L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present

by Josh Sides

In 1964 an Urban League survey ranked Los Angeles as the most desirable city for African Americans to live in. In 1965 the city burst into flames during one of the worst race riots in the nation's history. How the city came to such a pass―embodying both the best and worst of what urban America offered black migrants from the South―is the story told for the first time in this history of modern black Los Angeles. A clear-eyed and compelling look at black struggles for equality in L.A.'s neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces from the Great Depression to our day, L.A. City Limits critically refocuses the ongoing debate about the origins of America's racial and urban crisis.

Challenging previous analysts' near-exclusive focus on northern "rust-belt" cities devastated by de-industrialization, Josh Sides asserts that the cities to which black southerners migrated profoundly affected how they fared. He shows how L.A.'s diverse racial composition, dispersive geography, and dynamic postwar economy often created opportunities―and limits―quite different from those encountered by blacks in the urban North.

Genres: History

304 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2003

About the author

Josh Sides is a Professor of History and Director for the Center for Southern California Studies at the California State University Northridge.

Reviews

[Addy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first saw the title of this book, I assumed the “L.A. City Limits” referred to the geographical boundaries of Los Angeles proper. Upon finishing this very thoroughly researched book, however, I came to realize the title served to also show how the urbanization of Los Angeles led to certain limitations for its African-American residents; a trend reflected in many American urban centers today.
This was not an easy read. Obviously the subject matter is difficult to process. It was very frustrating for me to read about promising policies and programs that were introduced at the beginning of a chapter, only to have the rug pulled out from under me when these same policies and programs either were not passed, turned out to be less effective than planned, or had impacts that proved to be equal parts encouraging and demoralizing (an example used in the book: in 1983, after years of battling discrimination in the Bethlehem Steel factory, three black employees “received a favorable settlement...one year after they had permanently lost their jobs when the...plant closed down”).
The other difficult aspect of this novel for me personally was how dense it was. It is just barely over 200 pages long, and yet each page is full of so many meticulously collected statistics, I had to proceed very slowly to process it all. I greatly enjoyed the few moments where the author allowed the voices of people he interviewed for this book to come through, but unfortunately for me, those moments were few and far between.
This book reminded me a lot of a book in a similar vein; Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon. Though neither book presents topics that are easy to talk about (nor is the writing style anything but strictly academic), they challenge the generally taught narrative that the African-American experience was a positive one as soon as slavery was abolished. Because this myth continues to close the minds of people who are only taught one perspective on history, I think books like L.A City Limits should be a requirement so that we as Americans can fully understand the diverse (and unbalanced) truths in our past and our present.

[Yvonne Ellett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A MUST READ FOR ALL LOS ANGELES RESIDENTS


I didn't read this book for a class. I read it because I'm a born/raised Los Angeles resident who is interested in all things Los Angeles.

What I found was a compelling history of the native and transplanted


African-American population of my city. It dispelled a lot of the myth I'd grown up hearing (from both Whites and Blacks). It put some of what I'd witnessed as a child through adulthood into context. "L.A. City Limits..." made it clear that L.A. is not a friendly city to its minorities. The city tolerates, at best, even today. While the core of L.A. success has always been to ignore one's circumstances to reinvent oneself, this book offers historical fact for why that's been nearly impossible for the city's African-Americans.

The broader information in this book trails off in the late-70's, mirroring the demise of L.A.'s manufacturing base. So, while Mr. Sides makes mention of the '92 Rodney King riots, there's no in depth study of its aftermath here. In fact, the last chapter left me wanting much more because this book provides such a powerful illustration of the African-American population prior to the 80's.

"L.A. City Limits:..." is written in a clear, informative style and shouldn't be daunting to a casual non-fiction reader. This is a no-less difficult read than a fact-based L.A. Weekly article. L.A. is a huge geographical region where residents still reside in some form of segregation, retained like "traffic memory" from a sunrise accident on the 101 affects the same location at Noon.

[jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really clear book that outlines the history of african americans in los angeles (from the harbor to south central to the valley) and how different economic & social factors have impacted migration & development. i appreciate how Sides weaves in personal narratives of african american residents & their reflections on where/how they live in los angeles. there's a lot about the exit of african americans from south central due to greater opportunities in other areas, but this always makes me wonder: what about the people who remain? i also wonder if out-migration from south central today is more about expanding opportunities vs. gentrification/displacement in today's context. anyways, super clear and helpful!!!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solidly researched history, one of the first to highlight the fact that there was not one typical African American urban experience, and the ways in which the L.A. experience (without any of the superlative claims of the 'LA School' -- with which it doesn't interact really) differed from those considered more typical, drawn from studies of New York, Chicago, and Detroit. He argues that

The pursuit or equality and opportunity in Los Angeles has been shaped by at least three distinctive features of the city's history: its diverse racial composition, its dynamic economic growth, and its dispersive spatial arrangement.

At times I wanted more sustained detail, this is a big picture book running from WWII to the 1970s more or less that zooms in on a few examples bringing them into more focus, but I still found myself wishing for a little more depth. The sections on labour are perhaps the best, I definitely would have liked more about the various struggles and the present seems nowhere near as detailed as the past, but as an overarching history it does a fairly good job of bringing the different threads together.

[Josh Fogelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good academic book on blacks in LA from roughly 1920-1970. The book is 200 pages long but as it only covers 50 years it is very detailed- which is good and bad. Many examples of specific people's experiences to punctuate his overarching themes. I learned a lot from this book, even if I had to wade through the boring parts to get to the parts worth remembering.

La city limits page numbers

119
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126-127
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168-172
175-176
179-180
182-183
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194-96
201-05

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sides offers an excellent survey of African American Los Angeles, but his coverage begins to suffer in the late 70's. Although the book's title promises analysis to the present, 1980 to the present is put into a short epilogue. The book is very clear to point out its focus will not be on African American culture, isntead given its size and scope it focuses on issues important to the African American experience such as Housing, Jobs, and Civil Rights.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great resource about the history of black LA.