brought about a situation where many individuals who did stay out of trouble, do well in school, and work hard continued to experience discrimination from the outside White society. Often such individuals, when faced with the “glass ceiling” never reach their full potential in life and are filled with bitterness. Younger generations who observed the unnatural constrictions placed on their elders likely viewed participation in "shady endeavors” as a way to avoid repeating the frustrating, heartbreaking experiences of many of their elders. Except for recognition of the influence of the illegal drug trade, the topic of how the “shady class structure” developed after the 1940s was not addressed by most of the more contemporary work on African Americans in urban areas. Again this points to the fractious nature of post 1950’s literature on Black urban residence. The rise of the “shadies” was a matter that the early Black sociologists considered very important. In characterizing the “upper shadies” Drake and Cayton said the following: In the decade between the beginning of the depression and the outbreak of the second World War. the “Gentlemen Racketeers” and their coterie emerged as the most widely publicized group in Bronzeville. The people in this group do not ask, ‘How did you make your money? But only, ‘have you got money?’ This set is organized around a cult of clothes. Nothing but the right labels and the right prices will do. Both the men and the women know how to buy and wear clothes-and with taste rather than garishness. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Into the homes of the “upper shadies” stream nationally known colored theatrical figures and sportsmen. On their tables one will find wild duck and pheasant in season, chicken and turkey in season or out, and always plenty of the finest spirits and champagne. The upper respectables call themselves “good livers”; and the shadies are “high livers.” What the “shadies” hope to ultimately do, perhaps, is displace the older upper class, to outshine it, to incorporate sections of it within their own circles, and to emerge as the bona fide upper class. They have the money, but they are keenly aware that there are some things money won’t buy. But they know that once they become known as good Race Men, Bronzeville will forget the source of their income and accord them honor and prestige. And in the eyes of many Bronzeville people they are already the upper class. Did the upper class shadies succeed in their quest to replace the upper class respectables as “the definition” of urban Black success? This is a question that emerges as a central theme given the evolution of Black urban residence, and will be explored further later. Models of Class Structure in the Late Twentieth Century Twenty-three years after Drake and Cayton, Billingsley’s Black Families in White America ( 1968) presented a refined version of Drake and Cayton’s model of the social structure of the 1930’s through 1940’s Chicago Black community. Although unspecific geographically, Black Families identifies important changes in the income-occupational-social class structure of the Black community. Billingsley’s acknowledged adaptation of Drake and Cayton’s Black class structure is reproduced in Figure 8.. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PROFESSIONALS ( X . CLERICAL S K IL L E D B L U E C O LLA R WORKING NON-POOR WORKING POOR Figure 8: Billingsley's Reproduction of Drake and Cayton's Black Class Structure System Source: Billingsley, 1968. Billingsley discussed the changes occurring among the elite of the class hierarchy of Black America in the late 1960s. One segment of upper class had Black society remained relatively static while another segment of the upper class expanded and transformed itself. The traditional upper class of Black professional and public sector employees had continued to be a dominant force among the elite of the African American community. Increasingly however, members of “the new Negro upper class” joined the traditional Black upper class. The new pathway to “high social status, family stability, and achievement” led to the burgeoning of a new upper class— the sports/entertainment industrial complex. There was also, an 89 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. increasing number of upper class shadies who had risen to the top through “questionable” business interests. The new upper class may have as much or more money, education and status, but they are likely to have reached the top in one generation due in large measure to their own talent and good fortune. Prominent among the new upper class are celebrities and entertainers and athletes [.. . ]. Still another prominent group in the new upper class that got to the top by talent and good fortune is the “Shadies.” Those gamblers, racketeers, pimps and other hustlers who often manage to become wealthy, to wield considerable amounts of influence, and to gamer a great deal of prestige in the Negro community (pg. 124-125). Billingsley estimated the proportion of the old guard Black upper class to remain dominant numerically, but the rapid growth of new Black upper classes, suggested this would change soon. Using data from a 1967 census publication, Billingsley quantified the national Black population as 10% upper class, 40% middle class, and 50% poor group. The lack of geographic specificity in sociological models like Billingsley’s, leaves room to question the geographic relationships between various strata of the Black community.. The 1970s and 1980s brought laws banning blatant housing discrimination caused realtors and apartment managers to work harder to hide discrimination. Consequently, new concentrations of Blacks have appeared in suburbia all over the country. As mentioned, post-1970 development of the Black community remains poorly theorized, especially with respect to its geographical characteristics. Blackwell (1975) presented another scholarly discussion of Black class stratification. Blackwell’s models are reproduced in Figures 9 and 10. 90 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Social Structure of the Black Community U pper C lass t 10% .3% 'old 7% new Professionals Middle C lass 40% White C ollar Clerical Skilled Blue Collar W orking N on-Poor Lower Class r 50% W orking Poor Lower-Lower C lass (The U nder-C lass) Figure 9: Blackwell’s Reproduction of Black Class Stratification Structure Source: Blackwell, 1978. The Black Subterranean Class Structure: The World of Shadies and the Underworld (Superimposed onto the Legitimate Black Social Structure) Subterraneans Legitimate Structure Upper Class Middle Class Middle Class Lower Class « Lower ' Class Figure 10: Class Structure of Black Subterranean Class Source: Blackwell, 1978. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Like Drake and Cayton and Billingsley, Blackwell discussed the system of class mobility at work in Black America. Blackwell remarked that the incomes of the new Black upper class were often higher than those of the traditional elite, but the lack of security in these incomes places them at risk of sudden downward mobility. Their income is transitory; that is, it is not necessarily based upon secure occupations and high educational attainment. They are therefore, only able to sustain an upper class life style for a relatively short period of time, depending upon the care with which their financial holdings are invested or upon the permanence of their occupations (Blackwell 1975, 79-80). As discussed in chapter two, the 1970s was a period when the Black middle class became increasingly diverse with respect to occupational structure and was beginning to shrink. Between 1970 and 1990, relative to the proportions of Blacks in the upper or lower class segments, the size of the Black middle class has shrunk. In chapter two, the work of Harold Rose (1971) was introduced. It is appropriate and useful to consider Rose’s model more explicitly now, as shown in Figure 11 on the following page. 92 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M OW GHETTO SECrr>o T Central business district Figure 11: Harold Rose's Black Class Structure Pyramid Source: Rose, 1974. Note that the pyramidal structure is preserved in a manner reminiscent of the Drake and Cayton, and Billingsley models. As illustrated by Rose, in 1970, the ghetto remained tightly bound in most urban areas, as it was too early for the effects of the 1968 federal fair housing legislation to be felt widely. Rose’s 1970 model also illustrates the relationship between the Black inner-city poor and the central business district. While many studies exist which refer to the large number of urban African Americans and the social problems that they confront, little analysis has been done on the impact that early discrimination in housing and employment has had on the future development of overall urban Black class structure. There have been highly important changes that have taken place in the system of Black mobility over time. For example, the continued growth of the “shadies,” or the increasing importance of the highly paid entertainment/sports complex in the class position of Blacks in United States 93 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. metropolitan areas, has often been left out or poorly conceptualized. Understanding the development of geographic and social stratification within the Black urban class structure is a key element in understanding urban African American society in general. It has been demonstrated that within African American urban areas, a process of social and geographic stratification did occur. Attempts at self-selection and geographic separation by class have been shown. These attempts have been severely impacted and in many cases undone by the hostility and discrimination that all African Americans, regardless of social and economic standing have experienced. This treatment comes from a society that tends to isolate and exclude African Americans from participating in most aspects of the mainstream of American life. Polarization Theory Gone Wild: Social Stratification, 1970*1990 Scholars who look at the development of urban Black populations tend to place emphasis on the Wilson-inspired theoretical stance that the geographic dispersion of African Americans into suburban areas is synonymous with increasing social and spatial isolation from the “underclass.” This is a troublesome pattern and one that tends to be pervasive at all levels of inquiry. Without question, part of the reason for this tradition is the failure of scholars to seek further empirical confirmation of the geographic trends that they write about. Often, scholars rely simply on the index of dissimilarity, a non-spatial methodology and then make geographic assumptions based on that statistical index. The legacy of this is that important geographical and social processes are missed. 94 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In a chapter that appeared in Peter Jackson’s 1987, Race and Racism. Rogers and Uko present a rather compelling argument for the interpretation of residential segregation through a theory of production location and territorial development, with the reproduction of labor as the key interpretive factor. In support of a break from Chicago School traditions, the authors argue, “there must be a shift away from the rigorous plotting of night time location toward an understanding of the geographical separation of workplace and residence as a key feature in the structuring of ethnicity and the formation of class” (Rogers and Uko, 1987). Although there is little question to the value of labor analysis and location theory in helping us understand urban processes, it does not necessarily follow the incorporation of economic and social theory into human geography should be discussed as if it were somehow linked to a reduction in spatial analysis. Presenting social theory as being antithetical to traditional methods of geographic research serves only to weaken one’s final argument. To illustrate this, we need only look to the same Rogers and Uko chapter. It is fair to say that, in calling for a theoretical realignment, the authors present a kind of diatribe against the Chicago school’s attempts at rigid spatial analysis. Unknowingly however, the authors also provide evidence of why researchers should not. as they suggest, “throw out the mapping” and focus solely on “labour.” In their article (p.59), Rogers and Uko conduct a case study of the “latinization” of Los Angeles’s Black ghetto. As background a brief history of 95 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Los Angeles’s Black community is presented. Rogers and Uko correctly cite several important events and trends that went into making Los Angeles’s ghetto. In chronicling the history of the development of Los Angeles’s Black community. Rogers and Uko appropriately recognize: 1. The importance of the fight over public housing, and the key victories in the 1930s and 1950s of the local urban bourgeoisie, in denying what they perceived to be massive “socialistic” federal housing plans. 2. The expansion of the Black population through migration from the South to work in defense related industries. 3. The fact that as Whites vacated the city, a chronic housing shortage was eased and L.A.’s Black neighborhoods coalesced into a contiguous Black residence area in the 1950s. 4. After manufacturing in Los Angeles peaked in 1969, severe deindustrialization set in, with tens of thousand of jobs being lost. Because the closures and layoffs were concentrated in auto related industries, which were heavily clustered in South L.A., median family income in the heavily Black neighborhoods of South Los Angeles dropped by more than half during the 1970s and 1980s. 5. The importance of Mayor Tom Bradley as a cultural and political figurehead [...]. The conclusion however, reveals presumptions that, rather unfortunately, seem to be based on views similar to the Wilson’s flawed underclass hypothesis. The authors state the following: By the 1980s, the status divisions contingent upon local economic changes became more pronounced. Southside is polarized between a high income ‘buppie’ (Black urban professional) west and a low income ‘underclass’ southeast. One can no longer presume a single ‘Black’ experience. 96 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The last statement in the above quote reveals a failure to look into the actual empirical evidence first hand. As anyone who actually researched the historical development of Los Angeles’s Black community would quickly learn, from early on in its history, there had been social and geographic stratification within that community. Rather than being increasingly polarized geographically, middle and upper class Blacks living in “Southside” tend to be no more, and in many cases less isolated from poor Blacks today than they were in earlier periods. Rogers and Uko’s statement is misleading because the historical evidence shows that in Los Angeles there never was a “single Black experience.” Also, the above statement implies that Black communities such as the Crenshaw district, Inglewood and other areas on the Westside that have large numbers of African Americans are homogenous in their “buppiness” and that the middle class Blacks that live there are somehow polarized and geographically isolated from poorer Blacks. This was an incorrect characterization of mid-1980’s Los Angeles. Rather than being based on factual evidence then, Roger’s and Uko’s understanding of the geographic distribution of class in Los Angeles’s Black community is based on the ubiquitous, “urban underclass” theme of increasing internal class polarization and spatial isolation between poor and non-poor Blacks. As will be demonstrated below however, it is a dangerous mistake, especially in the Los Angeles case, to assume that geographic and social isolation of African Americans by class strata is significantly increasing over time. Despite the sophistication of Rogers and Uko’s approach, it is ultimately weakened by 97 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reliance on no data or poor data, inadequate research into the local situation, and apparent blind acceptance of an unfounded theory, based on the fanciful existence of a oluminous, class based “dispersion” of the Black middle and upper classes out into the “stable suburbs.” Sadly, these ideas have been accompanied by calls for the reduction of the spatial analysis of race and class. Another pair of scholars, Clark and Ware (1997) falls into a similar trap. In their article, they claim to offer direct refutation of Massey’s (1979, 1993) findings that for African Americans, race consistently proved to be more important than class, and upper income Blacks tended to be just as segregated as lower income Blacks. Clark and Ware argue the valid point that between 1980 and 1990, more educated, higher-income African Americans were able to move into communities with high status Whites and thus reduce the index of dissimilarity between Whites and Blacks. They test this by calculating the index of dissimilarity for census tracts of the five county area of Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura Counties) (Clark and Ware 1997, 830). Clark and Ware use the fact that the index of dissimilarity between high socio- economic status African Americans and similar status Whites had decreased between 1980 and 1990 to make the following claim: Implicit evidence embedded in this study offers further support toward confirming the existence of a widening gap between minorities who are very poor and those who are more successful.. We have established a link between increased SES and increased integration.. Although gains in education and income have helped create the 98 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. beginnings of a path of sustained integration for some minorities, the possibilities for others, especially those in the central city are less clear. Increasingly, isolated very low-income Black and ethnic populations have been left behind in the inner city (Clark and Ware 1997, 841). Like Rogers and Uko however, Clark and Ware fall into the dangerous trap of making assumptions about the geographic processes underlying the data they used to draw their conclusions. There are major problems with the argument Clark and Ware make. Firstly, by relying solely on the index of dissimilarity and not actually mapping out any of the geographic trends they analyze, important characteristics of the nature of Black urban growth are missed. Although the data on decreases in the index of similarity for high SES African Americans between 1980 and 1990 are encouraging, it must be understood in reference to: 1) historical studies of Black urban morphology and 2) what the actual geographic trends are with respect to Black out-migration in the Los Angeles area. The index of similarity does not tell us how far away from the existing low income Black communities these successful Blacks are moving. If a number of Blacks move into “integrated” neighborhoods, but these moves were mostly into the bordering White tracts adjacent to Black residence areas, then one can hardly make a case for integration. It is likely that these border areas will turn almost entirely Black and/or Latino in another decade if present and/or historical trends persist. A thorough reading of the historical early literature clearly indicates that it is nothing new for the Black middle and upper classes to try and move away from the problems in the ghetto. Previous scholars have demonstrated that these attempts at “integrating” tended to be shortly followed by many of the less 99 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. economically capable segments of Black urban society, who due to the massive vacancy rates caused by White out-movement quickly are able to follow upper class Blacks into formerly the White areas. Communities in L.A and other cities have gone through complete ethnic and racial turnover this way in only a few years. Because Clark and Ware only looked at a decade span in their data, it is a stretch to make a claim for '‘sustained integration.” Nothing in the history of urban Blacks in the Los Angeles area, nor in most other cities, would indicate that the migration streams leading Black people out of Los Angeles into the communities of the 'inland Empire” (San Bernardino and Riverside counties), are going to result in “sustained integration.” In fact, the existing examples of this would indicate that any integration between Blacks and Whites in the Los Angeles area is likely to be short lived. The Westside communities of the Crenshaw district in Los Angeles are an example of this process. In the 1960s, the Crenshaw District was a newly integrating mostly White community. It was held up as a model of Black and White co-existence, because no one rioted there. One observer had this to say about Crenshaw in the 1960s. It is a magnificent community in which there is far less inter-racial strife and far more understanding than you would find in the all-Negro or all White communities in Los Angeles (Tyler, 1983, 270). However, thirty years later, Crenshaw is the new center of all class segments of the Black population, and is virtually devoid of any White residents. There is nothing other than the lack of new African American in-migrants to indicate that this type of transition will not occur in other communities in the Los Angeles ioo Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. area. Clark and Ware fail to recognize the importance of existing older Black communities in suburban cities such as such as Pasadena, Pacoima, Pomona, San Bernardino and, Riverside in influencing the flow of and direction of Black people into the suburbs. With the cost of living in these centers being lower than in Los Angeles, the older sections of these cities attract many lower and middle SES Blacks who are moving out from Los Angeles. Often, it is around the nuclei of these historic suburban Black concentrations that members of the high SES, Black professional classes arrive and settle. The influx of Latino population into these same areas, further accretes White out-migration. Clearly, there is still much that can be learned from geographic analysis, especially when the spatial data are considered under the illumination of the ideas and concepts being debated and discussed by the theorists and practitioners of contemporary regional geography. The failure to conduct real geographic inquiry worked to the detriment of another piece of scholarly literature on the post 1970 transformation of Black Los Angeles. Grant, Oliver and James, write about increasing “bifurcation'’ in the Los Angeles region between 1970 and 1990. Their argument centers on the argument that the dominant process, taking place in Black Los Angeles was that: African Americans increasingly differ from one another in the kinds of jobs they perform, their educational attainment, and the neighborhoods in which they live. By bifurcation we mean that Black Los Angeles has been increasingly split between those who are well to do and those who are faring poorly (Waldinger 1996. 380). The arguments that Grant, Oliver and James make are based upon census trends in the occupational structure of the Black population. However the failure to 101 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. examine geographic trends over time in census tracts outside the city of Los Angeles causes them to over-emphasize the strength of the relationship that exists between the diverging economic trends that their research correctly identifies, and the residential and social trends that have occurred over the same period. Grant, Oliver, and James, conduct a very thorough and insightful analysis of the transformations in African American participation in the Los Angeles area labor market over the period 1970-1990; their research corroborates the notion that for Los Angeles’s Blacks’ relative earning trends have unfolded the same way that the work of Massey, Fainstein, and others have shown. Those scholars have argued that Black middle class has actually retracted nationally between 1970-1990 with the bulk of the movement being middle class folk moving downward, with large numbers of Blacks falling into the lower class (Figure 12). Figure 12: Black earning quintiles, LA county 1970*1990 Source: Waldinger, 1996 102 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For legibility purposes, in addition to shadings, the bars in figure 12 are numbered at the top as well. Parallel to these phenomena, a smaller expansion of the Black upper class has occurred over the same time period. Authors Grant, Oliver, and James, place a major stake in the argument that the out-migration of African Americans to Riverside and San Bernardino counties is radically different from previous trends in Black suburbanization in the county. They concede that although it is true that already, by 1970, Los Angeles was home to the nation’s largest suburban Black population at that time, “suburbanization meant a move from South Central to the adjacent communities Pasadena, Altadena and Pomona.” Conceptually, all those Black neighborhoods served as ghetto spillover communities rather than suburbs in the traditional sense (Waldinger 1996, p. 401). To lump these communities together as “ghetto spillover communities is a questionable position. Pomona and Pasadena are both different from each other and also both physically isolated from the contiguous South Central Black community. The corporate limits of Pasadena are 10-15 miles from South Central and the city limits of Pomona are 25-30 miles away. The history and social character of the Pomona and Pasadena areas are entirely different from that of the true ghetto spillover communities of Compton, Lynwood and Inglewood. The failure to address these early “truly suburban” Black experiences and the downward social transitions that have taken place in certain segments of the Black 103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. community that lives in such places inhibits our understanding of the actual social and geographic processes at work.. Grant, Oliver, and James attempt to contrast this variety of older Black suburbs with the growth of the Black population in the 'inland Empire” by saying that past Black suburbanization was appropriately characterized as ghetto spillover. However, more recently, Blacks have been moving to areas distant from the traditional Black ghettos. The link between this movement to the San Bernardino and Riverside areas and the economic and occupational bifurcation of income and occupation is tenuous at best. The U shaped income distribution of African Americans living in Los Angeles cannot be equated with geographical trends so easily. Statements and assumptions not based on empirical analysis reveal the damage that failure to explicitly consider the spatial dimension can cause. In study after study, improperly formed geographical assumptions are evident. For example, the authors claim that: The number of Blacks living in concentrated poverty (tracts with poverty rates of 40 percent or higher) increased by over 15,000 between 1980 and 1990, suggesting a growing geographical divide between the poor and non-poor Black population (Waldinger 1996, 384). Claims of geographic polarization by class in urban Black communities are not supported by additional empirical evidence, and the assumption is made that any increases in concentrated Black poverty are due to the fact that the non poor moved out. A more accurate understanding would realize and admit that the increases might also be due to the fact that more formerly non-poor middle class 104 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. people still living in the community are dropping below the poverty line, rather than the out-migration of the “stable classes.” Also, regardless of whether one moves to the suburbs or not, even if income stays the same or goes up, if a group of people are forced to pay more of that income for housing and transportation, they will become poorer even if they move to a suburb. African Americans, throughout the twentieth century, have been intentionally hindered from equal access to one of the primary vehicles to wealth in America: home ownership, in a safe non-crowded environment with good schooling. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV Social Theory and Black Urban Residence Within the social sciences, including human geography, recent theoretical advances have provided the basis for better conceptual frameworks from which to conduct research into urban African American communities. As of yet, few studies exist which integrate the ideas of contemporary regional geographic thought within a thorough analysis of urban African American communities. This is possibly due to fractures within the discipline of geography itself. Proponents of social theory in geography tend to be heavily influenced by European thought, and tend to be only fleetingly interested in African American urban issues, and definitely not likely to focus solely on that topic for extended periods of their research careers. Those scholars in geography who are more sincerely engaged in research on Black urban America, and who are heavily published on that specific topic, are often more traditional researchers, whose main influences are the quantitative revolution in the social sciences. Often there is a divergence in the methodologies that are commonly employed by the two groups, with the more traditional schools of research into the Black urban condition employing quantitative analysis of spatial trends in census data and other socio-economic data. Social theorists, on the other hand, tend to rely much less on quantitative data, and instead tend to use other forms of empirical analysis. Fracture in methodological approach however, is contrary to the norm established by the previous studies on Blacks in cities. Rather, a holistic merger of quantitative data and more qualitative research characterized the work of Black sociologists. 106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Charts, graphs, and tables were included side by side with sociological theory and “ethnographic” methods (Dubois 1899, Frazier 1932, Drake and Cayton, 1945). A contention here is that understanding spatial and statistical patterns should remain an important research goal, but only as part of a broader research agenda, that must also include other forms of empirical research and be informed by social theory. One of the main pre-occupations of the early sociologists who studied Black communities was the separate, isolated, and deeply institutionalized nature of life for Black urbanites. Separate social worlds were accompanied by differences in life outcomes for their residents of these places when compared with other sections of the metropolitan area. In essence, African American urbanites have tended to inhabit a different “region” of the city than do Whites and other ethnic groups, and characteristics of life in the places in which they live are unique. One implication of this long-term institutionalization is that residents of different regions may have unwittingly internalized certain realities with negative consequences, especially for youth. In order to understand the legacy of isolated institutional development on African American urban communities, the development of the concept of “a region” within geographical thought is explored next. The Evolution of the Concept of Region in Geographic Thought The concept of region is an old one in geography. Two of the earliest modem era geographers to write on the concept of regions were Karl Richtofen and George Hettner, two German geographers of the late nineteenth and early 107 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. twentieth century periods. Out of their work, an approach to the study of places developed which is termed “chorology.” This German school of chorology was concerned mainly with description and explanation of regional processes. Richard Hartshome, who brought German geographical thought to the United States, further developed this paradigm and its affiliated methodologies (1953). The chorological research tradition emphasized the need for rigid analysis of the relationship between humans and their environment and that each region must be studied both as an individual unit and as a whole system (Nir 1990, 39; Johnston et al 1990, 14; Cloke et al 1991, 8). In France, Paul Vidal de la Blache and his followers studied regions from a slightly different perspective. The French school of regional geographers was more holistic in approach and drew less distinction between the physical and human spheres. One of the contributions of the Vidal de la Blache School was the suggestion that a few individual regions could be studied in depth as a means to developing a framework for interregional comparisons (Nir 1990,40). In the United States at the time, the quantitative revolution that was taking place throughout American social sciences was reaching into geography. The quantitative revolution within geography peaked in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The increase in quantification of research at the time can be linked to the increasing availability of computers combined with a general dissatisfaction with earlier regional studies. The quantitative era was a logical step in the development of geographical understanding. It was tied to events taking place in the broader 108 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. world and, to a much larger degree, to work being done in other academic disciplines (Cloke et al„ 1991; 9 Nir 1990,44). This rush for things mathematical however, caused a backlash within geography during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the wake of mounting social problems—the very type of issues numerical analysis could not solve— some of geography’s leading quantifiers of the 50’s and 60s, including David Harvey and William Bunge, grew frustrated and turned away from quantitative research methodologies. Instead, they adopted social theory (particularly Marx) or one of the other more humanistic research paradigms, as better vehicles for understanding human geographic processes (Cloke, Philo, and Sadler 1991.44). Geographic scholars who flipped from hard quantification over to non- quantitative social theorization are extreme cases, but the high profile of individuals such as the aforementioned two “converted” quantitative geographers who switched their approach had an affect on those who came later. A general trend developed within geography whereby other geographers who had earlier bought into spatial quantification began gradually to adopt more people centered approaches. As these changes took place, geographic theorization on the nature of regions was also transformed. More and more it became clear that regions could only be understood through an analysis of that a particular place’s historical processes of evolution. The new regional geography that developed in the 1970s and 1980s represents a sort of compromise between the old debate over whether 109 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. geographic inquiry should be positivistic or humanistic. Regional geographers now tend to view regions as institutional constructions that exhibit the collective history of an area and influence every aspect of the lives of those who live in them (Paasi 1986; Murphy, 1991, Wolch and Dear 1989, 8). The understanding that places are constructed over time through social interaction between various inhabitants of that place as well as with those from outside regions provides an adequate theoretical starting point for an analysis of the African American ghetto. If we define regions as “constantly changing and socially significant historical and regional formations, whose inhabitants interpret and respond to events and processes in particular ways as a consequence of the unique social and physical contexts in which they are situated” (Murphy, 1991). then we can dissect regions and study the processes leading to their current state. Nir, for example, has proposed reconciliation between the quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study of regions and suggests that those who continue to attack the positivist-quantitative approach have ceased to be constructive and that geographers should instead crystallize around the concept of place. I also propose reconciliation between quantitative and qualitative approaches [ .. . ] . Like many other dichotomies, quality and quantity are but extreme positions of a system of values [...]. The truly valuable legacy of the positivistic school— standards of clarity, rigorous development of arguments in the course of inquiry—cannot be ignored by its challengers. It is perhaps the opinions of reconciliation between the quantitative and qualitative approaches, depending on the 110 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. particular object of study which are leading geography in a new direction. (Nir 1990, 54). Throughout the social sciences, more value has been accorded to the consideration of region or place as a constantly evolving phenomenon, which is interconnected with social and cultural practices (Jackson, 1994: Murphy, 1991: Gupta and Ferguson 1992; Nagel 1994; Paasi 1986; 1991; 1996). This infusion of social constructionist thought into the social sciences can be traced to earlier works that identified the general process of human institution building. A prominent early influence is Berger and Luckmann’s 1967 treatise, “The Social Construction of Reality.’* In this path breaking work, they refer to the social construction of everyday life as resulting from a process of “objectivation" of subjective consciousness. For Berger and Luckmann. an institutional world is experienced as an objective reality. Because its origins are often obscured by time, the tradition of the existing institutions has the character of objectivity. Institutions, as historical objective facticities, confront the individual as undeniable facts. The institutions are there, external to individual and family life and persistent in their reality, whether one likes it or not. One cannot wish them away; they resist attempts to change or evade them. They have coercive power over people—both in themselves, by the sheer force of their facticity, and through the control mechanisms that are usually attached to the most important of them (Berger and Luckman 1967 pg. 20). It is important to keep in mind that the objectivity of the institutional world, however massive it may appear to the individual, is a humanly produced, constructed objectivity (pg. 60). i l l Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These institutions, however powerful, have little usefulness except to the human activity which produces them. They also require legitimization. The development of specific mechanisms of social control also becomes necessary with the historicization and objectivation of institutions (pg. 62). This process of objectivations leads to the creation of “symbolic universes” (pg. 96). Berger and Luckmann's statements are worthy of consideration as they pertain to the situation of urban African Americans. In any given metropolitan area, various social and ethnic groups have ways of doing things that have developed over time and tend to seem as if they are permanent and all-important. Individuals are bom into one or more “symbolic worlds." Unless something happens to show them otherwise, such as a change in economic circumstances or a move to another place, one can go to their grave believing that the rules and mores of his or her particular “life-world” are the only right way to believe, think, and act. If not consciously considered, the resulting cultural xenophobia can lead groups and individuals to view other socio-cultural communities as “aliens." When one considers the peculiar history of people of African heritage in American cities, in the light of social theory, it becomes possible to view the African American ghetto as a socially engineered, heavily institutionalized, urban place. Although there are commonalities with the experiences of other ethnic groups, the extreme territorial constraints placed on urban African Americans are rather unique in the American urban mobility model. Early social isolation of urban African Americans has forced African Americans to adapt to this discrimination via the development of alternative social institutions. Institutions 112 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. such as churches, Black newspapers, and other community institutions are vehicles through which urban African American culture is maintained and perpetuated. In most cases, these institutions are also territorially based. In the 1980s and 1990s, social geographers began to explicitly consider the question of how social institutions are territorially rooted. An important concept in this debate is the notion of a “region” or a “locale.” For contemporary human geographers, regions emerge and disappear as the divisions of a society undergo gradual transformation as manifestations of social processes. Groups inhabiting any specific location engage in a process of dialogue and action that results in a set of social practices that are institutionalized over time. Often explicit in the construction of social boundaries is the construction of spatial boundaries. One of the outcomes of the socialization process is the construction of territorial units. The dichotomy between them and us is played out and translated into spatial arrangements that reflect the social relationships between the groups involved (Wolch and Dear 1989, 9: Paasi 1996, 28). The communication (or lack thereof) between the various segments of the populace sets the tone for how the construction of regions and regional identities will occur. The forms of argument and persuasive action that are used to bind together or tear apart groups of individuals that occupy specific places are important because this is one of the main vehicles for constructing the “we” against the “other”. The existence and continuance of “we” depends upon the rhetoric of the power holders. Those with the ability to do so. promote “their 113 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. version” of the narrative of how any particular group came into being. Common vehicles for this identity construction are journalists, authors, political leaders, scientists and others. Too often, labels like ‘those people’ are used to distinguish groups that should reside “over there,” meaning in a separate location. This construction of “we” versus the “other” serves to cement power relations because it can unite the “we” and mobilize them against the “other.” The communal rhetoric espoused by the storytellers of these symbolic worlds is often persuasive and manipulative rather than coming out of any genuine, previously acknowledged sense of community. In many situations, rhetoric of community is crafted for a particular ideological purpose and in some cases its goal is to create a community where none existed previously (Carr 1986, 157). Although now being increasingly recognized, the importance of territorial relations upon society and space is still needy of more scholarly attention. Murphy (1991) recognizes a gap between a theoretically informed human geography and the actual practice of “doing” human geography. He argues that while the relationship between social and spatial processes is now well theorized, researchers have been slow to incorporate this knowledge into their efforts. Murphy contends that people’s notions about regions should be understood as products of historical interactions between large-scale institutional and ideological developments on the one hand, and places specific activities, interactions and understandings, on the other. 114 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. What lies behind the framework of political territories or formal ethnic regions are spatial constructs with deep ideological significance that may or may not correspond to political or formal constructs. These ideologies are formed in the territorial struggles that produce particular regional arrangements and understandings, and these in turn shape ideas, practices, activities and routines (pg. 29). Paasi (1986; 1991; 1996) offers another collection of work that addresses the gap between theory and practice in human geography. Paasi's work stands out in that it goes beyond the mere identification that society and space are related. Paasi also attempts to describe the process through which regions develop. The institutionalization of a region is a socio-spatial process during which some territorial unit emerges as a part of the spatial structure of a society and becomes established and clearly identified in different spheres of social action and social consciousness. Conversely, regarding individual actors and groups in a society, the emergence of a region can be viewed as a consequence of goals established and the decisions reached by local or non-local power-holding individuals and/or coalitions of individuals operating in the context of the ongoing structuration process (pg. 121). As the institutionalization process develops, a region will be continually reproduced in individual and institutional practices. Institutions in a society (i.e.. economic, political, legal, educational, cultural, etc.) eventually become the most important factors as regards the reproduction of the region and its regional consciousness (pg. 121). Paasi identifies four key stages in the institutionalization of regions: • The development of conceptual shape. • The development of institutions. 115 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • The assumption of territorial shape. • The establishment as part of the regional system and regional consciousness of the society concerned (Paasi, 1986, 121). These theoretical divisions operate differently depending on the geographic context. They may be entirely or only partly simultaneous and the timing of each differs from situation to situation. At some point, regions take on a quality of endurance and have meaning that can endure through generations. It is well established that geographic regions must be socially as well as physically constructed. The conceptualization of regions is the result of the outcomes in the struggles for economic and cultural survival in any given place. Institutions must be developed to perpetuate regional ethos and these institutions are usually heavily implicated in determining the territorial arrangements in a given place. This process of regional development and the concept of "spatial socialization” is also discussed by Wolch and Dear (1989. pg. 3-13). For Wolch and Dear, the "locale” is the confluence of “the combined effect of society and space.” Three arenas: political, economic, and social are identified as spheres of activity through which structures, institutions, and agents produce and reproduce territorial and social arrangements. Wolch and Dear use the term "social reproduction” to refer to the inertial situation whereby generations fail to escape the circumstance that they are bom into. On the other hand, Wolch and Dear recognize the potential that humans have to break out of the "time-space prisms of their “locale.” They refer to this as “transcendental social action” which leads to transcendental social change. 116 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Transcendental social change occurs through the autonomous actions of classes and groups within the economic, political and social spheres. The potential for such change is intimately bound up with breaking the repetitive cycles of reproduction. Central to this dynamic is the relative autonomy of the separate spheres of social life, and the power of key human agents within each sphere (Wolch and Dear 1989, 8). An outcome of the processes discussed by Wolch and Dear, Paasi. and others are the forms of social relationships that evolve between the inhabitants of these different regions. “The institutionalization of a region is always a manifestation of the spatial divisions of labor and power relations that are embedded within it” (Paasi 1996, 34). Some individuals, groups and classes are active in the production of regions, while most people tend to be reproducers. The institutionalization of regions is part of a continual regional transformation: implying the de institutionalization of some other regional structure, due to the changes that take place in the local social practices that reproduce regions (Paasi. 1996, 34). Especially in urban contexts, the process by which regions are de institutionalized and then transformed into another type of regional structure often involves some form of turmoil or conflict between various population groups. It should be noted that regional transformation takes place simultaneously on all spatial scales, (e.g., at the local, regional, national and global levels). Hence regional identities are also organized hierarchically. When regional transformation takes place, identities, and their material and symbolic base, can be threatened because “their” identities are expanding into “our” territory. This 117 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. situation can create conflicts between territorial units including state and sub-state entities. The main tool which members of specific symbolic realities can use to ensure the replication of the existing social order is active territorial control. Sack (1986) identifies the process of human territoriality as being distinct from strictly biological considerations of territoriality. Instead, human beings engage in the manipulation of access to spaces and areas as a means of social control. Using historical evidence. Sack demonstrates how people and organizations have used territorial control to reify power relations. Sack recognizes territoriality, as the basic geographic expression of influence and power that provides an essential link between society, space and time (pg. 226). Territoriality is the backcloth of geographical context - it is the device through which people construct and maintain spatial organizations. For humans territoriality is not an instinct or a drive, but rather a complex strategy to affect, influence and control access to people things and relationships. Territories are socially constructed forms of spatial relations and their effects depend on who is controlling whom and for what purposes (Sack, pg. 216). One of the most important results of the regional transformation process and its related territorial constructs are the development of what Paasi terms “structures of expectation.” Regional structures of expectation are “time-space specific, regionally bounded, institutionally embedded schemes of perception, conception and action which as part of the dominant narrative account of the territorial unit in question, can serve a significant structures in socio-spatial classification (Paasi 1996, 35). These structures have a great impact on the life 118 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. outcomes of individuals living in any region. They determine the range of possibilities for life, work and family structure. Youth and other less geographically mobile population segments are especially influenced by regional structures of expectation, as they are less likely to have experience with other regional constructs. This question of regional structures of expectation has great relevance on the topic of urban African Americans. Urban underclass scholars for example, assumed that a simple move out of the ghetto is all that is required for African Americans to a achieve what “transcendental social change.” However, the truth is that with regard to African Americans diminished structures of expectation seem to have great mobility. The ghetto follows Black Americans. As an area becomes more and more African American, key institutions such as the schools, and the police begin to operate differently, thus reproducing the ghetto structure of expectation. Omi and Winant (1994) have applied the social constructionist approach to the development of what they termed racial formation theory. Racial formation extends Gramsci's concept of hegemony to explain the American racial state. It points out that in accordance with Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, in the social construction of American social structure, racial groups such as Blacks and Latinos, who were in earlier years dominated by force, without consent, have now been incorporated into consent. Thus becoming propogators of the ruling classes hegemony themselves (p. 67). The basic idea is that America has, over time, moved from a racial dictatorship into a racial democracy in which many members 119 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of racialized groups have been co-opted into the dominant system of beliefs, ideas and practices, and via this participation, unwittingly work to maintain the status quo. Thus race, class, and gender (as well as sexual orientation) constitute “regions” of hegemony, areas in which certain political projects can take shape. They share certain obvious attributes in that they are all “socially constructed,” and they all consist of a field of projects whose common feature is their linkage of social structure and signification (Omi and Winant, 1994 68). In contemporary urban America’s pluralistic ethnic mix, racial formation must be understood as a series of “racial projects” that have been socially constructed over time. Chinese Americans have a discursively constructed social reality, as do Mexican Americans, as do Gay/Lesbian Americans etc. Clearly, one of the most unified racial projects in America’s urban history has been the racialization of African Americans living in America’s large metropolitan areas. Europeans in northern, western, southern and eastern America have tended to bond together against people of African American descent, regardless of previous animosities. This is especially true with regard to residential behavior. The development of urban Black communities satisfies Omi and Winant’s qualifications of a racist project. Omi and Winant say, “a racial project can be defined as racist if and only if it creates and reproduces structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race.” Essentialism is the belief in immutable human essences existing outside of and impervious to social and historical context. As any Black American can attest to, no matter where they live urban African Americans are in constant danger of being interpreted through the lens of 120 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. America’s essentialist racist project. The recent debate around racial profiling by police agencies is an example of this. Urban African Americans have been racialized in a manner that transcends class and gender differences within the Black community and has affects upon the entire metropolitan African American community. Territorial manipulation has always accompanied the social isolation that urban African Americans have been subjected to. Within the territorial and social construct of the Black ghetto, a different set of societal rules has always existed. For example, as documented by early Black sociologists and discussed earlier, organized vice and crime has long been tolerated by municipal political authorities, in exchange for payoffs and votes. The different forms of political, social and territorial reality which have been created for urban African Americans are entirely too real for residents of America’s metropolitan areas. Sharply divergent residential patterns, imbalances in schooling, unequal public services and overall differences in quality of life constantly remind urban Blacks of their social position, especially when these institutional conditions are coupled with constant social discrimination. As has been demonstrated in previous chapters, many scholars have gotten bogged down in a misdirected understanding of class versus race as it relates to urban Black Americans. It became common in the latter half of the twentieth century to discuss class as if it were somehow a concept that has the ability to over-ride the racialization that all African Americans regardless of their class status are subjected to in urban America. This racialized reality affects the way 121 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that class must be interpreted when trying to comprehend African American urban life. Class and race are not complementary concepts and should not be juxtaposed haphazardly as if notions of class difference have explanatory power with regard to the racialized urban African American experience. The two concepts, class and race, deserve separate treatment. In the case of urban African Americans, notions of class and class status must be approached carefully and also understood as separate (although related) to the racialization of all class levels of the Black population experience. This point was made very clear by Webster, when he stated: Insofar as racial and class theories contain mutually exclusive analytical components they are not combinable. The classificatory criteria that produce Black people and White racism belong as exclusively to the racial theory as the bourgeoisie is part of the class theory. The idea of a Black bourgeoisie then is incoherent. The skin color, hair type and facial form of the bourgeoisie cannot be of analytic significance. Black cannot qualify Bourgeoisie, just as yellow cannot describe algorithms. Racial and class theories are separate and distinct (Webster 1992). What is needed is a theoretical framework which gives the unique racial reality of African Americans its due importance, and that takes into account impact that the history of hostility, discrimination, and relatively isolated territorial, social, and economic development have had on the lives and attitudes of urban Blacks. Given the subject of study and the work that has previously been done in this topical area, it is necessary to adopt a mixed methodology that employs both quantitative, positivistic research as well as more qualitative archival research. 122 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This methodological approach puts this study more in line with the traditions of the Black scholars who theorized on Black urban residence in the early to mid twentieth century. Their work tended to include both quantitative and subjective research. In the history of human geographical research, methodological issues have always been at the forefront. Qualitative versus quantitative approaches have often been in opposition with one another. More recently though, there has been a move towards reconciliation between the two extremes. The issue of reconciling qualitative empirical research with more positivistic approaches in geography was broached in the debate surrounding feminist geographical research methodologies Gilbert (1994, 9). For example, remarked upon the difficulties doing feminist research and the problem of the notion of “sisterhood” across racial and ethnic boundaries. Faced with political and social divides, feminist geographers have sought to craft a more inclusive framework than the more common heavy ethnographic focus. Staeheli and Lawson (1994) said, “the very structuring and creation of gender relations raise many questions, some of which may be better answered using quantitative techniques and some which may be answered with qualititative techniques.” A similar viewpoint is adopted here. The following two chapters contain a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research into the development of the Los Angeles African American communities. In the next two chapters the changing geographical and social relationships between members of different class strata in 123 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Los Angeles Black, community are analyzed via both spatial/quantitative and also more qualitative techniques. 124 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V Social and Territorial Development of Black Los Angeles, 1940-1990 At the time of the 1990 census, Los Angeles County was home to more African Americans than any other county in the United States except for Cook County, Illinois. Despite its having such a large African population and its status as one of the leading centers of urban Black culture, especially for Blacks in the entertainment industry, the historical development of the Los Angeles Black community remains poorly understood—especially in the post World War II era. Los Angeles’s Black community has not often been the subject of scholarly attention, except after urban revolts. However, the city’s African American community ranks high in the hierarchy of urban Black communities and rivals New York as a center of urban Black life. This chapter utilizes statistical and geographical analysis techniques to research territorial and social relationships that developed among different socio economic strata within the metropolitan Los Angeles African American community. In chapter six, the census analysis is followed by a more qualitative examination of the 1940-1990 period, designed to contextualize the events and processes identified in the present quantitative analysis. The long historical time frame used in this analysis is important because, as understood by contemporary regional geography, regions are institutionalized over time through a dialectic process that results in social and territorial relations between power groups. In order to understand regions, it is necessary to treat the historical development of a 125 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. region as a fundamental line of inquiry. A good tool for tracking spatial changes over time is geographical information systems. GIS and Statistical Analysis—Studying Regional Geographic Process Within the literature published on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), attention has been given to temporal considerations (Langran 1992, Burroughs, et al., 1996). Traditional cartographic methods revolve around the simple map. A map represents one particular snapshot of a particular place at a particular time. Other than the date of the map, little consideration is usually given to temporal information. Langran in particular (1991, 1992) has published extensively on temporal GIS and Langran stresses the importance of the chronological information that is missed in traditional GIS. The snapshot sequence is the most common way of doing spatio-temporal studies but this methodology fails to capture event-based change. By taking snapshots, we get no information about the spatial characteristics of change, only the end result of change. A better methodology for getting at why spatial changes are taking place is the time-space composite (Langran, 1992). Time-space composites allow changes in both time and space to be accessed seamlessly, with no gaps in spatial or temporal information. The time-space composite approach examines changes in particular places over time, and records those changes as “temporal places”. For human geographers, these places of change can then be studied themselves as sub-regions that have had common temporal trajectories in certain social, cultural and economic or other population characteristics. Accordingly, the 126 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. remainder of this chapter aims to better understand the regional history of the Los Angeles Black community and thus, learn more about its processes of regional transformation and the various territorial identities that developed. Both this chapter and the next are designed to address the shortcomings and gaps identified in the existing literature on urban African American communities by answering the two broad research questions that were introduced earlier: 1) how has the geographic structure of the African American community changed over the period 1940-1990 and 2) within the transforming geographic structure of the metropolitan Black community, have higher status African Americans been successful in isolating themselves from the core Black community? In order to operationalize the research, these questions they were restated to specifically address the Los Angeles case study. These operational sub questions are: 1) how has the geographic structure of Black urban residence changed in Los Angeles over the 1940-1990 period, and what were socio-spatial processes at work in this development? 2) how were the members of the various socio-economic groups within that community stratified by socio-economic status and situated geographically over the time period 1940-1990 and, 3)have upper class African Americans in Los Angeles county been successful in geographically separating themselves from lower class African Americans? Answers to these questions were found through research on fifty-year trends in census data on the Black population of the Los Angeles region. A temporal and spatial analysis of key census variables, Black population, median 127 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. home values, rents paid and poverty status was carried out. These variables were chosen because they are good proxies for the location and trends in population growth of the African American community (percent Black) and the class characteristics of that community (median rents paid, median home value, and poverty status). The analysis consists of two sections: • Research into the growth and spatial redistribution of the Los Angeles Black population over the period 1940-1990. • An analysis of the changing geographic relationship (distance) over time between African Americans living in upper, middle and lower socio-economic status areas, and between Black households in poverty with those not in poverty. Data and Methodological Issues The two main data sources used for this include the United States census data, and articles/books which specifically address the historical evolution of Los Angeles’s Black communities. In order to expand the data reported by the census numbers, the quantitative historical analysis carried out in this chapter will be extended and developed via more qualitative methods in chapter six. The time frame, 1940-1990, was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, as discussed in chapters two and three, there was a noticeable deterioration in the literature published on African Americans living in urban environments after 1945. The results of this case study of Black regional transformation in Los Angeles clarifies questions that although introduced long ago by Black sociologists working early as the 1890s, have been left unclear by the existing literature into the Black urban condition. Secondly, technological advances have 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. led to the availability of digital tract level census data and boundary files for all of Los Angeles County after 1940. This makes it possible to do a time-space composite analysis of the growth and development of South Central Los Angeles, as well as to track the movement over time of Black residence areas county wide. These historical census data findings were analyzed for temporal and spatial trends and patterns that provided new information on the development of the Los Angeles Black community. Having this long time span of data geographically referenced provides a method for tracking the territorial development of the region. Temporal trends are a window into the processes that drive urban development. Trends in population growth or decline, class-based migration, racial segregation, and other social processes are more directly observable when such temporal information is understood and analyzed geographically. In order to process fifty years of census data in a GIS, a methodology for getting around the problem of census tract comparability over time was chosen. Census tracts are map divisions used by the government as a way of geographically indexing the population. The boundaries of any one tract are subject to movement every ten years, depending on how much population change took place in that area. This presents problems for comparative research of census tracts over time. Techniques, that include using tract comparability tables provided by the census bureau or doing a space time composite and/or using ratio or other statistically derived variables, make the problem of tract comparability 129 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. over time possible to account for. In this project, statistically derived comparable units (i.e., ratios expressed as percents, median values, and the standard deviation were used). Because the variables are expressed as standardized units, it is possible to use a time space composite approach and compare the changes in census tracts from the base numbers and geography established from the 1940 census tracts, and compare the changes between places over time. The historical census data were compiled from several sources. These sources included the California Department of Finance (1970-1990) statewide tract comparability file. It also included the 1940-1960 Los Angeles census tract database (put together by Dr. Philip Ethington of the University of Southern California who worked in conjunction with the Haynes Foundation), and the 1940-1990 United States Department of Commerce’s Decennial Census of Population and Housing. The California Department of Finance made minor adjustments to their data. Therefore, certain figures differed slightly from officially recorded census values. Considering the inherent error that is accepted to exist within census data and the fact that the study is more concerned with broad trends, rather than the details of each data value, these minor discrepancies do not influence the findings of the study. Additionally, factors beyond the researcher’s control can cause census data to be inaccurate, including but not limited to, changes in the way questions are asked from decade to decade, and the chronic inability of the census takers to accurately count all of the population. These problems usually result in undercounts of various population groups— with minority groups usually affected 130 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the hardest. Despite these limitations, and especially for the broad regional patterns that are being researched here, these census data sources were an adequate and useful means of learning about how general population characteristics have changed in the Los Angeles region over time. Historical Development of Black Los Angeles, 1940*1990 Los Angeles’s Black community’s growth and development is best understood through a study of its temporal sub-regions. Historically, there have been a number of geographically isolated “Black sectors” in Los Angeles County. The largest cluster of Black communities has always been located to the south and west of downtown, an area commonly referred to as South Central Los Angeles; anchored by Central Avenue, a corridor that runs south from downtown to Carson, it is the oldest and one of the most important streets serving the African American community in Los Angeles. The contiguous Black community which spread westward from Central Avenue to La Brea and Crenshaw along Jefferson, Slauson, Imperial, Manchester, Adams and other East-West arteries must be understood as distinct from the isolated established Black settlement sub-regions such as Pacoima, Pasadena/Altadena, Pomona, Duarte/Monrovia and the other areas such as West Covina, Gardena and Paramount which have been more recently opened to unconfined Black residential influx. These two distinct types of Black settlement areas— the geographically contiguous Black residential area south and west of downtown, and all other places where Blacks live in the county— will be discussed separately. 131 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. First however, the regional transformation of the expansive South Central Los Angeles Black community will be analyzed critically across both time and geography for the period 1940-1990. Then, after the history of the core Black community is detailed, the newer spatially isolated suburban Black communities will be discussed. Understanding the Core: Time/Space Clusters in Los Angeles Ghetto, 1940* 1990 In order to better understand Black residential patterns in Los Angeles County, the best starting place is in the area South of the CBD. This core settlement area stretches for about 15 miles encompassing most of the area between the south and west axis away from the CBD. Black population trends in this area for the five decades under study were analyzed through the use of a two stage process that used hierarchical and then a K-means cluster analysis in conjunction with geographic information systems software, to track the temporal trends for the Black population over time. A subset of contiguous tracts in south Los Angeles County that, at any time between 1940-1990 had a Black population greater than 35% percent African American was calculated (a threshold which identified the spatially contiguous area in south Los Angeles shown in Figure 14 below). These percentages were then subjected to the hierarchical algorithm to determine the naturally occurring clusters by identifying relatively homogeneous groups of cases (variables) based on percent Black over time. The hierarchical clustering algorithm starts with each case (or variable) in a separate cluster and 132 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. combined clusters until only one is left. Hierarchical clustering revealed that for Black population percent, the number of “naturally occurring” clusters in percent Black over time was six. After determining the number of naturally occurring clusters, the K-means algorithm was run with six clusters. K-means clustering uses a different algorithm that can handle the large numbers of census tracts in this study, but requires a pre-set number of clusters. Figures 13 and 14 show the results of the clustering procedure. Figure 13 shows the cluster midpoints for percent Black over time and Figure 14 show the location of the tracts that cluster around that midpoint. These population clusters - ♦ — Cluster 1 -B -duster 2 — A— Ouster 3 — X— Ouster 4 — * — Ouster 5 -©— Ouster 6 Figure 13 : Results of Clustering Procedure 133 will be discussed in chronological order by settlement history. K M in C tu a ttr M M p c t n a , P w c a n t B a c k . 1940-1990 100 M * S c a 1950 1960 1970 I960 1990 Y a a r a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 14 : Space Time Clusters in South Los Angeles, 1940*1990 134 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pre World W ar II (Cluster 1): The Early Core of Black Settlement in Los Angeles Cluster 1 (Figures 13, 14), at the upper core of Central Avenue, identifies the city’s original Black community area. This was an extension of the early downtown Black community which were first established in the nineteenth century by Black pioneers such as Biddy Mason. Robert Owens and others who purchased land near downtown and then rented and/or sold to incoming African Americans from the South. Some time in the early 1900s a minister had the idea of developing an African American cultural center in Los Angeles and leased seven acres of land just outside of downtown (Bond 1936. 69). It was here in the early parts of the twentieth century, that African Americans became established in Los Angeles. This early center served as the gateway for early migration from the South. As the Black population increased in this area, the community expanded out Central Avenue and by 1940. the process of self-stratification within the Black community was well underway. Those families who were economically capable began moving further out along Central Avenue or over to the West Jefferson area (Sandoval 1974, 65). This cluster had dropped from 78% to 18% in percent Black by 1970. This was due both to Black out-movement and the in-movement of Hispanics, who now dominate the eastern portions of Los Angeles’s traditional Black ghetto. Cluster 2: The Period of Three Distinct Communities Cluster 2 (Figures 13, 14) represents the three main settlement areas that became increasingly important during the 1930’s and 1940’s. These three areas (South Central Avenue, Watts, and West Jefferson) became the three main 135 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. residence areas for African Americans in the city. African Americans were isolated primarily in these three places and in a few rural and suburban Black communities until the 1950’s when a mix of federal legislation and market forces opened new housing areas on the Westside of the city. Each of these three community areas had a distinct identity, with West Jefferson having a more middle and upper class status. During the 1940s the Black population of Los Angeles County expanded rapidly. President Truman, in 1942, signed Executive Order (E.O.) 8802, which barred discrimination in industries receiving federal contracts. Industries which previously had generally ascribed to a “no Negroes unless absolutely necessary” policy, were suddenly forced to hire Black employees. Previously, when companies did hire Black workers, they would do so only for the most menial tasks and usually only short-term assignments. Under EO 8802 however, higher skill, higher paid occupations were opened up. This Federal legislation barring discrimination allowed skilled African Americans to obtain work according to their skill level. Black males, especially those that had recently migrated from the South, had gained industrial job skills in the towns and cities of the South (Smith 1978, 50). When these relatively high paid positions opened up in Los Angeles the pull factors were very strong. Also, the poor social conditions and hostile relations with Whites in the South acted as a strong push factor. These pre-conditions led to a large-scale exodus from the western Deep South states of Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. Many people from all over the rest of the South also came into California, many settling in Los Angeles. 136 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, despite the massive influx of human beings into the city, the borders of the Black community remained fixed. Although the population more than nearly tripled in the early years of the 1940s, the Black population was prevented from expanding much beyond the established communities, leading to very high population densities in the Black areas. Some Black residents found a home in the Little Tokyo area near downtown, where the forced removal of Japanese Americans was instantly followed by an influx of Blacks from the space starved Central Avenue community (Sandoval 1974, 26). The boundary of Black residence was held firm by municipal and state judicial action, which was enforced by the police. Black property owners were subject to arrest and imprisonment if they violated the restrictive deed covenants that were in place on most properties in “White man’s Los Angeles” (Sandoval 1974, 36; Thomas and Ritzdorf 1997, 180; Collins 1980, 27). During the 1940s, relations were hostile between Blacks and Whites in parts of Los Angeles, especially in areas where the Black communities bordered working class White areas. Along with the police, White gangs of hooligans committed acts of unprovoked violence on Black in-migrants. Random violence was often visited on unsuspecting African Americans who were caught traveling to and from jobs in White areas (Collins 1980, 30; Thomas and Ritzdorf 1997. 176). This active, municipal government sanctioned territorial restriction was severely damaging to the social climate in Los Angeles’s African American community. This restrictive situation changed after the 1948 Shelley vs. Kraemer 137 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. decision in the Supreme Court. This historic ruling from the High Court prevented local municipal authorities from acting to enforce the restrictive deed covenants, thus the police could no longer act to “protect the White areas.” Cluster 3: The Westside Opens Up in the 1950s The parts of the city that opened up to Black settlement immediately after the Shelley decision are represented in Cluster 3 (Figures 13, 14). Due to continued migration from the South, the Black population of Los Angeles County more than doubled between 1950 and 1960. Virtually all of the territorial growth took place in the areas represented by map Cluster 3. The midpoint of the tracts in this cluster rose from under 15% Black in 1950 to almost 70% Black in I960. The expansion during this period was mainly to the south and west of downtown, along the already established growth corridors of Central Avenue to the south, and Jefferson Boulevard and Slauson Avenue to the west. The areas near Watts that were to the west of Central Avenue, and also further down Central Avenue in the Compton area transitioned to predominantly Black during the 1950-1960 period. In addition to continued in-migration from the South and other parts of the country, there was large scale intra-city migration occurring in Los Angeles during the 1950’s. White Los Angelenos fled the communities near the Black belt. Consequently, African Americans sought out of the crowded, socially disorganized Central Avenue neighborhood and the equally crowded Watts area and began to take up residence in vacancies left by the fleeing Whites in the neighboring communities to the West of the established Black areas of Central 138 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Avenue and Watts. As people left the Eastside, the existing Black communities on the Westside—West Jefferson and West Adams—expanded with the influx of thousands of Black residents. All the while, this area was losing White population by the tens of thousands, a phenomenon documented by Sandoval (1974, 65). The constraints on Black housing availability and the massive in- migration of the 1940’s had brought about a situation in which the traditional centers of African American residence in Los Angeles were literally bursting at the edges. Given the unfair labor practices and general discrimination that Black Los Angelenos experienced, the events of the 1950’s serve as a testimony to their adaptability and strength of character. In spite of the injustices they experienced, they still were able to expand into better housing stock, although rents and mortgages were higher than the previous White tenants had paid (Sandoval 1974. 65). Cluster 4: The 1960s. Westward Ho! Cluster 4 (Figures 13,14) represents tracts that transitioned from White to Black during the 1960s. As shown in Table 2, African American migration to Los Angeles continued during the 1960s, and the Black population of Los Angeles County continued to swell, nearly doubling again during the 1960s. The areas that fall in this cluster represent the precursor of the new core of the African American ghetto of the 1990s. The tracts in this cluster includes the Crenshaw/Baldwin Hills districts that are today overwhelmingly Black. The cluster center for the tracts mentioned transitioned from less than 10% Black in 1960 to more than 60% Black by 1970 and up to 79% Black by 1980. 139 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The 1960s were pivotal years for African Americans in Los Angeles. With more federal legislation being passed in favor of equal status for African Americans, the push of the Black community westward into “integrated areas” continued. However, once African Americans were successful in moving into an area, any “integration” that occurred was short lived. An example of the rapid nature of transition from White to Black that occurred in the 1960s can be found in the area that has been designated as the Howard community (Figure 15). As shown in the map, the area bounded by Vermont and Western (Manchester and El Segundo), was nearly 100% White in I960, but had transitioned to approximately 80% Black by 1970. The racial transitions that took place during the sixties in West Los Angeles were accompanied by political and social conflict between various segments of the Black and White communities. Cluster 5: More Recent Areas of Black In-movement The tracts falling in Cluster 3 (Figure 13) represent areas that are part of the most recent movements of African Americans into the areas of Fox Hills, Culver City, Ladera Heights and to a lesser extent Carson and Hawthorne, all of which underwent a racial transition in the 1980s. Also represented in this cluster are areas to the south and east of the Watts-Compton community that experienced the in-movement of middle and upper class African Americans during the 1970s and 1980s. Communities receiving Black in-migration in the southeastern portion of Cluster 5 are Lynwood, East Compton, Paramount and sections of Northwest Long Beach. The increases in Black population in these areas, and the nature of racial turnover in these post 1980 emergent Black communities is radically 140 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. different from what took place in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Because the migration of Blacks from the Southern states into Los Angeles tapered off in the 1970s, the numbers of African American people seeking housing has diminished (Allen and Turner 1996, 12). Also, due to federal legislation, more housing has opened up to African Americans in other parts of the metropolis. A final reason why racial transition no longer occurs in the dramatic fashion of earlier years is the increasing presence of Latino immigrants. Latinos are a group that figures into the ethnic character of almost all areas that Black Los Angelenos live in. The only exceptions are the most elite Black communities of the Westside. where the high rate of home ownership and high cost of living has slowed the influx of large numbers of Latinos. Cluster 6: Peripheral Settlement Areas Finally, Cluster 6 mainly consists of scattered peripheral areas that were only recently and briefly inhabited by African Americans. Included in this cluster are the Skid Row communities near downtown. The trends toward privatization of the social services industry during the Reagan Bush era (1980s) sparked an influx of homeless Black family members relocating to this area to take advantage of the shelters and social services available (Dear and Wolch, 1994). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. j n i s ; ; | l » 'i a . a . n I §" J i n 0 o > 1 15738033 R9SS •• & $ « ■ 3 0 3 flV 1 x s . AY 1N «T W 3A S e e 0 s « 1 Figure 15: Racial Transition, Howard Community, 1960-1970 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 . 2 0 0 . 2 6 4 0 . 0 0 0 1 1 . 2 1 . 4 1 .0 M IIm Regional and County-wide Trends and Changes Since the 1930s, spatial concentration within Los Angeles County has been a persistent feature of African American residence in the metropolitan region. Los Angeles County is part of a five-county consolidated metropolitan area (CMS A, 1990) that includes Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura Counties. The overall population of the Los Angeles CMSA grew substantially in the second half of the twentieth century. After 1960, much of this overall growth took place in the counties adjacent to Los Angeles County, especially Orange County (Table 1). Despite this trend of White dispersion into suburban counties, African Americans have tended to remain more concentrated in Los Angeles County than the overall population. These data demonstrate that, up until 1990, African Americans in the Los Angeles area have not been full participants in the trend towards redistribution of the total population. In 1960, 78% of the region’s total population and 92% of its Black population resided in Los Angeles County. By 1990 the proportion of the total regional population living in Los Angeles County had dropped from 78% to 61%, indicating a geographic redistribution over time of 17% of the regions total population into the suburban counties. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 1: Regional Distribution of the Black Population 1960 and 1990 Countv Ventura 1960 1990 Orange 1960 1990 Riverside I960 1990 San Bernardino 1960 1990 Los Angeles 1960 1990 Region Total 1960 1990 Black Population 3,584 15,629 3,519 42,681 12,554 63,591 17,122 114,934 458,947 992,974 495,726 1,229,809 Share .7% 1.3% .7% 3% 2.6% 5% 3.5% 9% 92.5% 81% 100% 100% Total Population 199,138 669,016 703,925 2,410,556 306,191 1,170,413 503,591 1.418,380 6.038,771 8,863,167 7.751,616 14,531,529 Share 3% 5% 9% 16% 4% 8% 6% 10% 78% 61% 100% 100% Source: I960 Census; 1990 Census: US Bureau o f the Census This redistribution came from new in-migrants settling in suburban counties and also from migration out of Los Angeles County. The proportion of the region’s Black population living outside of Los Angeles County grew at a slower rate. The drop in percent of the region’s Blacks dropped only 12 percentage points from 93 to 8 1. Los Angeles area African Americans faced barriers in trying to participate in the regional suburban exodus. The distant 144 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. suburbs of San Bernardino and Riverside counties are where the major gains in numbers of African Americans took place over this period, experiencing gains of 97,812 and 51,037 points respectively. The borders of these two counties are far from the Los Angeles city-limits, but they are areas of decent, more affordable housing (Roseman and Lee, 1998). However, the affordability of rental housing in far-flung areas, especially in the Inland Empire (although geographically distant from the core ghetto of South Central), does not necessarily facilitate isolation from poor Blacks. In contrast, the closer, higher status suburban Orange County has been more resistant to African American in-movement. Between I960 and 1990, Orange County, gained only about forty thousand Black residents compared to a gain of over 1.7 million total new residents during that same period. Orange County is the closest county geographically, to the massive Black ghetto of south Los Angeles, yet it remained relatively un-penetrated by Blacks. This fact makes one wonder about the social and economic barriers that had, up until 1990, prevented the in-movement of large numbers of Blacks into Orange County. Given that the overwhelming majority of the region's African Americans continue to reside in Los Angeles County, the logical question to ask is whether the Black population has been redistributed within Los Angeles County over time. To what extent have Los Angeles County African Americans had geographic mobility of residence within the county boundaries? Table 2 shows the growth of the county's Black population over the period 1940-1990. Black population in the 145 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. county has increased during each interval of the study period, but the growth slowed appreciably after 1970. The growth rate of Los Angeles’s Black community slowed after 1970 for a variety of reasons. In particular, economic factors such as de-industrialization, as well as social factors such as the improvement of race relations in the Southern States led to a sharp decline and eventually a reverse flow of African Americans back to the Southern states (Christian 1995,479). Table 2: Growth of Black Population, Los Angeles County 1940*1990 Year Total Population Black Population Percent Black Percent Growth 1940 2,790,359 70,781 3% — 1950 4,281.997 222.534 5% 214% I960 6,038,771 458,947 8% 106% 1970 7,044,641 759,091 11% 65% 1980 7,506.690 927.823 12% 22% 1990 8,863.164 992,674 11% 7% Although there has been a decrease in the proportion of the county’s African Americans living in this more or less contiguous settlement region of inner Los Angeles County, this decline has been gradual rather than sharp. The majority of Los Angeles’s Black community has remained in the areas to the south, west and east of the downtown. In 1990, within Los Angeles County, 80% of the African American population lived in communities that were at least 10% Black. This was roughly the same proportion that lived in such communities in 1940. After Blacks coalesced in the 1950s, areas that were more then 10% Black 146 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. have remained relatively spatially contiguous throughout the later half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, the number of Blacks that live outside the 10% (or greater) Black community has remained relatively constant over the period as well, hovering between 1 1 and 20%. The degree of spatial concentration within one of a few geographic locations in the county is evident, regardless of how the issue is approached. In 1990, in Los Angeles County, 96% of the counties total population lived in 1 of 96 incorporated cities and/or census designated places (CDPs). As shown in Table 3, in 1990, only the following 18 incorporated cities/CDPs had more than ten percent African American population. When combined, these 18 places housed 87% of the 1990 Los Angeles County Black population, yet they were home to only 58% of the total population of the county, 52% of the non-Hispanic White population, 58% of the Hispanic population and 52% of Asian population in Los Angeles County. The continued spatial concentration of the Black population in Los Angeles County in the 1990s is even more evident when on considers that within the larger cities such as Los Angeles, Long Beach and Pasadena, African Americans are clustered in particular portions of the city. In contrast to the Black population trends. cities/CDPs that were at least 10% Hispanic were also home to 97% of the total population, 99% of the Black population, 95% of the White, and 97% of the Asian population. 147 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 3: Places where Black Population Exceed 10%, Los Angeles County, 1990 City/CDP Population 1990 Black 1990 Percent Black 1990 Los Angeles 3,485,398 487,674 13.99 Long Beach 429,433 58,761 13.68 Inglewood 109,602 56,861 51.88 Compton 90,454 49,598 54.83 Pasadena 131,591 24,952 18.96 Westmont 31,044 22,417 72.21 Carson 83,995 21,953 26.14 Hawthorne 71,349 20,212 28.33 Pomona 131,723 19,013 14.43 Willowbrook 32,772 18,096 55.22 Altadena 42,658 16,551 38.80 Lynwood 61,945 14,652 23.65 Florence-Graham 57,147 13,722 24.01 Gardena 49,847 11.713 23.50 View Park- Windsor Hills 11,769 10.325 87.73 Paramount 47.669 5,098 10.69 Culver City 38,793 4,026 10.38 Monrovia 35,761 3,626 10.14 All Los Angeles Counties 8,863,164 992,974 11.20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Spatial concentration is further illustrated by using the geographical information system to examine African Americans relationship to land area at the census tract level. There were 1652 census tracts in Los Angeles County in 1990. Of these, 391 of them had a Black population 10% or greater. Those 391 census tracts were home to 81% of Los Angeles Black population in 1990. These same 391 tracts were home to just 24% of the total population, 12% of the White population, 25% of the Hispanic population and 18% of the Asian/Pacific Island population. When the rural tracts that contain more than 10% Black population (mostly associated with military bases and correctional institutions) are removed, 387 tracts remain with a Black population of over 10%. These 387 tracts account for only 5.3% of the land area in Los Angeles County. Thus more than 80% of the nearly 1 million African Americans living in Los Angeles County lived on 5.2% of the land area. This geographic characteristic becomes even more meaningful when data is considered in relation to other groups. Table 4 shows the correlation matrix for population density by ethnic group for the 1990 census tracts in Los Angeles County. Notice the correlation of each ethnic group’s population density to total population density for the tracts in Los Angeles County. Although all ethnic groups show a positive correlation with overall population density, the Black population density to total population density correlation of 0.361 was by far the weakest. Hispanics appear to be most positively correlated with total population density with a 0.833 correlation. 149 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 4: Correlation Matrix of Population Densities in Los Angeles County, 1990 Total Density Black White Asian Hispanic Total I Black 0.361 I White 0.677 -0.168 1 Asian 0.575 0.028 0.329 1 Hispanic 0.833 0.170 0.409 0.358 1 Source: United States Census of Population and Housing 1990 White and Asian population densities also show rather strong positive correlation with total population density. The African American population of Los Angeles County shows the weakest correlation with the population densities of the other ethnic groups as well. Black to White pop density showed a negative correlation of -0.1685, the only negative correlation between any two ethnic group’s population densities. With a correlation of 0.0287 for Black to Asian, and 0.1700 for Black to Latino, Black population densities have little or no correlation with the latter two groups mentioned. The above statistical evidence suggests that, relative to other ethnic groups, African Americans remained geographically isolated from other groups in Los Angeles in 1990. This isolation was diminished from the tight ghettoization of earlier periods, however when compared to other groups, it remains remarkable. Geographic Polarization by Class Status in the Black Community? Via further utilization of geographical information systems software, it is possible to obtain a clearer understanding of whether or not African Americans of a higher status have been increasingly spatially isolating themselves from lower 150 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. status Blacks in Los Angeles county. As discussed extensively in earlier chapters, arguments concerning this process are critical to contemporary debates on race, class and gender in American metropolitan areas. The first question, which the GIS database is helpful in answering, is whether or not African Americans have been successful in moving into areas of higher class status in Los Angeles County, and if so, how many and how far into these areas have they penetrated? In order to begin addressing this question, for each of the six time slices, the standard deviations for all households and all tracts in Los Angeles County were calculated for each of two measures of social status and income from the census (median home value, median rents paid). All census tracts in Los Angeles County were divided into one of three categories based on home value and rent paid (Table 5). The three categories are: 1. Low status areas— those tracts falling greater than Vi standard deviation below the mean. 2. Middle status areas— those tracts that were within Vi standard deviation above or below the mean. 3. Upper status areas— those tracts falling greater than Vz standard deviation above the mean. With respect to housing value, up until the I940’s it would seem that many of the county’s Blacks lived in a middle class area. With respect to median home value, a full 77% of the Black population lived in middle status areas, and another 7 percent lived in high status areas. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 5: Total Black Population in Each Status Area, Los Angeles County, 1940-1990 Low Status Areas Middle Status Areas High Status Areas Below -.5 STD Within 1 STD Above +.5 STD Year 1940 Population % Population 9 c Populati on 9 c Rent 9,665 13 9 c 58,948 79 9 c 5,552 8 9 c Home value 2,035 16 9 c 57,121 779c 5,009 79c 1950 Rent 8,123 49c 200,525 90 9 c 13,952 69c Home value 43,110 19 9 c 166,048 75 9 c 13,442 69c 1960 Rent 33,469 79c 373,500 81% 52,613 12% Home value 265,238 589 c 176.996 38% 17,348 4% 1970 Rent 577,553 769c 151,052 20% 29.341 4% Home value 656,219 869 c 81.921 11% 19,806 3% 1980 Rent 666.498 729c 201,272 22% 58.005 6% Home value 691.544 759c 175,426 19% 58,805 6% 1990 Rent 563,964 619 c 295,839 32% 69,985 79c Home value 647,408 709c 214,509 23% 67,871 79 c 152 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the 1940s, many of the small percentage of African Americans living in the high status areas were domestics, living on employers’ property in Beverly Hills, Westwood and other exclusive Westside communities. Prior to World War II, it was still common for Black domestic workers, mostly women, to live on the property of wealthy Whites. The years between 1940 and 1950 were a period of major transition for Los Angeles’s Black community. This rapid influx of Southerners forever changed the character of Black residence in Los Angeles. Between 1950 and 1970, the Black population in Los Angeles County declined from 84% of its population living in middle status areas or up (at least with respect to home values and rents paid), to an almost opposite situation. By 1970 then, approximately 80% of the Black population lived in housing areas that fell into the low status category with respect to median home values. Notice how the number of African Americans living in higher than average home value areas in Los Angeles dropped during the 1950s, while the percent living in areas of higher rental prices continued to be high. The fact that rental prices lagged a decade behind home value in their decline fits well within what we already know about the White-Black transition process in Los Angeles. Los Angeles based real estate agents, in their quest to make money, were instrumental in determining the direction and flow of Black home seekers. Westside Los Angeles real estate agents followed the national pattern, and agents capitalized on the overcrowdedness of the Black ghetto by charging high prices to 153 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Black buyers and renters (Sandoval, 1974, 67), a process observed by Weaver (1948) in Chicago: In those areas of middle class occupancy which lay on the path of the geographic expansion of the Black belt there were vacancies. Few of these found ready buyers and prices and rents were beginning to drop. Smart landlords and articulate real estate agents began to look for new and higher paying tenants or purchasers. They were met more than half way by the Negro home seeker who wanted something better in the way of shelter (Weaver 1948, 37). These processes of racial transition that have formed and maintained ghettos nationwide, also explain the temporal delay in the dropping of the percent of African Americans living middle and upper price range rentals shown in Table 4. Once a house was sold to Blacks, there was no longer a reason for its value to stay artificially high. However, as long as the transition process was still underway, real estate owners could continue to charge high rents to Black tenants. Tellingly, once the process of transition ran its course in the 1960s. rents paid in areas predominated by African Americans also dropped to levels comparable to median home values. Now, consider the locations of the Black population superimposed upon the status area categories for visualization purposes. Figures 16-21, which are based on the data shown in Table 5, reflect the spatial characteristic of the downward class transition with respect to median home value that the Los Angeles County African American population experienced over the 50 years of this study. In 1940 only a small portion, at the extreme eastern edge of the S. Central Avenue community (between Washington Boulevard and Vernon Avenue 154 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. from Compton Avenue to Alameda Street) were sufficiently below the mean home value to fall into the low status group. Outside of the Central Avenue community, Watts, in 1940, was emerging as a second low status area for Blacks. To the west, the West Jefferson community was well established as a solidly middle class Black community area, which was adjacent to a higher status White area. The 1950 maps show a very similar pattern to the 1940 series—the main difference being the massive increase in the numbers of African Americans residents of Los Angeles County. Over the decade, Los Angeles County’s Black population increased nearly three times. Problematically however, restrictive covenants had constrained the population to only a small increase in the available land that was open to Blacks. This shows up on the map as a “bulging” around the edges. The overflow movement into the vacated properties of Little Tokyo after the forced removal of Japanese Americans and a newly emerging middle status Black area in Pasadena, are the only other noticeable Black concentrations. During the 1950s, it is apparent that important changes took place in the geographic and class structure of the Black community of Los Angeles. It was in this decade that, with respect to the perceived values of the homes in the communities they lived in, Black Los Angelenos began to fall seriously behind Whites. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. o m o O » « O *5 Figure 16: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1940 156 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 17 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1950 157 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1960 158 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 19 : Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1970 159 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 20: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1980 160 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. * • • "k,» • • •p • o < A 2 t». o « ra « 5 u « a tm « a ^ ® i. »- * §2 go O N Figure 21: Black Population and Relative Home Value, 1990 161 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Virtually the entire Eastside Black community dropped into the low status category with respect to home value during this decade. By 1960 only the extreme southern portion of the Eastside Black community retained a middle class standing. This was happening at the same time that large scale out-movement to newly constructed suburban “White zones” in Orange County and San Fernando Valley were the preferred options for many White families. As the line of racial transition moved further and further west, there were important associated changes in the socio-spatial character of that area. With the opening up of previously restricted neighborhoods, many Blacks were successful in moving into the communities surrounding the traditional Westside Black centers of West Jefferson/Exposition and West Adams. However, the social character of the blocks in Black communities on the Westside in 1960 tended to be middle class or above. By 1960, on the Westside of Los Angeles’ Black community, there were signs of the chronic inability of upper and middle class Blacks to fully isolate themselves from the social world of lower status Blacks. After the period of rapid racial transition in the Westside Black communities of Los Angeles, people were soon confronted with the same social class mixing identified as problematic in the Black community in 1896 by DuBois, and later addressed by Frazier and others. Throughout the 1960s increasingly larger proportions of the African American population fell into the lower housing value status relative to the countywide norms. 162 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As demonstrated in Figure 18, by the 1960s, the majority of the areas within Los Angeles County that were occupied by African Americans deviated sharply from the regional norm for housing price. The reasons for these ongoing changes in the geographic location and the effect of the dramatic slide in the relative median home values of Black Los Angeles during 1960s cannot be ascertained from census data alone. The 1965 Watts uprising, the debate surrounding Proposition 14 (an attempt to re-institute discrimination in housing) and other important events of the 1960s will be discussed in the next chapter. These events would set the tone for future development of Los Angeles’ Black community. The relative worth of homes owned by Los Angeles’s African American community continued to decline through the 1970s and 80s. Vast stretches of the once exclusive “Westside” acquired the same ghetto-like conditions that had existed on the Eastside for several decades. Over time, Latinos began to move into the Eastside communities, Filling the void left behind by the many people who, in participating in a massive intra-city migration to the Westside, also unwillingly and unknowingly contributed to a situation of re-ghettoization of the Black populace on the Westside. Increasingly over time, the Westside Black community has come to resemble a typical Black urban residential area, which contains a mix of many class segments of the populace. During the 1970s as the Westside became increasingly resegregated, heterogeneous with respect to class, and ghetto-like, 163 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. many of the more economically capable African Americans started to leave this area as well, sometimes moving far into the suburbs, but often moving further south and west towards the South Bay, into communities such as Inglewood, Carson and Hawthorne, or South and East into areas beyond Compton, such as Lynwood. Consistent with the theories and observations of the early Black sociologists, the out-movements of Los Angeles Blacks have tended to be shortly followed by a re-segregation with the area quickly falling victim to the undesirable social conditions that are associated with Black urban communities nationwide (poor schools, poor policing, etc.). Only in the isolated hilltops of Baldwin Hills, where the upper middle and upper classes of Los Angeles’s Black community reside, has the Black community been able to maintain a measure of selective class isolation. This isolation however, is not based on geographic distance, but instead on income, topography and social relationships. The truth of the Westside Black middle and upper classes is that when they travel east out of the isolated hilltop community they call home, they drive right into the core of the newest Black ghetto area, the Crenshaw district. Although a cultural center for Los Angeles African Americans, and the recipient of benevolent development from it’s insiders such the late Mayor Bradley and basketball great, Magic Johnson, the Crenshaw district, like Black ghetto districts everywhere, tends to lose out with respect to the overall development of the region. Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park stand out as stable 164 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. bastions in a surrounding, socially disorganized ghetto area, which is rapidly transitioning into a Barrio. Aubry (1998) remarked about the situation in a LA Weekly: And so the Crenshaw District stands divided, with the modernized Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza serving as a kind of Berlin Wall where the two populations (upper and lower class Blacks) occasionally intersect in a food court or a shoe store, but later retreat to their respective north south camps. These journalistic observances are not entirely accurate. With the exception of the wealthiest families of the hilltops, it is likely that there is considerably more inter- class mixing than Aubry admits to. Especially between the youths of the different class segments of the Black community in the Crenshaw District, as well as in other parts of the Westside and also on the Eastside. Rich Black/Poor Black: Race and Class Relations in 20lh Century Los Angeles Spatial analysis techniques allow the hypothesis of increasing spatial isolation of upper status Blacks to be tested more directly than has previously been done. The following section will use the statistical categories above (low, middle and upper status residential areas) to compare how African American inter-class distances in Los Angeles County have changed over the study period. GIS was used to calculate the distance between the centroid of each high status tract containing Black residents and the centroid of the nearest low status Black tract. Low status Black tracts were identified by selecting tracts that have above the mean Black population and below the mean in median home and/or median rent paid. When the tracts that had above average Black population but less than 165 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. average home value are mapped out, they clearly identify areas where large numbers of poorer African Americans are likely to live. All high status tracts that contained African Americans were then classified into five increment ranges based on their distance from the nearest low status Black tract for each decade, for both median home value and median rents paid. Although African Americans have been successful in moving into higher- class status areas, their number remained small in 1990. Most of the class separation occurred in communities bordering the existing ghetto. An interesting observation is that the decade of the 1970s seems to be one where Black class separation was highest. Although not discemable from the census data, it seems that something happened during the 1980s to close the geographic gap that was developing between tracts where Blacks of different class levels resided. Possibly, new processes of White flight began, leading to the influx of a more mixed class of African Americans residing into the suburban Black enclaves. If this were true, it would indicate that a process similar to that described by early Black scholars was re-occurring in suburban Los Angeles County. It is useful to consider the general population characteristics of the high status tracts in relation to their distance from lower status areas with above average Black population. As shown in Table 6 below, the distance ranges used are: less than five miles from a low status Black tract; between 5 and 10 miles from a low status Black tract: between 10 and 15 miles from a low status Black tract; and tracts that were fifteen or more miles from the low status Black tracts (all as proxied by median home value). 166 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 6: Statistics of African Americans Living in High Home Value Census Tracts <5 mi. 5-10 mi. 10*15 mi. 15+ mi. 1940 4,975 (99%) 34(1%) 0 0 1950 13,191 (98%) 247 (7%) 0 0 1960 17,153 (99%) 165 (.09%) 30 (.02%) 0 1970 14,515(73%) 5,199 (26%) 42 (.002%) 17 (.0003%) 1980 53,706(91%) 3,730 (6%) 892 (2%) 452(1% ) 1990 78,643 (93%) 3,971 (5%) 587 (.7%) 816(1.3%) In the table above, these figures are classified by the distance from the nearest low home value tract with above average African American population in Los Angeles County. These calculations exclude desert areas and islands. Notice how after the 1968 Fair Housing Act was passed, there seems to have been a large increase in Black out-migration to areas of higher status that were more distant from lower class tracts with above average Black population. However, as the boundaries of the inner suburbs expanded with Black population, the class separation they enjoyed from less fortunate Blacks was eroded during the 1970s and 1980s. The following section will break down each of these categories and discuss the places that lie within each of the distance ranges (Figure 22). More than Fifteen Miles Awav In 1990, the census tracts that exhibited the greatest spatial isolation from the tracts that had above-average African American population and were more than Vi standard deviation below the mean for median home value were all located 167 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in the extreme western portion of Los Angeles County. Specifically, Black folk in Malibu and Agoura Hills enjoyed the largest degree of isolation from low income Blacks. As shown in Table 5 however, these areas combined totaled only 1.3% of the Black population of the county that lived in high status tracts. Almost double (2.5%) that of the White population lived in high status areas that were 15 or more miles from the nearest low status Black area. Ten to Fifteen Miles Away Ten to fifteen miles is also a good amount of geographic separation from areas likely to have low income Blacks. The communities of Woodland Hills, Canoga Park and Topanga, as well as the eastern portion of Malibu, all enjoyed a 10-15 mile distance buffer from the low status Black areas in 1990, but again, the number of Black folk living in these areas was small. Only .7% of the high status Black population lived 10-15 miles from the low status Black areas. For the comparable White population, the figure was 2.8%— four times the number for Blacks. Five to Ten Miles Awav Upper status areas that were a 5-10 mile distance from the nearest low status tract, was home to about 5% of the total high status Black population. For the corresponding White population the figure was 16.6%. At 5-10 miles, folks in these types of areas still have a healthy separation from the fringes of “the hood.” 168 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LAP IT A TUJUNGA ACOIMA V entura C ounty ___! C A H A C A =L N 'P 'O G E V A N N U Y S I £ V C A .£ ALTAOENA MONROVIA ' PA SA O EN A DUART C L A R E M O N 1 ^A G O U R A HILLS TO “ BEVERLY H Jfc PAC F C S*U 5 A C € s \ S A N 0 1 MALIBU QSAU LA PUENTE ~ San Bemar / e n e c Pacific Ocean .W H r m E R EL S E G U N D Q k ^ ^ ja ^ g / COM PT MANHATTAN BEACHv -tE P v O S A S E * C PA W A V C \*fT f I ^ l a k e w o ^ o ; REOCNDO BEACH ']] T C R R A f« O ran g e C ounty i > .e r o e \ p e n . n s l l ^ / ^ ’ Figure 22: Places in Los Angeles County, 1995 Unlike folks living at greater distances from low status, above average Black population areas, communities in the 5-10 mile range were not limited to the western portion of the county. Those that were in the west of Los Angeles County included Pacific Palisades, the eastern sections of Woodland Hills, Santa Clarita, Chatsworth, and Northridge. In the eastern San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale fell into this category. In the Eastern San Gabriel Valley, Whittier, La Puente and Glendora all enjoyed 5-10 miles separation from low status Black areas. Finally the coastal cities of the Palos Verdes peninsula and nearby Redondo Beach were in the 5-10 distance category. 169 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Less than Five Miles Away Now focusing on the areas in the closest category, regions 0-5 miles from the nearest low status Black tract were home to 93% of the high status area Black population, but only 78% of the high status area White population. This indicates that the Black population living in high status areas was more concentrated in communities near low status Black areas. This clustering trend is more evident when this category is presented in I-mile increments (Table 7). Race 0-1 mi. 1-2 mi. 2-3 mi. 3-4 mi. 4-5 mi. Black 57% 20% 14% 7% 2% While 19% 31% 26% 16% 8% Whites living in the high status areas in the 0-5 range from the nearest low status Black tract, were concentrated in more distant communities than were Blacks living in the same class category areas. While 50% of the White population in these areas were found in neighborhoods more than two miles away from the nearest low status area, only 20% of the Black population living in well off tracts was found more than 2 miles away from the nearest low status area. Places within one mile of a low status Black area were home to 57% of the Black population, but only 19% of the comparable White population. Four to Five Miles Awav High status home value areas that were between 4-5 miles way from the nearest low status census tract with above mean African American population were found in the eastern portions of Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills, Northridge 170 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. area, and the San Fernando/Van Nuys areas of the San Fernando Valley. Communities were also found in the Burbank/Glendale area, Montebello, La Puente, Redondo Beach, Torrance and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Also the wealthy enclaves within the city of Los Angeles such as Bel Air in West Los Angeles and Griffith Park/Los Feliz were 4-5 miles from the nearest neighborhood likely to have large numbers of lower status African Americans. Like the more distant areas, only a small percentage of both Blacks and Whites enjoyed this degree of geographic isolation from the nearest low status above average Black population tract. Three to Four Miles Awav Oddly, 16% of a total 78%, a large portion of high status Whites that live within 5 miles of a low status Black tract, live 3-4 miles away. For Blacks, the figure is only 7%. Again, sections of Northridge. San Fernando, Van Nuys, Glendale, Burbank, Beverly Hills, Torrance Pacific Palisades and La Puente fall into this category. The new communities that appear at this range are La Canada Flintridge, Sierra Madre (east of Pasadena), Claremont, parts of Pasadena (the eastern sections), Claremont, San Gabriel, South Pasadena, Venice, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, parts of Long Beach and West Hollywood. Within Los Angeles proper, Westwood, Brentwood, Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills were in this category. People living in these communities remain relatively isolated from areas where large numbers of poor African Americans reside. 171 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Two to Three Miles Awav In this range are sections of Beverly Hills, El Segundo, Glendale, Los Angeles Canada-Flintridge, La Puente, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Northridge, Pacific Palisades, the Palos Verdes, Peninsula, parts of Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena and Torrance, as well as Van Nuys and Venice. New high status communities found at the two-three mile range are: Arcadia, La Veme, Monrovia, North Hollywood, San Pedro, the Silver Lake area, and Sunland/Tujunga. At two-three miles distance, these communities are still places where it is possible to live fairly isolated from poor Blacks. One to Two Miles Awav Arcadia, Beverly Hills, Long Beach, North Hollywood, Pasadena. Redondo Beach, San Pedro, South Pasadena, Venice, and parts of Torrance all repeat this category. Cities such as Torrance, Pasadena, and Long Beach stretch some distance away from the poorer Black areas, and as such, have tracts in several of the distance ranges. Within Los Angeles city, the Palms and Mar Vista districts (both near the intersection of the I-10 and the 1-405), Cheviot Hills, Marina Del Rey, Westchester and Hancock Park were 1 -2 miles away. New communities outside of Los Angeles city are Altadena, Artesia, Covina and West Covina, Culver City, Duarte, Lomita, Monterrey Park, Santa Monica and San Dimas. Notice how, it is not until we reach the 1 to 2 mile level that places in Los Angeles County that are mentally associated with large numbers of middle class African Americans appear (i.e., Altadena, West Covina, Culver City and Duarte). This is consistent with Table 6, which shows that 20% 172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of the higher status Black population living less than 5 miles from a low status Black area lives between 1-2 miles away from a more ghetto like area. Less Than 1 Mile Awav Repeating at the less than 1 mile range are: Altadena, Artesia, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Long Beach, Monterey Park, North Hollywood, Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Venice, as well as the Palms, Marina Del Rey, Mar Vista and Fox Hills areas of Los Angeles city. New communities appear at the less than 1- mile threshold of geographic separation include the wealthy black enclaves of View Park/Ladera Heights/Baldwin Hills area. Walnut and Harbor City are also in this category. As illustrated in Table 6, these tracts were home to 57% of Los Angeles County Blacks who live in high status areas, but only 19% of the comparable White population. Black Poverty in Los Angeles County: A Comparative Analysis From the discussion above, it is evident that African Americans living in high status census tracts are concentrated in communities that are likely to have large numbers of poorer African Americans living nearby. It logically follows that Black class separation within census tracts in Los Angeles County should be considered. In order to accomplish this suggestion, 1990 census data on poverty status by race was brought into the GIS for analysis purposes. In order to learn more about the relationship between poor and non-poor Blacks, and how that compares to other groups, the ratio of non-poor to poor was calculated. Basically, for each group of households by ethnic group, the number of non-poor was divided by the number of poor. Then this number was averaged across all tracts 173 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for each group where poor and non-poor households co-exist. This ratio was useful because it provided more information about the coexistence of poor and non-poor in the same census tract. Table 8 shows basic descriptive statistics concerning the ratio of non-poor to poor for the tracts of each ethnic group that had both poor and non-poor co-existing in the same tract. Table 8: Ratio of Poor to Non-poor Households in Los Angeles County Asian Black Hispanic White Number of Tracts 836 680 1,250 1,526 Mean Ratio 10.47 5.96 8.12 27.36 Consistent with the trends observed above, African Americans have the least amount of segregation between the poor and non-non poor. With a mean ratio of 5.96 non-poor to poor, Los Angeles County Blacks were more likely than any other ethnic group to live in tracts where some Blacks in poverty also lived. The figures are even more evidentiary when one considers tracts where poor households out number non-poor ones. 71 tracts have non-poor to poor ratio of less than one, meaning that poor households outnumber non-poor ones. These tracts were home to 5.647 households. For Hispanics, only 17 tracts had a ratio of less than one. These tracts were home to 5,002 households. For the White population, there were 29 tracts where the poor outnumbered the non-poor, totaling 4,027 households. Asians counted 47 tracts where households in poverty exceeded those not living in poverty, but the total number of Asian households in these tracts numbered only 1,342. 174 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Despite being only a small percentage of the County’s population, African Americans consistently lead other groups in isolation and geographic concentration by social class. While the census data are not direct enough to lead to definitive conclusions, they do seem to indicate that for the overwhelming majority of the Black population, geographic clustering within one of several urban or suburban communities continued up until 1990. Within these communities it is likely that, consistent with historical patterns of metropolitan development, members of different social classes have lived in close proximity to one another. This suggests an alternative narrative to the urban underclass theory. Understanding the interaction between different class segments of the Black community requires a different methodological framework from the quantitative, census based analysis presented here. The task of the next chapter is to situate the observed patterns and changes into a framework of understanding derived from sociological and human geographic theories. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI Internal Perceptions of African American Communities When one considers the existing state of knowledge on African American urban communities, there are clearly two major perspectives from which research and understanding have been drawn. Rather unfortunately, the most widely known perspective is the perspective of mainstream America. This shall be termed the “outsider” perspective. This mainstream perspective has tended to initially view Black residence as a monolith and then later to assume that urban Blacks were either “assimilated” or “underclass” with little recognition of a middle ground between these two extremes. Although it is impossible to deny the influence of mainstream attitudes and perception on urban Blacks, it is important to distinguish the widely held outsider perspective from the internal perceptions that African Americans have held of their urban residential situation. In Los Angeles, as in other cities, most African Americans, regardless of their class position, have at some time been subjected to racial discrimination. How this discrimination is perceived however, is mediated through the individual’s local social context. One thing that sets African American class structure apart is that, due to the cruel realities of race and class in the United States, a middle class upbringing often may not facilitate future life stability in the same ways that it has for other groups. The truth is that in the Los Angeles urban African American community, as in other cities, the lines which separate upper, middle, and lower social strata have over time become blurred in ways that set Black urban class structure apart from that of other ethnic groups. 176 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. From the quantitative analysis carried out in chapter five, it has become clear that although African Americans living in Los Angeles County have definitely exhibited mobility away from their core settlement areas within the county, it is also evident this geographic dispersal does not necessarily imply increasing class separation. Suburban relocation of urban African Americans has tended not to be exclusively class based. Instead, it would appear that only a few middle and upper status African Americans in the Los Angeles area have actually achieved a large degree of geographic isolation from other social strata of the Black community. More commonly, the story of urban mobility for economically fortunate African Americans reflects a dynamic, similar to that observed in communities at the edge of the ghetto. The research carried out thus seems to indicate that in Los Angeles, up until 1990 at least, many middle and upper class African Americans have been unable to self-segregate themselves according to class position, in the manner that other groups in American society have traditionally done. Instead much of the geographic distance based on social class that many Americans achieved after World War II has been hampered by the realities of racism and discrimination and its effect on African American’s urban geography. Given this process, the goal of this chapter is to ascertain the answer to the third main research question, “How has intra-class relations within the African American community changed over the years, and how have geographical relationships been transformed along with these changing social relationships? 177 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Rather than rely strictly on the census data analysis of the previous chapter, the methodology devised to address the question here rely on data sources that will give us an idea of what the “insider” perspective was. The following data sources were chosen for the specific purpose of gaining information on what African Americans thought about their situation in Los Angeles, and in urban America in general. 1. A review of three Black newspapers The California Eagle. The Los Angeles Sentinel and The Herald Dispatch. 2. A review of relevant scholarly literature that specifically addresses intra-class relations between African Americans in Los Angeles during the period 1940-1990. The archival issues of the Eagle. Sentinel and Dispatch were accessed at Los Angeles County AC Bilbrew Library’s Black Resources Center. These three papers (Eagle 1903-1964; Dispatch 1964-Present; Sentinel 1935-Present) circulated about the African American community exclusively. The newspaper research was targeted based on selected important events and processes that shaped the development of the Los Angeles Black community. These event and processes were identified in the existing historical literature, and then the Black press was consulted to get the internal perspective on these events and processes. Internal Perspectives on Black Community Development, 1940*1990 By examining the discourse within the African American community, as it was expressed in community newspapers, it is possible to identify certain key social themes and/or individual actors who dominated during temporal periods in 178 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the evolution of the city’s Black population. These periods are discussed as “epochs” in the development of the Los Angeles Black community. Epoch 1: 1940-1960 was a period of organization and social movement in the community. Epoch 2, the 1960s was a decade when Black regional and social identity underwent a crisis, the result of which was class ambiguity, social confusion and disillusionment. Epoch 3, 1970-1990, was a period where the Los Angeles Black community experienced a lack of leadership, a continually growing problem with youth education and youth violence, and general lack of direction. In the remainder of the chapter, this information from this historical analysis is presented chronologically, organized around the above three epochs. Each epoch will be discussed with regard to some the major events and/or process that has shaped life for the Los Angeles area African American population. These themes will be considered in light of what other scholars have written about the social developmental process of the Los Angeles African American community. Setting the Temporal Backdrop: Max Bond’s The Negro in Los Angeles As demonstrated in the previous chapter, the World War II era was marked by rapid growth and change within the city’s Black community. The relatively small and diverse Black communities of 1930s Los Angeles were swallowed under the crush of enormous in-migration from the South (Sandoval 1974,47). As this in-migration continued, the social character of the Black communities of Los Angeles changed. Fortunately we have good information on what Los Angeles area African American communities were like prior to the influx from the South during the war years. Bond’s ‘The Negro in Los Angeles” 179 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (1936), a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Southern California, is a scholarly examination of Black Los Angeles in the thirties. It is helpful to consider Bond’s observations about the various neighborhood characteristics as they set the context for the social transformations of the 1940s. Bond’s comparisons of the Black communities that he researched are reproduced in Figures 23-25. It is helpful to consider Bond’s observations about the various neighborhood characteristics here, as they set the context for the social Bond’s 1934 community classification provides insight into the very questions that needs to be addressed in order to go beyond the information revealed by the census data used in the preceding chapter. The wide differences between Bond's characterization of the Central Avenue and the Holmes Avenue (Watts) communities, versus the more upscale Westside community, is quite revealing when the information is considered in light of the findings of the previous chapter. According to Bond, in 1934, the Black communities on the Westside were much more socially and economically stable than the more socially heterogeneous Central Avenue community or the largely poor Holmes Avenue Black community. In 1930s Los Angeles, those African Americans who had been able to secure professional well-paid employment had also successfully formed an isolated class homogenous territory. In the 1930s, Black residents in the Westside Los Angeles area were geographically isolated from the Central Avenue ghetto. 180 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. % 3 5 = 8 3 i u * 8 S'S • n 6 9 a < & > a & a . 5* o 6 9 ft T- *1 69 ft CM r o CM > a 0 T Q !L fT CM V O £ Holmes Avenue Temple Street West Side Central Avenue Nativity Majority of families appear to he from Alabama. Large numbers from other Southern slates. Appear to be predominately front Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Many other stales are represented. Nativity so diversified that no slate predominates. Most of the residents appear to he from Texas, Louisianu, and Oklahoma. In addition, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas ure well represented. Family Back ground Family pattern typical or rural sections of the South. Urban values leading to higher culture levels not included in pattern. Family pattern typical of rural sections of the South, primary contacts exist. Reorganization around values which have raised level of culture. In many cases training lor successful urban life has been gained from residence in other urban communities both North and South; some lived on Gust side lor a short time. Diversified culture patterns. Family Tradition Only old home-owning families seem to have any definite family tradition. Reasons given for home ownership and family unity center around traditions or morality, thrift, and desire to own property. Very definite traditions of morality, education, thrill and home ownership. Very definite traditions of morality, education, thrift and home ownership. 0 0 Reproduced with permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ip a 5 = a a ft. n ■ * o K a 3 S ’ ® & 6 9 3 <’ n > a V) 35' o u rt ? r 6 1 3 I r o v > > a < 8 ar £ Holmes Avenue Temple Street West Side Central Avenue Mobility Recently populated by rural people seeking cheap living quarters. Due to isolation not much mobility out of community. Majority of these fam ilies settled in (his area when they first came to Los Angeles. Most of them arc old sett lers. Apartment houses and cheap rent houses beginning to appear. Residents ure, in numerous instances, homeowners. Mobility occurs only among those who occupy courts and apartment houses. Fumilics in constant state of flux. Old settlers and more recent homeowners arc exceptions. Family Control Luck of family control due to absence of restraints which operated in rural districts. Family, organized around the church, acts us a means of control. Family itself a well organized unit in community. Control grows out of interna) family organization. Extreme disorgani zation of family and community resulting in lack of control. Some families, however, represent well organi zed units. Employ- mcnt Unskilled laborers. Excessive unemploy ment among breadwinners and home-makers. School provides free meals for many of the children. Many city employees. Unskilled workers. Many unemployed. Occupations diversified. Apparent freedom from widespread poverty. Breadwinners, for (he most part, unskilled. An area of contrasts. Many prosperous fam ilies, A large percent dependent upon the county. Great unemployment. 00 ! > • > Reproduced with permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ft. n o 5*0 V r * <' 5 5. 5’ o S i o JT S i Holmes Avenue Temple Sireel Wesl Side Central Avenue Type of Home Cheap rent area. Small single residences, , furnished. Medium homes, usually owned by occupants. Nicely furnished and neatly kept. The Wilshire of the Negro communities. Homes well furnished; usually owned by occupants. For (he most part, single dwellings. High rent area. Area of single dwellings, courts and apartment house. "Doubling” und over crowding occur. Problems Facing Family Unemployment. Poverty. Juvenile Delinquency. Unemployment. Poverty. Lawless element recently moved into community. Some unemployment. Internal family problems common to middle class homes. Unemployment. Poverty. Prostitution. Family disorgani/.alion. Juvenile delinquency. Desertion. a r o (ft > s * if V C £ o o u > ^ They were even further isolated from the almost rural deprivation of the Holmes Avenue area (Watts). These Black residents appear to have enjoyed an unusually high degree of class based and geographic isolation from the residents of the more class heterogeneous Central Avenue or the largely poor Watts Black communities of the Eastside. It is important to note that only the West Side community was deemed by Bond to be free of widespread poverty. Despite its class homogeneity however, even in the Westside community, unemployment was a problem. This points to the effects of discrimination even upon the most prosperous of 1930’s Black Angelenos. Another key observation made by Bond concerns the population flux and social disorganization of the Central Avenue corridor. As illustrated by the 1940 census maps in the previous chapter, in terms of population, this was the main Black community in Los Angeles at the time. As Bond describes, although there were many prosperous and well organized family units living here at the Black community’s core, there were also many poverty stricken folks. It was in the Central Avenue community that all of the social ills common to other big city ghettos could be found, including gambling and prostitution. What Bond tells us is that by 1934, Central Avenue was already a community on the decline. Even the areas where prosperous families lived faced increasingly crowded conditions, and a growing abundance of apartments, other rental units and commercial land use. 184 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In contrast, the Westside Black community of 1934 had developed into a distinct community of middle and upper class African Americans, many of whom had lived previously on the Eastside. Most were employed homeowners. The two other Black communities. Temple Street (North of Downtown) and Holmes Avenue (near Watts) were much smaller than the two above, and were mainly centered along one or two thoroughfares. The Holmes Avenue Black community merged into the sprawling Black community that developed in the Watts area after the massive African American influx to Los Angeles in the 1940s. The Temple Street Black community never really developed after the 1930s, and is no longer associated with African Americans. Epoch 1—Community Organization and Social Change, 1940-1960 Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, Black Los Angelenos were forced to crowd into the established Black zones of the city and denied opportunities in wartime employment and housing. In response to the discrimination, leadership figures within the Black community rallied around the employment issue and battled against this injustice. Los Angeles area labor leaders joined with national labor leaders to fight for the opening up of non menial employment to African Americans. A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington resulted in Executive Order 8802, which made it illegal to discriminate on government contracts during World War II. Since access to decent employment was an old problem for urban African Americans, it is logical then, that obtaining adequate housing has also always been a major issue for urban African Americans and remains so today. As 185 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. demonstrated in the previous chapter, areas in Los Angeles County where Blacks lived were initially overcrowded because of race restrictions. As Whites fled around the edges of the expanding Black community, the pressures eased some, but home and rental prices were extraordinarily high because realtors and landlords took advantage of the conditions in the overcrowded ghettos and upped the price of housing for Black tenants. Because of the intense isolation and social hostility that they experienced, urban African American communities in the early 1940s were easily mobilized around issues that were important to the community. In the 1940s, during the wake of EE 8802, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated to the Los Angeles area to work in the newly opened defense industries. Overcrowding in Los Angeles’s “Black Belts” caused the housing crisis to become the number one issue facing the Los Angeles African American community during this time. In response to this community wide crisis, prominent leadership figures emerged in the struggle to open up new housing areas for Los Angeles Blacks. Three such figures were Charlotta Bass, the editor of the California Eagle. NAACP Executive, Thomas Griffith, and attorney Loren Miller, who eventually took over as editor of the California Eagle (Thomas and Ritzdorf, 1997). Under Charlotta Bass, the California Eagle acted as the voice of the progressive elements within the Los Angeles Black community. Unlike the LA Sentinel, which tended to cover social and entertainment news more prominently than political issues, the Eagle was highly political and progressive in its politics. 186 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As White homeowners associations increasingly sought to use race restrictions to tighten the borders of the ghetto, research into the back issues of the Eagle reveals how Miller, Griffith, Bass and others launched a legal and media blitz against residential racial restrictions in Los Angeles. The lawsuits brought by the NAACP were part of a national legal strategy to secure basic civil rights for urban Blacks. In the 1930s however, local and state courts in California tended to rule in favor of those seeking to keep neighborhoods White (Sandoval 1974, 35). A landmark break came in November 1939, when California Superior Court Judge Georgia Bullock ruled that Mr. and Mrs. Sam Deedman could legally live in their house at 690 East 50th St. in Los Angeles. This decision was made despite the fact that the area had been covered by racial restrictions for thirteen years. This one favorable decision caused a renewed interest in legal efforts to open housing in Los Angeles. Another big challenge came in 1941 as White members of a West Jefferson Homeowners Association attempted to have five Black families whom had “crossed over the line into White Los Angeles” evicted from their property. At about the same time Black celebrities, who had broken into the Hollywood film industry fought to keep their homes in the nearby Sugar Hill area of the West Adams district. Recruiting the most powerful battery of legal talent available, movie stars and other Negro residents now occupying fine homes in the Hobart Street district are determined to hold them against the action of a restricted district movement set afoot last week. Among the many famous folk and leading citizens living there are Hattie 187 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. McDaniel, Ethel Waters, Sam McDaniel, Ben Carter, Noble Sisle, Lillian Randolph, Horace Clark, and others, all of whom declare that in a democratic country, everyone should have a right to live where he is able. The movement they are ignoring and intend to fight and beat is that of the so-called West Adams Improvement Association. (California Eagle March 24th, 1942). As was the case nationally, even the most elite of the Black community (including an academy award nominee), were unable to free themselves of the negative connotations which being of African descent held to many Los Angeles Whites. Although the Black celebrities of the 1940s Sugar Hill district may have been unique in their ability to hire a cadre of legal talent, the celebrities were not unique in their desire to gain better housing outside of the overcrowded “Black sectors” of Los Angeles. Another important case where African Americans fought race restrictions concerned the Laws and Lofton families who had purchased houses on East 92nd Street in the 1920s, but because of race restrictions neither family had been able to move into the homes (Thomas and Ritzdorf, 1997. 179). Encouraged by the changing legal climate which led judges like Bullock to decide to grant the Deedman family the right to live in a restricted area, the Loftons and the Laws moved into the houses they owned on 92nd Street in the early 1940s. After two years, local Realtors successfully gained a restraining order from Judge Roy Rhodes against the two families, which ordered them to vacate their homes. The Loftons submitted to the court order and moved out, but the Laws refused and were quoted as saying, * ‘We intended to fight the thing all the way through”(Klein and Scheisl, 1990, 118). The NAACP lost the initial court battle but sought funds 188 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to file an appeal in the case. NAACP lawyers advised the Laws to vacate the property in the meantime or face court action, but the Laws still refused to move out. In late 1945, Judge Allen Ashbum, apparently growing tired of the Law’s “insolence,” gave the family an ultimatum, to either vacate the property within 10 days or be imprisoned. The Laws chose imprisonment. In response to these events, under the leadership of Ms. Bass, approximately 1,000 protesters formed a picket line outside the Laws house on the day that Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D.) arrived to take them off to jail (Thomas and Ritzdorf 1996, 180). The publicity surrounding the Laws and the other legal cases concerning the use of restrictive covenants to evict Blacks seeking housing outside of the Black sectors generally led to the issue gaining a high profile in the Black community. Los Angeles Blacks rallied with the national organizations such as the NAACP to try to bring about change. Charlotta Bass and the California Eagle began a campaign for the Laws and organized the sometimes militant. “Home Protective Organization.” The California Eagle carried out its role in the struggle to end race restrictions by dutifully reporting on the legal actions that the NAACP took in the quest to open up housing. As is often the case for Black Americans, the Los Angeles Black community found itself at odds with local municipal authorities, and sought to circumvent the seeming collusion of the mayor and the police department with local White supremacists by appealing to state and national organizations. The following editorial which appeared in the December 189 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9th 1943 California Eagle which illustrates the feelings among African Americans in Los Angeles in the 1940s, who knew that municipal authorities were in cooperation with White supremacists. Because of this knowledge, when seeking to combat local discrimination, it was to larger national organizations, such as the federal government, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and the NAACP that Black leadership turned for help. The vigorous leadership of Attorney Thomas L. Griffith, president of the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP, was sharply evident at Sunday night’s emergency meeting to combat spreading race property restrictions at Peoples Independent Church of Christ. Flanked by Rev. Clayton D. Russell, Rev. S. A. Williams and the progressive forces of the community, Griffith outlined a blistering legal attack against the housing restrictions. Sunday’s session raised funds for filing an appeal for a family of Negroes who may be forced out of their home because of a recent court order upholding race property bars. The stupid Hitlerite practice of creating ghettoes for the American Negro” inferior” race has spread havoc through the war-time housing and transportation in our city. The insane practice of condemning a portion of war workers to a ghetto-miles distant from their factories and shipyards has reaped an awful harvest of transportation headaches, tie-ups and smashups. Piling one hundred thousand Negroes in an area which was overcrowded when the colored population was only 35,000 certainly is a distinguished contribution to the maintenance of war workers’ health. It is a boon to the problem of juvenile delinquency, and a gift to the propaganda machine of our enemies. The City Administration has shown all the initiative of a tombstone in handling the race restriction problem, which the very necessities of war rule out as stupid and costly. Neither in word or deed has any responsible spokesman for the Administration indicated that he knew what race restrictions are, much less that they be abolished. A revolting flight before the fascist Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. chest thumping of assorted Ku Kluxers, crooked realtors and cheap politicians has been the contribution of the City Government to the solution of this pressing problem. When Labor, both the AFL and CIO, spoke with the Negro people for an end to race restrictions before the City Council, even a weak kneed resolution asking only condemnation “in principle” was voted down, 8 to 7, by the City Fathers, with Negro-elected Councilman Cap Allen casting the deciding negative vote. The Mayors office contributed this pearl of wisdom. It decided that Negro in-migrants must stop pouring into the city, whatever the needs of our war industries, because the Administration has not found courage to go after the cess pools of race hatred which agitate the continued drives on property restrictions. The effect of all this upon the morale of the Negro people, upon their understanding of our country’s anti-fascist mission is disastrous. It is a significant event when the leader of the largest Negro organization in the city carries the fight against restrictions directly to the masses of the people, mobilizing their immense war effort. Good work. Attorney Griffith (California Eagle. Dec. 9, 1943). Given the history of race relations in the city, and the treatment they shown by the L.A.P.D.. Blacks in the Los Angeles area knew they could count on little support among municipal officials or in the local judicial system. Another example of African American mobilization against the institutionalized, racist tactics that were being used to enforce territorial control over Blacks by local Realtors and home-owners groups was written in the January 1945 issue of the California Eagle. The Eagle reported that the NAACP had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate why cards were being distributed by the Compton Chamber of Commerce to be signed by local residents, and then sent to City Hall. This is what the card read: Proposed development of International Village for Japs, Negroes, and other non-Caucasians will damage our 191 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. property and use. We bought this property for a home. KEEP THE COLORED POPULATION NORTH OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH STREET (California Eagle, January 25 1945). These are examples of incidents and cases that were on the docket of the NAACP’s legal campaign to end residential race restrictions in the 1940s. Los Angeles attorneys, Loren Miller and Thurgood Marshall were senior counsels for many of the cases that were being investigated. The timing of the NAACP’s legal battle proved to be right. Having just engaged in a battle to fight a racist, fascist Germany, America’s national conscious was increasingly having a difficult time reconciling its public attitude towards the people of African descent in the United States with the ideologies of global, social justice and democracy espoused by America and other Allied Powers of World War II. President Harry Truman had recently stated publicly that the federal government must be a “friendly, vigilant defender of the rights of all Americans.” When the 1948 Shelley vs. Kraemer decision rendered in favor of ending racially restrictive covenants, there was an immediate impact on the Black residents of Los Angeles County. Because Shelly vs. Kraemer had been designated as a judicial test case, the final decision settled all similar cases on file with the Los Angeles Superior court. This meant that White homeowners associations could no longer seek judicial support based upon violation of racially restrictive covenants. All Black homeowners living in restricted areas were now legally able to remain in their houses. Further NAACP litigation, especially Barrows vs. Jackson (1953). freed Whites who violated restrictive covenants from 192 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the danger of having to pay civil damages to the other White homeowners in restricted properties. Although no longer legally enforceable, restrictive covenants remained lawful as a private agreement until the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed them once and for all. Throughout the 1940s, behind the leadership of the local chapters of the NAACP and other national organizations, the Los Angeles Black community appeared to act as a highly organized unit. Black lawyers, newspaper editors, war veterans and others acted in concert to combat local hostility and open up new residence areas for African American settlement. By appealing to federal authority, especially the United States constitution’s protection of its citizens Los Angeles Blacks led the way in the fight for African Americans and other minorities nation wide to have greater access to that urban housing. However, like White urbanites in Chicago and other cities, some White Los Angelenos rose up in a backlash. No longer able to count on L.A.P.D. to enforce restrictive covenants. White Neighborhood Protectives of 1950’s Los Angeles adopted other tactics to keep Blacks out of their communities, including violence. This violence was aimed at exerting territorial control over Blacks. In the early 1950s, in the aftermath of Shellv vs. Kraemer. a wave of cross burnings, shootings, and bombings were directed at the property of those pioneer Black families who attempted to make their homes in the restricted White communities. Racial conflict of the early 1950s occurred at geographic locations that seem to 193 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. correspond to areas of Black penetration into formerly all White residential areas. Racial strife clearly occurred at strategic places in the development of the Black community. The geographic pattern of the early racial “flash points,” seems to indicate that these were acts aimed at stopping the advance of a growing, increasingly prosperous Black community into “White territory”. In retrospect, with the advantage of a long temporal perspective, it becomes evident that the processes of initial resistance, and then rapid White flight out of contemporary Black residences areas, have probably had a damaging affect on the way that life was constructed for the future residents of such places. Despite federal rulings on the unconstitutionality of racially restrictive housing areas, local authorities in Los Angeles continued to ignore area Blacks’ simple desire for equal protection under the law. In the 1950s, the situation escalated enough to alarm citizens of a possible race riot. For urban Blacks, fear intensified following the March 1952 bombing of William Bailey’s house on Dunsmuir, a residence that at the time was just outside of the westernmost part the ghetto. As was presented in the March 12 1952 L. A. Sentinel. Bailey was a science teacher at Carver Junior High School whose house was bombed in the predawn hours. The force of the explosion was felt throughout a 12-square block area. Bailey had been warned of the bombing by cryptic messages, and fortunately was not at home during the explosion. However, he did sustain heavy property losses. Bailey charged that L.A.P.D. had known about the threat to his life and property, but had done nothing to prevent it from happening. A Grand 194 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jury that was assigned to investigate the bombing mysteriously turned up no leads and the bombing was never solved (L. A. Sentinel March 12 1952). The failure of police and judicial action in the Bailey case, along with the many other acts of racial intimidation taking place in the early 1950s, prompted the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP to charge: The indifference of official Los Angeles to the serious lack of police protection for Negroes moving into the “new” areas in the city is a problem that may well explode into a race riot the next time an act of violence is visited upon a Negro family. I have noted this lack of concern from the mayor down to the Chief of Police. Even the Grand Jury has seemingly been convinced by police reports that “all is well” on Dunsmuir. Since the first of the year there has been two bombings, two cross burnings and numerous threatening letters reported in Los Angeles. The failure to apprehend one single suspect in any instance gives the go-signal to the bigots and lets minority group persons know beyond a shadow of a doubt just what to expect in the way of protection and effective investigation on the part of the various law enforcement agencies of the city, state and federal government (O’Conner 1954. 139). The lack of equal protection under the law that Black Los Angelenos experienced as they moved into White communities was simply an extension of the type of treatment they were subjected to in the ghetto. The L.A.P.D. was notorious for stopping and beating Blacks for no cause in the Eastside Black communities, so it was not surprising that they would ignore the sight of Blacks being terrorized by White civilians outside of the ghetto. Not only did L.A.P.D. not prosecute perpetrators of crimes against Blacks they often further victimized the victims. For example, Mrs. Bates of West 42nd Street reported that while she was ironing and looking out of her window one day, she saw a male friend of her 195 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. White neighbor’s daughter aiming what she thought was a B. B. gun at her house. She thought nothing of it until suddenly she heard the zing of a bullet whiz by after puncturing a hole in her living room window. She called the University Station office of the L.A.P.D., who told her that they would take her down to the City’s Attorney’s office and file a complaint if she desired. However, the L.A.P.D. advised that she not do this because she might get sued if she lost the case (O’Conner, 1954, 141). As the 1950s progressed the turbulent after-effects of Shelley vs. Kraemer somewhat subsided and Black Los Angelenos settled into the pattern of westward expansion as illustrated in chapter five. Whites fled rapidly on the Southwest side of Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s. Between 1950 and 1956, more than 125,000 Whites left the central city area of Los Angeles (Sandoval, 1974). As illustrated previously, during the 1950s, as Whites fled central Los Angeles, what had been three separate Black communities— each with a distinct regional identity— merged into one contiguous Black residential area. Although the residents at the western edge of this new consolidated Black ghetto continued to enjoy higher standards of living, geographic isolation and thus their ability to maintain class distinctions, was gone—especially with respect to rental housing. Subsequently, the entire Black Los Angeles community became more and more class heterogeneous after the late 1950s. Part of the reason for the increases in social class heterogeneity can be found in the very processes by which the Los Angeles Black ghetto expanded. Although initial penetration into White 196 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. communities was usually accomplished by middle or upper class Blacks, the White out-movement that resulted opened the way for increasing class heterogeneity. Shortly after penetration, the process of racial turnover would begin. Blacks of all strata, including intra-city migrants from the Eastside and in coming migrants from the South filled Westside vacancies. Recognizing the importance of this process upon the development of the institutions and ideologies of the Los Angeles Black community is crucial. This is especially important in light of the urban underclass debate and its fallout. Epoch 2—Internal Strife and Identity Conflicts, 1960s Many upwardly mobile Blacks were on the move in the 1950s and 60s. Typically they spearheaded the penetration of White residential areas. Time and time again however, they found that although these intra-city moves did bring better housing stock, they did not lead to long-term social or spatial transformation of these places into middle class integrated areas. This pattern was observed commented on by Sandoval, who stated: “the continued expansion of the Negro ghetto into the sixties closed the gaps that had provided temporary physical separation of the Negro middle class from the poverty pockets of Watts, Central Avenue and Avalon” (1974 , 54). By 1960, some Blacks had again removed themselves (temporarily at least) from the expanding ghetto by moving further West into the Baldwin Hills and West Adams area. A few small sub communities of Negro settlement did develop into neat well-maintained middle class neighborhoods. 197 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, the less desirable ghetto communities still surrounded them. This constant westward expansion of the Black ghetto in Los Angeles represented the efforts of middle class Blacks to escape from the clutches of the ghetto and all that it represented. The continued movement by Blacks into these areas led to the decline in the desirability of that area, and the renewed westward migration by aspiring middle class Blacks in a renewed effort to escape the concentrated Black ghetto. Between 1940 and 1960 this cycle repeated itself in the Green Meadows, Exposition, Santa Barbara and West Adams areas, and inevitably it continued into the Baldwin Hills area in the 1960’s (Sandoval 1974, 54-55). This tendency for areas where large numbers of urban Blacks reside to have a wide degree of class heterogeneity has sown the seeds for many Black youth to suffer from a severe identity crisis, an issue which Blacks in Los Angeles as well as elsewhere, continue to grapple with today. For many urban African Americans there is an overwhelming question of “what does it mean to be a middle class Black?” Because of the peculiar history of Black life in urban America, this question is very troublesome. Although not unique to Los Angeles, the peculiar conditions of its development have led to a rather acute problem of identification for Los Angeles’s middle income Blacks. The changes in the geographic character of class within the Black communities of Los Angeles that began in the 1950s and continued into through the 1960s left many Black Los Angelenos to attempt to cling to regional identities that were increasingly less 198 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. valid, actions observed by O ’Toole (1973) as he discussed attitudes in pre-riot Watts. The poor people of Watts divided Black Los Angeles in half, symbolically, at Central Avenue. An “east-sider” was a “low-rider,” a poor Black, “a brother.” A “west- sider” was a middle class Negro, one who had little sympathy for poor Blacks, a “White man’s nigger, “ a “house nigger,” an Uncle Tom. It was not considered relevant that nearly as many poor Blacks lived on the west side of town, or that one could find Uncle Toms a mile east of Central Avenue, because class was not a fixed notion to the people of Watts- it was a transitory state of mind.. Although class standing usually correlated with income, education, and so on, this was not necessarily so. A poor Black man who “put on airs” or “acted White” could have been called a west-sider, and Uncle Tom or middle class. Similarly, a wealthy Negro who “acted Black” could have been considered a brother, an east- sider, perhaps even a low-rider. (O’Toole 1973, 50) O’Toole’s observations get at the heart of the identity crisis faced by urban African Americans. For the poor residents of Watts, class status was defined by two, seemingly unrelated, things: Geographic residence and the degree that an individual could “be down” in the community. In the early periods of Black residence in Los Angeles, it is likely that many of the residents of the Westside Black community did indeed “act White,” meaning they probably spoke a more standardized English and may have held professional positions. However as the Los Angeles Black community matured in the late 1960s and early 1970s, traditional meaning of class within Black communities became less and less relevant. More and more, after I960, there were west side residents who were also “down with the people” and east side residents that “put on airs.” 199 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A crucial turning point for inter-class relationships in Los Angeles’s Black community was the Watts rebellion of 1965. This event and its aftermath forever changed both the ability and the desire for the Black middle classes to define themselves as separate. In the years leading up to the Watts uprising, the Black community of Los Angeles increasingly was forced to wrestle with inter-class conflict issues. One cannot understand this increasing class identity conflict without considering the class dynamics of population movement in Black Los Angeles. Although many of the people who participated in the intra-city migration of the 1950s may have represented the most successful, energetic, and in some cases just plain thrifty of the Eastside Blacks, there is little evidence, to indicate that they actually composed a middle class. Undoubtedly, many of the Black residents of the newly opened Westside communities actually did have middle class values and aspirations, but were they a “class of people” as defined by Weber and discussed in the introductory chapter? Not really: instead the truth is that for the post-1950 Los Angeles Black community, the bond that held the Black middle class together was weak. From chapter one, recall Max Weber’s criteria for being a social class. 1) a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances. 2) This causal component be represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income. 3) This causal component must be expressed through the conditions of the commodity and labor markets. This typology obviously presents a dilemma where urban Black 200 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Americans are concerned. The one thing that Black Americans of all income levels share is the fact that they are of African descent, and this one fact has historically been the most overriding determiner of “life chances” for Black people, rather than “the conditions of the commodity and labor markets”. Historically, and up to the present, being of African descent has been the primary determination of the social position for Black Americans within the broader American society. The limitations on achievement that were historically placed on Black Americans were felt very keenly in Black Los Angeles preceding the 1965 explosion. African Americans who might be considered middle class in pre-1965 Los Angeles were often more bitter than their less educated counterparts because they possessed training and knowledge, yet they were still often denied employment and decent affordable housing. In Los Angeles Black men especially, were denigrated regardless of occupations and income. Blacks who did all the right things to become middle class were actually penalized for their hard work. In the early 1960s, a Black man with only a primary school education could expect to earn 61% of what a comparably educated White man would earn. A Black man with a university degree, however, could only expect to earn 53% of what a White college graduate would earn (O’Toole 1973, 52). The prospects for Black women were only slightly better, due to the fact that Black women were viewed as less of a threat and were less likely to be viewed as a problem. This reality had a very damaging effect on the moral of all African Americans. When 201 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. faced with discrimination, educated Black people in the 60s were probably vulnerable to depressed self-esteem because they had come closer to success by acquiring all the credentials and prerequisites—but because of persistent discrimination, they could never quite seem to achieve success the way Whites could with less effort. For those Black Los Angelenos in the early 1960s who did achieve a middle or income status, they were faced with new problems. Naturally, financially stable individuals desired to raise their children in nice safe areas, but the color of their skin limited their ability to find housing in the Los Angeles area. The difficulty that prosperous Blacks had in finding housing that was truly removed from the ghetto, is illustrated by these excerpts from an article in a 1962 issue of the California Eagle: It took a month of sitting in and picketing, a change of ownership of the tract, and wide local community support for one Negro family to get one home in the Monterey Highlands tract in Monterey Park. Bobby Liley, a physicist, was sold a house last Thursday by Earl P. Snyder of the Kembo Corporation, who acquired the tract by foreclosing on the developer, Montgomery Ross Fisher. Fisher had steadfastly refused to sell Liley a house, despite the fact that the tract was financed with FHA funds. “I commend Snyder for selling the home, he thought it was the right thing to do. Bobby Liley stated. Liley said the significance of this sale was “the fact that a person sold the house to a Negro. In some similar cases there have been back-door sales, home sold to Whites who were buying for Negroes. This time the sale was really to a Negro” (April 12, 1962). Although federal legislation had changed the legal climate for Blacks living in the Los Angeles area, it did not change the relationship between African Americans and the L.A.P.D., especially those living on the Eastside. This was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seen in the 1962 shooting at the Muslim Temple on Broadway. A minor incident involving the questioning of two men in a car parked near the Muslim Temple at 5606 S. Broadway, Friday at midnight, lit a smoldering spark that brought scores of policemen to the scene. Guns were at the ready; they drew a crowd of more than a thousand spectators and set the night ablaze in the most ruthless mass shooting by local police in recent history. “They shot them down in cold blood!” said Malcolm X, second in command of the national Muslim movement. Mr. X flew in when he learned one of his followers had been shot to death and six others wounded. "They were unarmed,” he insisted. “They are forbidden by their religion to carry weapons of any kind.” When police searched the Muslims after the bloodletting, they found no weapons on them. Reports differ as to just what happened but eyewitnesses claimed police apparently panicked when they saw themselves outnumbered and began shooting wildly (California Eagle May 3 1962). Obviously, L.A.P.D. and the residents of the eastside Black community had serious police/community issues to resolve. Ironically, and rather eerily, in the same issue of the Eagle, a story was run about Tom Bradley, an L.A.P.D. officer formerly assigned to the Eastside being chosen as a candidate to run for city council out of the Tenth District over on the Westside. We will discuss the significance of Tom Bradley in the history of the Los Angeles Black community later. As the Los Angeles area Black population continued to grow in the early 1960s, urban Blacks faced new dilemmas. Either they remained in the congested traditional Black areas or faced racism and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hostility from Whites in the racial transition areas. For middle and upper class Blacks living in Los Angeles during the early 1960s, the fact that they were not wanted in “White man’s Los Angeles was hammered home by the passing of Proposition 14 by the California voters in 1964. This measure, which was designed to repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, and would have allowed racial discrimination in housing to continue legally in the California. Proposition 14 was so popular among White Californians that it passed by a two to one margin. This fact was devastating for race relations in the state. Although Proposition 14. due to its unconstitutionality was eventually struck down by federal judicial action and was never implemented, the wounds it caused could not be undone (Home 1995, 223, Tyler 1974 270). In August 1965, when the California Highway Patrol stopped Marquette Frye. Black Los Angeles entered a new era in its development. What started as a routine traffic stop conflagrated into an urban revolt where 34 people died, and 1,000 more were injured. Four thousand people were arrested and property damage was estimated at $200 million (Home 1995, 3). Consequently, a new militancy swept through the Black community. In the pre-revolt period, there was only one organization that embodied a truly militant political ideology, the Nation of Islam (NOI). After the revolt, membership in the NOI swelled in Los Angeles. Prior to the Watts rebellion the Nation of Islam was seen as the only organization that would stand up to the L.A.P.D. The NOI attained heightened stature in the Black community when 204 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Marquette Frye, the man whose arrest triggered the uprising, joined the Nation of Islam in 1965 (Home 1995, 129). However, as a religious group, the NOI was not engaged in vigorous social and political activism. Not only did the NOI gain membership, other more politically active “Black militant” organizations, such as Ron Karenga’s United Slaves, and Tommy Jaquette's SLANT became popular in the aftermath of the Watts rebellion. Also at this time, the Black Panther party became more active in Los Angeles as well. Nationalist groups such as these were more attractive to Black youth than the traditional Black activist groups such as CORE, the NAACP and the Urban League. This was especially true for lower class Blacks who began to feel that the mainstream civil rights organizations were controlled by “middle class interests” and differed from those of the poor. These various organizations came together under the rubric of “The Black Congress” which was formed in 1967. The mission of this congress was to provide a forum for “operational unity” between the various groups seeking to assist Blacks in Los Angeles (Tyler 1983, 281). The Black Congress served as a clearinghouse for the billions in federal funding that poured into Los Angeles after the riots. Competition for federal funds however, led to conflict between the various members of the Black Congress. This conflict grew especially heated between Ron Karenga’s United Slaves organization and the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party. 205 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It is widely held that the FBI and other government agents successfully fomented conflict between the various Black National groups by infiltrating certain organizations within the Black Congress. This topic is itself worthy of a dissertation, and will not be addressed here. Suffice it to say, with the exception of the Nation of Islam, a religious organization that is for the most part apolitical and inward looking, virtually all of the Black Nationalist groups that played such a large role after the Watts rebellion ceased operations by the early 1970s. A hail of FBI and LAPD. gunfire disbanded some organizations, such as the Black Panthers. Others slowly faded as the government’s wellspring of funding for their “programs” dried up after the election of Richard Nixon. Regardless of the specific reasons for the decline in Black Nationalist groups, by the early 1970s, their demise created a void in political organizing within the Los Angeles Black community. The transformations that took place in 1960’s Los Angeles must be understood within the framework of changes that were happening in Black communities nationally. Beginning with the 1948 Shelley vs. Kraemer decision, and continuing through the 1968 Fair Housing Act, increasing numbers of Blacks were successful in moving out of ghetto areas. Although most of the areas they moved to changed into majority Black communities within a decade or so. there were periods when Blacks and Whites lived side by side in integrated neighborhoods. 206 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although it is easy to assume that the Blacks who move out to these White neighborhoods composed the middle classes, this is not entirely true. Many Black middle class individuals stayed on the Eastside, and some poor Eastside residents found their way to the Westside. By 1970, it was apparent that a schism had developed within the Black community, but labeling that schism as being a strictly class based division is inaccurate. Given the fact that many middle and upper class Blacks continued to reside in the ghetto, it begs the question whether some of the conflict and division between Blacks in urban America is not actually between economic classes, but rather between territorial identities. Tyler (1983) ambiguously labels all Blacks who had moved to the Westside as “middle class Blacks.” yet makes some interesting observations about the dynamic between the Blacks of Westside Los Angeles and their relationship to the Eastside Black community. The Black middle class’s status was based upon the social and spatial distance from the obvious Black ghetto areas. But because the Black middle class neighborhoods were fairly contiguous with the ghetto, their status was tied together. And the riot led many Black middle class persons to point out the contrast between their communities and the ghetto and to denounce violence as a ghetto phenomenon and not a characteristic of well integrated communities (pg. 268). Black residents of Los Angeles in the 1960s had become very conscious of the differences in the quality of life for Blacks who lived in ghetto areas versus Blacks in integrated communities. Pro-integrationist elements within the Black community used this reality to promote the idea of integrated communities. In 1964, for example the United Crenshaw Neighbors was formed. Initially designed 207 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to halt racial conflict at Dorsey High, it quickly evolved into an organization dedicated to maintaining the Crenshaw district as an “integrated community.” Backed by the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, the Crenshaw Neighbors opened up a real estate office dedicated to attracting White residents to the rapidly transitioning Crenshaw district. The greatest fear of the Crenshaw neighbors (a fear shared by many on the Westside) was that the Crenshaw district would become all Black (Tyler 1983, 265). Jean Gregg, a Black woman who was the executive director of the Crenshaw neighbors, stated that “our major solution, as we see it, is to get in new Caucasian residents [ . . (Tyler, 1983, 269). As stated by Tyler: “the ghetto riot embarrassed the middle class Blacks and their efforts to maintain an integrated Westside. Based upon this, an estrangement developed between the Black ghetto and the integrated fringe”! 1983, 269). Although Tyler is unclear and inconsistent with his terminology, and often uses the term “middle class Blacks” to refer to groups of people whom he clearly considers different, many of his points are good ones. He appropriately recognized the fact that even Watts, one of the lowest status areas in the city of Los Angeles contained a wide variety class elements within its boundaries and was critical of the way that pro-integrationist Black leaders continually defined themselves in opposition to ghetto Blacks. According to Tyler Black leaders “to a man accepted the notion that South Central Los Angeles was a ghetto”(1983, 274). 208 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn took exception to the charge that Watts was a ghetto saying, “Now I want to emphasize that it’s not a slum, it’s a middle class area.” By national standards, this was a true statement, but Hahn also recognized that South Central Los Angeles was a highly mixed community in which the desperate poor existed side by side with middle class elements. Civil Rights and integration oriented African Americans saw South Central Los Angeles as a ghetto in the social sense— because they felt it was racially isolated and segregated from the mainstream. They focused on the poverty elements and they did not speak of the working class and middle class elements in Watts (Tyler 1983, 274). The Black ghetto residents felt neglected and abandoned by the middle-class. Blacks. Middle class Blacks only entered the picture when the ghetto riots threatened residential and school integration efforts as a class apart (from the ghetto Blacks who had no chance to integrate or join the mainstream (Tyler 1983. 260. emphasis added). Although Tyler uses the term “middle class Blacks,” it seems that he is actually referring to something different. After all, in the previous quote Tyler argued that there are many middle class elements living in Watts. It would appear that, although not explicitly stated, the group that Tyler was identifying as “the Black middle class elements” are more accurately referred to as “assimilationist” Blacks, not all of whom were actually middle class. The Black leaders that Tyler is so critical of were not necessarily all of the same income levels, but they were definitely all in favor of “racial integration”. The real point of division that was developing in Black Los Angeles was developing more along the lines of the 209 with permission of ,he copyright owner. Further rep rod u ce , r ^Production prohibited without permission. various experiences and attitude one held for the outside White society. In essence, many members of the Black community viewed social integration into “White space” as the ultimate answers to the problems of the ghetto. After all, 1960s residents of the Crenshaw district lived side by side with Whites and had no idea that all the Whites would be gone from the area in only a matter of years. Given the historic racial isolation that African Americans have experienced, the potential for conflicting ideologies between those that were still living in a racially isolated environment and those who, geographically at least, had escaped from racial isolation was substantial. These divisions that arose in the Black urban community were ideological and social divisions that developed out of the regional transformation process and its affiliated territorial identities. Rather than class, the main divide between urban Blacks was increasingly based upon conflicting regional identities. As demonstrated by Paasi, Wolch and Dear and others, territorial identities are formed out of social relations which groups of people have with groups from “over there.” As more of the metropolitan area opened up to Black residence, and as the employment and class structure of the Black community evolved, the complexity of this ideological gap increased during Black Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. The context for the understanding the conflicting yet related social dilemma of Black Los Angeles at the dawn of the 1970s can be illustrated by looking at two stories that appeared on the cover of the Herald Dispatch on the same day. The first is the story of an East-side Black community, while the 210 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. second is the story of a Westside Black community. Together they present evidence of the very different, yet also very similar struggles, each of which is tied to place, and also to generation. I will present excerpts from each article and then discuss how the contents can be understood with respect to the present discussion. NEGRO REMOVAL (WATTS) Los Angeles- “W e’ll have to exodus one way or the other. You the CRA, should be trying to rectify the community’s problems, not destroy it.” Was the pathetic statement made to city council and its baby, the vicious CRA, last Monday by Mrs. Lotus Murphy. Mrs. Murphy is a long time resident of Watts and a homeowner. Mrs. Murphy said resigning her fate, “We know we won’t fit into the redevelopment plan. We would like to be left alone to help ourselves.” “Negro Removal!” and pleas that “we don’t want to be moved from our homes” was heard from the speakers and from the audience. The audience, mostly elderly men and women who have worked for 25 or 30 years to pay for them. They were helpless in the face of the determination of the Hitler-like tactics of the CRA. These people were literally begging for their homes, a chance to just be left alone. They have been victimized by the poverty program spies since 1965. They have been abused by the loan sharks, the overcharging and the gouging- their last hope was to be left alone- at least to keep their homes. This was denied them by men whom they had voted into office- men who turned deaf ears to them- men who looked beyond them to support the Hitler like tactics of the present Yorty Administration (Herald Dispatch Nov 21st 1968). INGLEWOOD RACISM Inglewood- Inglewood, once the epitome of racial bigotry and suburban isolation is presently undergoing a dramatic and stormy change- integration. This city of 94,000 which claims the Hollywood Race Track, the Forum, and Jesse M. Unruh, did not have a single Negro resident prior to 1960. Today its fashionable east-side commonly called Momingside Park is approximately 10% Black, although the city overall is only 3%. As one may expect, the 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. community at large has responded to integration with the same old bag of tricks. Whites continue to flee the area with the guidance of local Realtors who used the issue to promote panic selling by Whites and inflated buying by Blacks. Two local elementary schools now have a majority of Black pupils although the surrounding residential areas are overwhelmingly White. Many of the remaining Whites with school age children are either transferring them to other Inglewood schools or sending them to private ones. In spite of several studies and recommended plans to eliminate defacto segregation in the schools, no Master Plan has been developed or accepted by the Inglewood Board of Education to date. Generally speaking, there has been no serious effort by local elected officials to combat bigotry fear and ignorance (Herald Dispatch Nov 21st 1968). The above two stories, both from the same newspaper, demonstrate the increasing dilemma that Black Los Angeles faced at the end of the 1960s. Black families living in the ghetto continued to experience the same types of injustices that were traditionally visited upon ghetto residents. In this particular case older established African American homeowners in Watts were being displaced by the CRA. The CRA was seizing their homes to give to wealthy land developers. The homeowners were to be relocated into units where they would have to pay rents that many of them could not afford. In essence, the most successful elders of the Black community were being penalized for their lives of hard work, and the homes they bought with their labor were being seized by the city/county under eminent domain laws. On the other hand in Inglewood, successful younger families of the Black community, seeking a better lifestyle and education for their kids were confronted by White fear, prejudice, and panic. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In both cases, we can find evidence of Sack’s theoretical definition of human territoriality. As discussed in chapter five, Sack defines human territoriality as a tool that hegemonic powers often used as a strategy to control access to people, things and relationships. In places such as Inglewood, there were lines between the White and Black communities that were sharp, clear, and defined by territorial boundaries. As the decade of the 1960s ended the territorial demarcation of Inglewood as “White territory” remained strong. How this territorial demarcation expressed itself can be seen in a story that appeared in the Sentinel: Girl Accuses Inglewood Cop’s Son of Assault in Gang Row A 13-year old Inglewood girl found Herself in the middle of confrontation with racial overtones involving the son of a police captain [...]. Debbie Price, was in the area of 109th and Crenshaw when the incident began. “A Black and White group of kids were arguing when she walked into the crowd, stated Debbie, “when a White girl said. ‘Get your ass off the street, this is White territory.’[ ...] “this White boy stepped in front of the girl.” The boy identified as Michael Gault pushed her. She said she pushed him back and that’s when the fight began. In the ensuing scuffle, Debbie said she was hit in the jaw by Gault, knocking her down. She lost a tooth as a result of the blow, along with back and neck injuries. (Feb 1970 Los Angeles Sentinel). Clearly, on the West Side of Los Angeles, territoriality and race remained linked at the dawn of the 1970s. The meaning of “White man’s territory” was all too real in Los Angeles. Unlike in other parts of the United States (including the nearby Inland Empire), where White poverty is more pervasive, most predominantly White communities in Los Angeles County are also places of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relative prosperity and social stability. In minds of White Los Angeles residents, the entrance of Black families into Inglewood spoiled any chance for it to remain “White man’s territory.” Epoch 3—Social Freedom, Economic Crisis, and Social Breakdown, ‘70s— ‘80s As the 1970s began, it seemed as if things were looking up for Los Angeles area African Americans. The turbulence of the 1960s had led to important gains for Black Americans. The 1968 Fair Housing Act promised to open up new areas of the Los Angeles region for Black residence. However, with the new decade came new problematic issues. In the early 1970s, there was a new climate of openness and acceptance of African Americans in the Los Angeles area. Fair housing legislation was a big part of this. As the center of the Black community shifted from Central Avenue over to the Crenshaw corridor, the Black regional identities shifted with it as well. By 1970, Black Los Angeles had come a long way from its roots along Central Avenue. The 1968 Fair Housing Act finally opened up the boundaries of the ghetto. Despite the fact that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s insured the illegality of discrimination against minority groups, the period did little to address the social problems that confronted Blacks living in urban areas. Articles found in the L. A. Black Press provide information that reveals two separate but related themes that emerged in the Los Angeles Black community during the twenty-year period between 1970 and 1990. 214 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. First, there was a crisis in leadership and second, there was increasing and widespread social disorder. These two themes were by no means new conditions in the Black community. However, these processes took place at a time when many assumed that African Americans living the United States metro areas had “turned the comer” on their way to equality with mainstream America The impact of the social breakdown in the 1970s and 1980s upon the Los Angeles Black community have been rather devastating, and reach Black families wherever they live in the metro area. Although Bond had documented social disorder as a feature of the Los Angeles Black community as early s 1936. Bond also pointed out that the Westside Black community was for the most part free of “ghetto behavior”. By the 1970s however, it was only up in the Baldwin Hills that residential class isolation existed in an area predominated by African American Los Angelenos. In the rest of Westside Black Los Angeles, racial turnover led to class heterogeneity, in the classic manner observed by the Black sociologists who studied cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia in prior eras. White out- movement, especially from rental housing, led to increasing class heterogeneity as the community transitioned from majority White to majority Black. The mixing of social economic status which geographic proximity brought about was especially difficult for the youth. As the 1970s and 1980s progressed inter-neighborhood conflict between Black youth became more and more of a problem in the predominantly African American portions of Los Angeles, regardless of social class standing of the participants. 215 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Regional identity issues more heavily impacted Black youth than it did adults in the 1970s because of the very nature of the geographical transitions that led to the development of the Westside Los Angeles Black community. As detailed in the previous chapter, beginning with the Shelley vs. Kraemer ruling in 1948, many families on the Eastside were able to move away from the ghetto. The typical destination for these families was the areas west of the Harbor Freeway. Eventually, and definitely by the 1970s, there were many Black youth on the Westside that were bom and raised on the Westside and who had much more contact in schools and in the community with Whites. In this climate of transition, relations between White and Blacks continued to be volatile. White hostility was nothing new to Black families. However, after 1970 a newer phenomenon developed, that was related to the changes in the metropolitan geography of Black Los Angelenos. As the number of African American children living on the “integrated” Westside continued to increase in the early-mid 1970s relations between members of the various sub-regions of Black Los Angeles grew increasingly confrontational. An example of this can be found in the story of Robert Ballou, a Westside Black youth and the son of a lawyer, who was killed by leather jacket seeking youths in 1972 outside of a Soul Train concert at the Hollywood Palladium (L. A. Sentinel March 12 1972). The story surrounding this sensational event is an important example of a transformation in Black intra-community relations that took place after the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Ballou and his Westside friends were 216 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the victims of violence visited upon them by youth from the “other side” of the Black community. Ballou’s residence was on the 5600 Block of South Brushton, a section of West Los Angeles that borders Culver City. As illustrated by the 1970 census geography in Figure 16, Ballou was living in a neighborhood that was at the fringe of the Black community and that was undergoing a racial transition. The Ballou family was a classic example of Black middle and upper class Black families that had moved to far away from the core Black community trying to obtain better housing and class separation. The census tract that contained their home on Brushton was only less than one percent (0.4%) Black in 1960 but had risen to 31% Black at the 1970 census. By 1980. this area at the border of Los Angeles and Culver City, known as the Adams/La Brea area, was more than 65% Black. However like most early Black penetration zones, it started out as a class based movement. This can be seen in the fact that in this area, as the community became more African American, in the 1960s and 1970s, the percent of its residents who were college educated also rose in tandem with the Black population. As the story of Ballou’s killing goes, Ballou’s friend was being attacked for his leather jacket when Ballou intervened on his behalf. This intervention proved to be a fatal mistake (L. A. Sentinel. March 12 1972). Why did Ballou die? No one knows for sure, but it is possible that living in a mostly White community at the extreme western edge of Black Los Angeles may have left Ballou ignorant about the brutal and increasingly common leather- jacket-beat-down crimes that newly emerging Eastside youth gangs such as the 217 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cribs were known to perpetrate. By 1972, in the Eastside Black community, it was a well-known mistake for an individual to resist the swarming Cribs when they wanted to take a leather jacket. No one was ever convicted of Ballou’s murder. All society is left with is the knowledge of the high school the prime suspects attended. Ricardo Simms was arrested along with James Cunningham for the killing. Although 19-year old Cunningham had a lengthy arrest record, including rape, murder, grand theft auto, and robbery, he was not convicted. Simms was a standout track athlete who attended Washington High School. located at 10860 S. Denker. Washington, is located in the Westmont/West Athens section a section of unincorporated county just out side the LA city boundaries. Although technically on the Westside (Denker is between Normandie and Western) The Westmont area is sufficiently far south and sufficiently close to the Harbor Freeway to actually put it much closer to Watts and Compton than to the Westside Black community centered on Adams and Crenshaw. The class structure of the community in the area surrounding Washington High was entirely different than that of the newly opening areas at the west of the Black community in the early 1970s. (Table 9) Table 9: Community Educational Differences, Adams/La Brea vs. Westmont/West Athens Tract of Ballou’s residence Percent College Grads Percent Black Tract of Washington High Percent College Grads Percent Black 218 1970 1980 1990 15.8 27.2 34. 30.9 65.4 67. 1.7 4.3 3.3 83.4 92.7 86.0 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. v o n The difference in social class between the Black residents of the two areas is clear in Table 9. In Ballou’s neighborhood as the racial turnover process progressed the community educational status went up. The percentage of college grads rose in relative proportion with the percent Black. Although Ballou's tract near Culver City seems to have remained a stable place of college educated home owning Blacks, as was demonstrated previously, it is very likely that the area around this one tract of homeowners has become more class heterogeneous over time. The ironic thing is that while geographic distance, as well as social class divided the victims and perpetrators of this murder, the fact of their shared status as Black Americans, and that they shared a taste for Soul Train, a dance show which aired on national television, brought them together in fatal conflict. This story of a middle class African American falling victim to a violent crime at the hands of another Black youth became more familiar in Los Angeles and elsewhere throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and seems to be a trend that has continued into the twenty-first century. Inter-class conflict has become a cruel truth of life that urban African Americans must face, regardless of the city that they live in. This reality extends even to the wealthiest of African Americans. Because, no matter how far they try to run into mainstream society, their lives are affected by how the Black “other half’ lives. The early 1970s were a time when urban Blacks, both in Los Angeles as well as elsewhere experienced an increasingly complex regional identity. When the 1968 Fair Housing Act was passed, the use of restrictive covenants finally 219 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. became illegal. More than ever before, Black people were able to live in the types of communities that their finances would allow. However, although the total amount of space available for Black residence in the metropolitan area has increased in response to legislation, uneven banking and real estate practices have continued to limit Black’s ability to find decent housing. Thomas Bradley, LA’s only Black Mayor 1970s— 1980s In 1973, Westside city councilman Thomas Bradley was elected mayor of Los Angeles, he benefited from overwhelming support from the African American electorate throughout the city. Blacks voted for Bradley not only out of a sense of ethnic affinity, but also because they believed Bradley’s would make positive changes for in their condition. However, Los Angeles Blacks were doomed to be disappointed. Bradley was known as a non-confrontational leader, a man who went out of his way to try not to choose sides in any issue and instead to act as a mediator of conflict. Bradley’s own election to city council and then later to mayor were the result of racial coalition building. Although the multi-racial coalition building did have positives, it also hampered the will and ability of the Bradley administration to work for positive change in the Black community. This fact was observed early on by Booker Griffin, a journalist for the L. A. Sentinel. In June 1974 Griffin wrote: I have lived in three cities— Gary, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, all which have had Black mayors [...]. I am used to Black mayors and therefore have not experienced the same sensational fantasia as have some others in this town. I grew up in a town where there where always Black elected officials and judges so I took Black politicians off of their pedestals while I was still a child. 220 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This appears to make me unique in Los Angeles (L. A. Sentinel June 1974, pg. A-7). Griffin then identifies a disturbing direction in Bradley’s first year of leadership. Bradley’s administrations seemed to have had a policy of “benign neglect” when dealing with the problems of the African American community. I feel that the Black community has been shortchanged in the first Bradley year [.. .1 there are two groups that are underrepresented in the administration. These are Blacks and basic Whites or non-Jewish Whites. I think that there are three groups that are over-represented. These groups are Jews, Chicanos and Orientals. I base this belief on concrete measurements inclusive of percent of total population and percent of that vote cast for the mayor. If he continues the way he is going he may well be the best mayor in the city’s history and one of the worst for his own people (L. A. Sentinel June 1974 pg. A-7). Time would prove Griffin’s statement to be rather accurate. Although it had been demonstrated that Bradley’s policies were not pro- Black, this knowledge did not reduce his electoral support among Los Angeles area African Americans, who continued to bloc vote for Bradley into the 1990s. Certain segments of the Black Los Angeles community did receive some material gain from the Bradley regime. This was especially true in the area of municipal employment, where Blacks made substantial gains during Bradley’s 20-year tenure. In terms of resources beyond municipal employment, Bradley was not able to provide much progress. The political behavior of Mayor Thomas Bradley is more easily understood in the light of the mayor’s personal history in Los Angeles. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. From Sharecropper to Mayor: The Rise of Mayor Bradley Tom Bradley was bom December 27th, 1917 in Calvert, Texas. His parents, Lee and Crenner Bradley, were cotton sharecroppers. After moving to Los Angeles from Texas in the 1920’s, Bradley’s father deserted the family and his mother was forced to raise the children by herself from of the wages that she earned as a domestic working in wealthy homes on the Westside. When the time came for young Bradley to go to high school, Crenner Bradley was able to get a family that she worked for to tell a lie and say that Tom was living at their address. (Payne. J.G. and S. Ratzan.. 1986). This maneuver was probably the single most important event in Bradley’s early life that led to his future accomplishments. Rather than go to the mostly Black school near where he lived, Jefferson High, Bradley went to mostly White Polytechnic High School, which was the one closest to the family that his mother worked for. Attending Polytechnic High School was the initial step for Tom Bradley on the way out of the rapidly growing Black ghetto on the east side of Los Angeles Because of his abilities as a track athlete, Bradley earned an athletic scholarship to The University of California at Los Angeles. He studied there for three years, and achieved good grades. But in the summer of 1940 after his junior year, he quit UCLA and left school to join the Los Angeles Police Department. This allowed him to propose to his sweetheart, Ethel. She accepted and they were married in 1941. Bradley remained on the police force for twenty years, and achieved an outstanding record. He cracked a bookmaking operation on Central Avenue, worked with neighborhood youth, and developed a reputation for effective and efficient 222 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. police work. Eventually he was in on the organization of a Community Relations Unit and was transferred to the Wilshire station on the Westside of Los Angeles. This was a very prestigious assignment for a Black L.A.P.D. officer at the time, and Bradley became well known by the local Whites. It was during this period that Bradley became active in Los Angeles politics. He joined a number of democratic organizations including the California Democratic Council and its local offshoot, the Crenshaw Democratic Club. He made several influential friends, many of them progressive Jewish liberals who were unhappy with the traditionally White and Christian California Democratic Party. In 1950, shortly after the Shelley vs. Kraemer decision made it illegal for local governments to enforce racial restrictive covenants, like other pioneering Black families, L.A.P.D. officer Bradley and his family wanted to purchase a home outside of the ghetto. It has been reported that when the Bradley’s went to look at the Leimert Park home which they eventually moved into, Bradley and his wife had to dress in overalls and pretend to be maintenance workers in order to be able to look at the house. Because local homeowners were still observing restrictive covenants, a Jewish family friend of the Bradley’s from the Democratic Party was needed to help them purchase the house. He and his wife agreed to purchase the home with the Bradleys’ money, and then turn it over to them. From his new base in Leimert Park, he became even more politically active. Leimert Park was in the Tenth Council District an area that, in the I950’s and 60’s was becoming increasingly mixed racially. Bradley rose to become president of the 223 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Leimert Park affiliate of the California Democratic Club (CDC). It was here that the seeds of the future liberal, biracial coalition were sown. Many of the Whites who lived in the Tenth District were Jewish. National studies have shown that most Jews share a liberal political ideology (Jackson and Preston 1991,93). Bradley developed close associations with local Jewish political activists, and became well known not only in the Tenth District, but also in the heavily Jewish Fifth Council District. Understanding the location of the Tenth Council District illuminates how important Bradley’s move to the Westside would prove to be in his future political success. The multi-racial Tenth Council District served as a zone of transition between the overwhelmingly Black Eighth and Ninth districts and the mostly White, heavily Jewish fifth district. Through his work as a police officer and as a political activist, Bradley was able to gain access to the White community in ways that other Black politicians in Los Angeles, at the time, were forbidden. Bradley himself has attributed the liberal coalition that put him in office to his involvement in the CDC and its offshoots. It was here that he gained a group of friends throughout the city. Among these political friends were Ruth Abraham, Maury Weiner and Warren Hollier. These individuals, along with others would play key roles in Bradley’s immediate political future. During the mid-1950’s Bradley studied law at night and passed the California Bar exam. He retired from the L.A.P.D. in 1961 and began practicing law. In 1961, when Tenth District Councilman Charles Navarro announced that he was resigning to 224 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. become City Controller, a group of Bradley’s liberal activist friends convinced him that he should seek the mayor’s appointment as the replacement. Although over seven thousand signatures were collected, more than the number of votes which was needed to approve Bradley, then mayor, Sam Yorty acted against the people’s wishes and appointed Joe Hollingsworth, a wealthy Republican (Payne, J.G. and S. Ratzan 1986). The community saw this as a slap in the face, and several democratic activists led an unsuccessful recall effort. These actions served to strengthen the determination of the Bradley camp to put him in office, and in 1963 he ran for and won the Tenth District Council seat. He defeated the incumbent Hollingsworth by a solid margin. Bradley’s election to the Tenth District Council seat was the beginning of a biracial coalition that would dominate Los Angeles politics for years to come. Because of its unique racial and religious mix, the Tenth District formed an area of linkage between two overlapping social movements. One, the desire of Los Angeles’s prosperous Westside African American community for political representation and two, the ambitions of liberal (mostly Jewish) Whites for inclusion in the city’s decision making process. The liberal reformers were based in the Tenth and Fifth District while the Black constituency was based in the Tenth. Eighth and Ninth District. These four districts, the Tenth. Ninth, Eighth and Fifth, would become key sectors in the ability of the biracial coalition to expand into citywide politics. 225 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bradley served on the city council for ten years (1963-1973). For the most part, during this tenure his political behavior was non-controversial, he did not make waves (Haightman 1984, 79). He did however, criticize the actions of the police force, especially preceding and following the Watts rebellions of 1965. In 1969, Bradley decided to challenge incumbent Mayor Samuel Yorty. In addition to the election being racially charged, Yorty accused Bradley of being anti-police. That accusation probably came on the heels of Bradley’s criticisms of the police during the Watts uprising. Yorty also charged that Bradley’s liberal coalition bordered on being "Leftist”. The strategy of the Bradley camp was to put together a three-way coalition of Blacks, Latinos and liberal Whites. The campaign failed however, largely in part to key factors including the inability to capture the overwhelming majority of the Mexican American vote, and the failure to directly address crime and civil disorder (Sonenshein 1990,38). Issues related to law and social order was on the minds of many Los Angelenos and was harped on by the Yorty people. In 1973, when Bradley challenged Yorty a second time for the Los Angeles mayoralty, his campaign would prove successful. The Bradley staff had analyzed the 1969 campaign and come up with a winning plan in 1973. Bradley’s forces sought to moderate their ideological stance. Bradley’s new strategy was to emphasize good government and professionalism. He combated Yorty’s attacks by redirecting the focus of discussion back to issues of city governing and Yorty’s poor leadership. The Bradley organization recruited new types of people into the coalition, including a new campaign chairman who was also a wealthy land developer 226 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (Sonenshein, 1993). The coalition was broadened by the addition of new individuals who were outside of the traditional Bradley inner circle. Unlike the coalition that got him elected to the Tenth Councilman’s seat in 1963, the 1973 organization included professional politicians from outside of the politically liberal Tenth and Fifth districts and was more citywide in scope. In later years, land development interests would take on a much more important role in the governing of Los Angeles. When the votes were tallied after the 1973 election, Bradley did well in the Black community, the Jewish community, and improved among the Latino electorate. When these improved voting numbers were coupled with the lack of extensive conservative White backlash at the polls, it led to victory for the Bradley campaign. The Bradley Regime and Los Angeles Development Bradley ran and was elected on the premise that he was going to "be a mayor for all Los Angeles.” He pledged to serve the needs of the Valley, as well as the Harbor area, to be a leader concerned with each and every community. He attempted to show that favoritism and neglect would not be tolerated while he was mayor. Tom Bradley was characterized by caution, contemplation, and non-controversy throughout his political career. He sought not to "rock the boat” and was considered to be more of an arbitrator of conflict rather than the initiator of conflict (Barker, 1990,170). This mayoral style hampered Bradley’s ability to get things done in particular areas of the city (such as in South Central) and facilitated his ability to accomplish things in other areas (such as in the Downtown district). Because he shied away from controversy, Bradley was ineffective at funneling a 227 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. proportionate share of resources to the South Central portion of the city. Any attempt to divert funding or development projects into the predominantly African American portions of the city was inherently controversial. Bradley’s linkages to Los Angeles’s business interests permitted him to be involved in the allocation and location of development projects. As long as the relevant governmental decisions were made in accordance with the wishes of the local business elite, Bradley’s regime was likely to be seen favorably. However, any move to influence decision making to benefit the predominantly Black or Latino sections of Los Angeles would have lead to controversy, due to the simple principle that when one area gains something another area misses out. With Bradley’s non-confrontational style, it was unlikely that he would put up a fight for development projects to take place in South Central or Watts, regardless of what his own personal visions were for Los Angeles. The Bradley story is an appropriate personal history from which to better understand the unusual, unconventional meaning of class in the African American community. By all accounts, Bradley’s history is a typical background for a Los Angeles, African American man. He was bom in Texas, the son of a poor sharecropping family and he spent some time in a large city in the South (Dallas, Texas) before moving to Los Angeles. He also lived in the Central Avenue ghetto and watched his father desert the family— all the while being supportive of his mother who worked as a domestic. This is a common, personal history for an African American living in Los Angeles during his generation. 228 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. However, this man rose to become the first African American mayor of one of the largest cities in America. Bradley was obviously of humble origins, yet while in office he became a symbol of the more bourgeoisie elements of Los Angeles’s Black society. Bradley became synonymous with the “elite” Westside district of West Adams and the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills, and not so much with the Central Avenue community of his early years. This disconnect is a product of the massive intra-city migration which Black Los Angeles experienced in the 1950s and 1960s. As the population shifted in geographic location, the regional identity of Black Los Angelenos shifted as well. As detailed in the previous chapter, by the late 1970s, the Crenshaw-Baldwin-Hills area had become the new center of the Black community. What had started out as a place of refuge, where middle class Blacks could enjoy a higher standard of living became the new social and cultural center for African Americans of all social classes—just like Central Avenue had been in earlier periods. The tendency for the Bradley regime to neglect Los Angeles’s African American community was facilitated by the solid support that Bradley continued to receive from much of the Black electorate, regardless of that voter’s residence area. One reason Bradley continued tp receive so much support was the nature of the urban political decision making process. Important issues are often resolved at the elite level, behind closed doors, so the average Black voter did not have a clue as to what was going on between Bradley and those who were part of the citywide coalition. His symbolic value as “one of our own,” allowed Bradley to remain extremely popular among the Black electorate even though he failed to protect 229 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. African American interests. Bradley failed to take a firm stance on several divisive racially charged issues—such as school busing. In the early I970’s, federal attention was drawn to the extreme levels of segregation in Los Angeles schools. As was the case in other cities, mandatory busing was considered. The court battles over this issue continued late into the 1970’s. Of course, busing was seen as undesirable to many of Los Angeles’s White residents, including Bradley’s Jewish coalition partners. Although the judge hearing the case requested that Bradley act as a community leader in the resolution of this issue, he remained silent (Barker 1990, 171). Prior to the 1977 election, in a move that gave indications that the Bradley regime had already shifted towards conservatism, Bradley came out strongly against massive cross-town busing, because it would strain the city’s budget and be an emotionally draining experience (Payne and Ratzan 1986, 187). During the 1980s, Los Angeles’s Black community continued to experience social disorder. Especially for Black youth, Los Angeles became an increasingly dangerous society to live in. Although direct discrimination and racism against African Americans had been declining since the 1960s, by the 1980s the structures of expectations that Los Angeles Black youth lived under continued to be entirely different from youth of other ethnic groups. Years of forced isolation and separate institutionalization forced upon African Americans left after-effects that continued to linger throughout the decade of the 1980s. 230 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. On one hand, African Americans continued to experience symbolic social gains such as the continued mayoralty of Thomas Bradley and the presidential candidacies of Jesse Jackson. As the 1980s progressed. Black youth, both in the inner city and suburban Black settlement areas seemed to be growing further and further out of control socially. Gang violence in Los Angeles reached record levels in the 1980s and many of the victims were African American youths. Gang killings increased from an already high 355 deaths in 1980 to 690 deaths by 1990 as increasing numbers of youth became gang members in the 1970s and 1980s (Alonso, 1999). The social fabric of the heart of the Los Angeles Black community was tom in the early 1980s by youth violence. For example in an article entitled “Gang Violence Soars in City." a businessman whose building and car were vandalized complains: The community has to be cleaned up. But we’ve got to get some help, we can’t do it ourselves [...] . We need police protection to get these kids off the block because they’re bad. The parents don’t care. The kids run the streets sometimes 20 to a gang. The popularity of joining gangs and the influence that gangs have had on the Los Angeles Black community continued to increase during the 1980s. By 1983, the problem had gotten so bad that the municipal government sought federal help (L. A. Sentinel. February 10, 1983). In the mid-late 1980s, youth violence in Los Angeles reached epic levels after the knowledge of techniques for making “crack” cocaine became widely available. In the 1990s, suspicion arose that there was a C.I.A./Contra-Crack connection. The news was first brought to light by a series entitled “Dark Alliance.” 231 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A reporter at the San Jose Mercury, Webb’s series showed how, with the support of the CIA, money was raised for the Nicaraguan Contras through the sale of crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles. The mainstream press who either ignored or quickly debunked it silenced the story. The tendency for the mainstream press to gnore or make light of the allegations against the CIA and the Contras was not surprising. Given the fact that a Black teenager started the crack cocaine industry in South Central Los Angeles, and built an empire on gang turfs in the Black community. This type of subject held little interest for most Americans who view Black urban ghettos as dangerous, alien places. The mainstream media was not interested in getting to the roots of the crack epidemic, and instead mainstream focus remained fixated on the violence and Black on Black crime, with body counts appearing on the evening news. During the 1980s, the media and local authorities (Black and White) viewed and/or portrayed youth criminality associated with Los Angeles’s crack cocaine epidemic as a * ‘war.” The gang related violence on the streets of Los Angeles is indeed a war, and the common denominator in each battle is drugs. So say the Los Angeles Police Dept [...]. It is a bloody war. The casualty count from the gang-related violence over a five day period ending last Sunday numbered eight dead, including a gang member who was killed by his own gang, and thirty people were injured, including a three year old boy who was shot, and two members of a news camera crew who were covering a rd gang-motivated incident.... On 43 Street near Vermont Avenue [ ...] residents of the area say that more than 50 rounds of gunfire exploded as rival gangs shot it out with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a variety of weapons, including the illegal AKC-45 semi automatic assault rifle (L. A. Sentinel July 20 1989). Although the petty conflicts between teen street-gangs caught the media’s attention, there was a lot more happening under the surface. The police and other law enforcement authorities were active in the Black community in many ways that did not do anything to combat gangs. Rather, many of the actions and tactics of the L.A.P.D. and other authorities served only to further inflame the feelings of injustice within the Black community. The actual percentage of Los Angeles’s young Black community who were actively involved in street gangs was very small in most parts of the county. However, the gang and drug problem in inner city Los Angeles was constantly thrust into the newspapers and onto television screens of people all over the nation. LAPD actions to stop the youth turf wars were seen as anything but heroic by many African Americans. For many in the Los Angeles African American community, gangs were seen as an excuse by the police to brutalize non-gang affiliated Blacks. There is evidence to support this notion: Apartment Owners Sue Over L.A.P.D. Sweeps The owners of a Los Angeles apartment damaged nearly a year ago in police gang sweep filed a S10 million dollar suit last week, claiming police destroyed property out of a bias against Blacks [ ...]. The suit, brought by Cheri and Henry Lang, is one several brought by neighbors claiming their homes were trashed while they were beaten and humiliated during the raids on Aug 1. (L. A. Sentinel July 20, 1989). An example of how inner city problems have spread into the suburban Black communities in Los Angeles County can be found in Alonso’s, (1999) work on Black gangs in Los Angeles County. 233 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 26 above shows Alonso’s distribution of Black gangs in Los Angeles County. Compare this map with Figure 21 that shops the population and class distribution of Blacks within Los Angeles County in 1990. Notice how all of the suburban areas that are home to concentrated settlements of African Americans (i.e., Duarte, West Covina, Pasadena/Altadena, Pacoima, Paramount and Pomona) are also places that have Black gang territories. Black gangs have been associated with poverty by Alonso (1999) and others. The emergence of Black gang territories in most of the popular destinations for Black out-movement to the suburbs (i.e. Pasadenea/Altadena, Pacoima, Pomona, and West Covina etc.) demonstrates the connections that persist between suburbanized African Americans and the core community of South Los Angeles. The dichotomy within Los Angeles is not that of an inner city underclass that was “left behind” as the talented middle class moved away to the suburbs. Instead, if there is any dichotomy to be drawn, it must be drawn between the apparent increasing social freedom for African Americans, accompanied by increasing failure of many to realize this opportunity as violence and social disorder continued to plague the Los Angeles Black community throughout the late twentieth century. Unlike in earlier periods, such as the 1940s, contemporary Black Los Angelenos are not easily mobilized around the problems confronting the community. In earlier periods, as for example, in the case of struggle around residential race restrictions in housing, the goals of the struggle, and the identity of the “enemy” were clear. 234 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IsJ u > U t L p * 1 S <5* 3 i re re • • V. K> £ O' ? * * a a C O S © 6 5 5 r vo <n ' O 6 3 £ £ •1 o 3. re t / > r ► n o e vo ve 9\ CHATSWORTH SANTA CLARITA SAN FERNANDO Ventura County NORTHRIDGE ♦ TUJUNGA PACOIMA VAN NUYS WOODLAND HILLS /A G O U R A HILLS TOPANGA BURBANK MALIBU BEVERLY HILLS PACIFIC PALISADES LQ5 ANGELES SANTA^ MONICA ' (j il v e r a r c Pacific Ocean V E N IS m+ ING LI ELSEGl^DflA W IH * 3 j | ; MANHATTAN BEACH MERMOSABEACH REDONDO BEACH^ TORRANC Black gang territories 1996 GARDENA* LA CANADA FlINTRIDGE GLENDALE ■ TA D EN A M0NR0V|A \PA SA D E N A DUARTE GLENDORA ARCADIA * LA VERNE ALHAMBRA SAN DIMAS EL MONTE f MONTEREY PARK WEST COVINA - MONTEBELLO PICO RIVERA POMONA BELL tfOUTH GATE OOD AMOUNT LA PUENTE , San Bernardino WHITTIER LAKEWOOD, l£> BREACH Rivei Orange County |y | In today’s Black Los Angeles, the situation is murkier. The roots of Black inter-class conflict lie in the racial and class identity conflicts that all African Americans have confronted throughout their tenure in United States metropolitan areas, and continuing into the twenty first century. In doing this research, it has become clear that, regardless of their economic and social class position, many urban African American’s lives remain proscribed by a set of well- institutionalized, socially constructed circumstances that lie far beyond the control of individuals to change in their short lifetimes. As pointed out by the early Black sociologists working in the pre-World War II era. the separate institutional world of African Americans has lost its meaning for many in urban America, yet it still remains the overriding influence over the lives of many urban Blacks. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII Conclusion The research carried out here suggests that there is a need for a reconsideration of currently accepted conceptualizations of Black urban life. Rather than explore the issue of Black inter-class interaction, many scholars and authors have tended to instead base their understanding of urban Blacks on the flawed premise that suburbanized middle class Blacks have moved away and “left behind” the poor disorganized minions of the fictitious “Black underclass” in a way that precludes any further interaction between the two groups. For most middle class Blacks, wherever they live, the fact that many of them continue to have family members living in “the ghetto” coupled with the fact that many “underclass” individuals live in suburban Black concentration zones ensures that interaction will continue to occur between different segments of the class hierarchy in the urban Black community. This assumption has been damaging, as the assumption that “all was well” with middle class and upper income African Americans means that for many scholars, the focus they deemed important was urban Blacks living in impoverished conditions. This narrow approach did not provide answers to the complex historically constructed geographical and social relationships that now influence life for Black dwellers of America’s metropolises. This study set out to address the identified gaps and shortcomings in the existing literature on African Americans living in American urban areas. The research was divided into two parts, a quantitative and a qualitative section. Important findings came out of both analyses. 237 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Quantitative Findings The quantitative analysis demonstrated that: l)For the most part, Los Angeles area African Americans remain concentrated in a few areas of the county and 2)as late as 1990, the clear majority of middle class African Americans have not achieved geographical separation from low status Black areas, implying likely potential for continuance of contact between the “middle class” and the “underclass.” Black suburbanization has tended to be class heterogenious and not class selective in the Los Angeles region. Black residents are slowly redistributing themselves away from the historical core areas of the Black ghetto. However, the class heterogeneity of the ghetto has tended to follow Blacks out to the suburbs. Especially when one considers the Black community in relation to the home values and rental prices of the areas that African Americans live in, there has been considerable and persistent concentration over time into Los Angeles county. Much of the suburbanization that has occurred in the region has taken place in one of a few real estate industry targeted suburban “Black friendly” communities. Places in Los Angeles county that have experienced large scale Black in-movement fall into two categories. The first category is the most common. Ghetto spillover describes the majority of Black population growth. As described in chapter five, places at Western and Southern sections of the existing ghetto experienced rapid turnover, with communities going from virtually all White to virtually all Black in a ten year span. Compton, Inglewood, Lynwood and, the Crenshaw district are all ghetto spillover communities. Penetration into 238 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. these areas was spearheaded by wealthier “pioneers” however the arrival of these more well off Blacks was reacted to by White flight, opening up the way for other class occupants, who were more likely to have poor educational skills and thus remain more marginalized from the mainstream. The continuance of class heterogeneity, even in suburbanized Black communities, perpetuates the marginalization of African American urbanites. The second category includes more distant places that have experienced heavy Black influx, yet are not at the edge of the ghetto, are the suburban Black communities of Los Angeles county including Pasadena. Pomona, Pacoima, West Covina, Carson, Gardena and Hawthorne. The first four are all a good distance from the traditional Black areas. Pasadena, Pomona and Pacoima are all examples of the first wave of Black out-movement to the deep suburbs. All three opened up to large scale Black settlement in the 1950s and were all politically open to limited Black homeownership in designated areas. The large number of returning Black servicemen who had VA/FHA loans created the need for tract homes to meet the demands of the many Black service families seeking home ownership. These more distant early suburban communities have taken on a separateness of their own, and in becoming steadily more Black and Latino, have all experienced a steady decline in social status within all the areas originally targeted for middle and upper income Blacks. As the flow of Black homeseekers has dwindled. Latino immigrants have filled the void, thus ensuring these area’s continued isolation.. 239 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. As the Los Angeles Black community lived through the final quarter of the twentieth century, the occupational and residential characteristics, along with their territorial expression grew increasingly diverse. However, black suburbanization has been characterized by residential clustering in certain communities and increasing class heterogeneity of the black residents living in these places. These geographical patterns, which are borne out of the state of social relations between Blacks, Whites and other ethnic groups have fostered the development of new urban territorial identities that are connected to suburban Black residential areas. Certain suburban communities i.e Claremont. Riverside and Moreno Valley have witnessed the development of hostile relationships between Black youth and police, leading to officer involved killings of Black teens. These killings are egregious in nature, with unarmed or unresponsive teens dying in a hail of bullets from a scared suburban cop. Qualitative findings The social isolation and territorial restrictions which Black Americans have experienced in urban settings has fomented the development of an alternative social reality which many urban African Americans continue to cycle through sometimes without full knowledge of the limitations placed on them by various socially constructed institutions. Many people have settled into a pattern in which they unwittingly participate in institutions and sets of social practices that act to perpetuate the continuance of the alternate social reality. The influence of Black urban social reality crosses all class lines and can envelop a even a 240 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. seemingly “assimilated” Black American’s life rapidly and without warning. As the Black community gained new social and territorial rights, the internal social organization of the Black community was forced to change along with this changing geography. Results from the more qualitative analysis of archival literature revealed that the Los Angeles Black community of the post 1960 Civil Rights era suffered through a reduction in the ability of institutions such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Urban League, Black newspaper editors, Black churches and other community groups to rally the Black community across class lines, in the shared struggle for civil rights. In the post 1960 era, the effectiveness of such community mass mobilization groups has waned. Although traditional Negro institutions are still influential, there are new power structures impacting life for urban African Americans. Post 1970 economic successes in the sports/entertainment complex, by African American athletes, singers and actors have set the super-income status that entertainers and athletes enjoy as the standard for Black achievement. These high profile celebrities, stand in sharp contrast to the masses of the urban Black population, whose lives are still constrained by the legacy of past discrimination and territorial isolation. Study Limitations This study was driven by the need to verify empirically whether the concept that Black class polarization is the dominant force in the proliferation of inner city problems or not. With that aim. a methodology was chosen which 241 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. gave the best opportunity to learn the answer to the above question. The use of census data and archival newspapers as a methodology leaves open questions that would require different methodologies to answer. Specifically, it was impossible to gather very much information on the types of interactions that occurred at the street level between different class strata in the urban Black community and how those relationships were transformed in the post Civil Rights period. Although it it difficult to deny that Black inter-class group contact is an important part of urban life. The nature of the relationships that form, and the social outcomes of those relationships remain unclear. Addressing these issues will require a different, more ethnographic based methodology that would include some type of survey instrument designed to get feedback from the community. Implications and Suggestions for Future Research. It appears that a fruitful direction which Black urban studies can now follow is to conduct studies of interaction between Blacks of different class strata. There is a necessity for a subtle shift in the research agenda away from the Black poor. The characteristics of non-poor urban Black needs more explicit consideration, both socially and spatially. Scant data exists on the social networks used by contemporary urban Blacks of all class statuses, both in the inner city, as well as the suburbs. Evidence suggests that new forms of social capital have replaced traditional Black organizations. This is especially true for the youth. The rise of the sports/entertainment/music industrial complex, and its 242 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. increasing importance in the overall economy of Black Americans has snowballed since the 1970s, and demands a fresh look at the way that social capital operates for urban African Americans. Geographical shifts have played a large role in changing social dynamic of Los Angeles African American communities. The migration from South to North, and now intra-urban migration within the same metropolitan area have reshaped the regional identities of Black metro area residents. As the older generation passes on, the remembrance of life in the Jim Crow South and the great migration passes with them. The core Black culture, forged in gross injustice is no longer preserved as a beacon for Black youth. The geography of African-Americans in United States metropolitan areas has transformed from the early condition of strict segregation into a few small zones of the city. Now, many metropolitan areas have suburbanized African Americans. However, the common conception that suburbanization is accompanied by economic fortune does not hold for suburban African Americans. Instead much of the suburbanization of African Americans seems to be targeted into a few class homogenious “Black friendly” communities. These communities often are places of general population flux as well. A study which addresses geographical variations in the way that Black youth interact with one another is the logical next step in the research. It is time to develop a research agenda which does not ignore Black inter-class relationships and which explicitly considers their geographies. The findings of this study have heightened understanding of the 243 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Black urban situation, but there is much that remains unclear. From what we know about past and present real estate and housing practices. Many sections of the metropolitan area remain off limits the specific racial and/or ethnic groups. Contemporary real estate practices continue to use “racial steering” practices in an overt fashion. In Los Angeles, mainstream real estate agencies, have few if any Black employees and do not include property listings in Black communities. These listings can only be found only via a few brokerages/agencies that specialize in ghetto listings, or listed in the newspapers of the Black Press. Real estate practitioners continue to use covert tactics to deny Blacks access to housing. The ongoing social engineering efforts that vast numbers African Americans are subjected to have had an impact upon the collective psyche and brought about disillusionment and anger. Poor schools, and the interaction of children at those schools is a major problem facing urban Black communities. However, this highly geographical problem remains poorly conceptualized. A possible method for better understanding this problem is to gain a better understanding of urban Black social networks and how they operate geographically. Some have argued that one of the main problems in urban Black communities is the loss of civic participation and a reduction in social capital. This loss of social capital has been linked to the out-movement of middle and upper class African Americans out of the core ghetto, because as they move they take their social capital with them. A problem with the social capital notion is that 244 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. most studies have assumed that the benefits of tight knit community social networks are only positive. The research here indicates that depending on the situation, abundant social capital can also have a negative impact. In the history of the development of the Los Angeles Black community, social capital can be observed working as both a positive force, as in the case of the people rallying around the struggle to break restrictive housing covenants, as well as a negative force, as in the case of Crip or Blood street gang alliances. Both instances involve community organizing and working together for a shared goal, but the difference lies in the purpose of the organizing efforts. Social networks are at the core of human geographical pattern and processes. The history of hostile social relations between African American and whites remains the dominant force shaping life for African Americans in United Stated metro areas. In many cities however, the institutionalization of Black life is so shrouded by history and attempts at cover up. that many African Americans have lost knowledge of how the present day situation came about. In the twenty-first century American city, immigrants to the metropolitan area find themselves embroiled in the hostile climate proscribed so long ago between Whites and Blacks. The new urban immigrants are mostly from Central America, the Caribbean Region and Asia-Pacifica and the Former Soviet Empire’s regional sphere, and to a lesser extent the “Old World” of Africa and Europe. They must fit into the post-Civil Rights era city, an era when immigrant rights are being challenged as well. 245 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Our understanding of that dynamic cohort of African Americans living in cities must expand to include more empirical knowledge of how community setting influences interaction between those of the same as well as between those of different ethnicities. Community processes remains poorly understood, especially when it comes to ethnic relations. It is hoped that this research contributes to the literature, and more importantly, initiates a platform for further inquiry into the issue. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen James, and Turner, E. 1996. “Ethnic Diversity in the New Los Angeles.” Chapter 1 in Roseman, Curtis et al. 1996. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Robinson, Paul Langham (author)

Core Title *Class and place within the Los Angeles African American community, 1940--1990

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Geography

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Geography,History, Black,history, United States,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, ethnic and racial studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Roseman, Curtis (committee chair), Preston, Michael B. (committee member), Wolch, Jennifer (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-161840

Unique identifier UC11334711

Identifier 3054797.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-161840 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3054797-0.pdf

Dmrecord 161840

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Robinson, Paul Langham

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA