The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the lost African-American Renaissance

Abstract

This revelatory social history resurrects a largely forgotten era in African American history, and discovers a hugely influential scene, which spawned, among other things, civil rights movement, rhythm and blues and hip-hop. The Great Black Way is a book about an unheralded era in American history, a time when forbidden seemed possible. It is about 1940's African American Los Angeles, a period unknown by those who weren't there, but whose impact is ubiquitous today. It is about a decade of race riots and revelry in streets; of protest and a new way of walking. Those who lived it experienced a cultural flowering and a sense that a race was making unprecedented progress. And when moment was over, many hopes and lives were swept away by it. Central Avenue was Great Black Way, Main Stem. It was heart of Southern Californian black enclave, a settlement as old as city itself. Blacks had been among original settlers in LA, but by 20th century a de facto Jim Crow system confined them to life within a few small areas of city. By 1920s, Central Avenue was black business and entertainment corridor, and in 40s threat of world war, and opening up of California's burgeoning defence industry to black workers, led to a massive wave of black migration and a corresponding cultural ferment in arts, culture and politics. It was here that rhythm and blues was spawned - in ferment of Little Tokyo, emptied of its Japanese residents and packed by mid-decade with black musicians, independent labels and after-hours spots. Chester Himes fathered black detective novel and a noir sensibility. Black comics took off minstrel blackface for first time and addressed audiences directly with socially-tinged humour. And, Smith argues, civil rights movement actually got its start on Central Avenue, where strategy of building mass movements and giving power to ghetto dwellers gained favour in opposition to top-down strategies of groups like NAACP and Urban League. Harlem's Renaissance had been driven by intellectual elite; a group WEB DuBois called The Talented Tenth. But in LA, a new sense of black identity was arising from street level; and DuBois called LA's cultural leaders the Debauched Tenth. Much that we take for granted today, from hip-hop and slang to modern-day street fashion, all flowed from 1940s scene along Great Black Way.