L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies)
Josh SidesA clear-eyed & compelling look at black struggles for equality in L.A.'s neighborhoods, schools, & workplaces from the Great Depression to our day, L.A. City Limits critically refocuses the ongoing debate about the origins of America's racial & 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, & dynamic postwar economy often created opportunities--and limits--quite different from those encountered by blacks in the urban North.
Josh Sides is Whitsett Professor of California History, & Director of the Center for Southern California Studies, at California State University, Northridge.