In Compton, white homeowners guarded their community by introducing several restrictions in 1921: Real estate brokers' license could be revoked for integrating the neighborhood, and the Federal Housing Administration flatly denied loans in areas not covered by covenants as a matter of policy. Real estate planning boards and developers saw racially restrictive covenants as a peaceful and progressive alternative to the violent real estate conflicts. Photo coutresy of the Los Angeles Public Library, Shades of LA collection. Woman stands in front of a home at 48th Place and Compton Avenue. Unfortunately the case only dealt with legal statutes, leaving the door open for alternative agreements such as restrictive covenants, which served to perpetuate residential segregation on private properties. Warley, declared municipally mandated racial zoning unconstitutional. In 1917, the Supreme Court ruling of Buchanan vs. This violent reaction to Blacks' presence in white communities echoed across the nation as the Great Migration transformed cities in the North and West. White gangs in South Gate and Huntington Park confronted Blacks who dared to travel through their area. Whites resorted to bombing, firing into, and burning crosses on the lawns of Black family homes in areas south of Slauson.
But soon the white residents began to feel that too many Blacks were moving in - a perceived threat to their property values - and thus began a devastating transformation in the area.Įarlier in Los Angeles - before the 1950s - suburbs fighting integration often became sites of significant racial violence. At the time Compton was predominately Caucasian and, for a time, Blacks peacefully coexisted with their white neighbors. Take Marie Hollis for instance, an Oklahoma native who in 1967 moved west to a quiet block in Compton with nearby flower gardens to escape the crime and density of the slums. Unlike the congested and deteriorating properties of South Central Los Angeles, working-class suburbs like Compton allowed Blacks to raise their families in manicured homes with space enough for livestock and petting farms. The Great Migration: Creating a New Black Identity in Los AngelesĪs manufacturing labor from the Great Migration afforded skilled Black migrants a middle-class income, the previously unattainable suburban Southern California dream became closer to reality.
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