Black people began moving to Los Angeles in large numbers in the first half of the twentieth century; in the 1940s, they flooded to the area in response to a labor demand in the automobile, rubber, and steel industries. But racially restrictive housing covenants written into property deeds ensured that the city was segregated. In this period, South Central LA was one of the only areas where black people were allowed to buy. Even after the covenants were declared unconstitutional in 1948, a practice known as “redlining” still made it almost impossible for a black person to obtain a bank loan or insurance policy.
A BLACK CULTURAL HUB
Central Avenue
In response to these sanctions, black people did what they do so well and created a thriving community. It was the heyday of Central Avenue as a Jazz District, known as the West Coast Harlem. Restaurants, music venues, and nightclubs stretched all the way from Pico to Slauson between the 1920s to the early 1960s. Places like the Lincoln Theater and Club Alabam made history. When jazz luminaries like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lester Young visited Los Angeles, they would stay at the Dunbar Hotel, at 43rd and Central.
