Past and Present: The effects of Segregated Housing

The history of housing and work in Southern California has had a profound impact on the region’s history and development. Beginning in World War Two, the aerospace, manufacturing and electronics industries grew rapidly. Due to their growth, over 700,000 african american workers migrated to Los Angeles between the 1940’s and 1970’s, to work in the factories. Due to such a large influx of people, housing developers in Los Angeles began constructing more houses and developing the land in areas like Compton or Huntington Park. It’s important to note that these areas were predominantly white at the time, and African Americans living in these same neighborhoods troubled the white population. Before that 2nd Great Migration, Blacks and Hispanics were located in very specific areas. White gangs or groups such as the KKK started to terrorise the Black and Latino communities in incidents like the Zoot Suit riots.

These racial tensions further divided Los Angeles and as a result may people moved to suburbs located just outside of L.A, in places such as Lakewood. There private agreements between homeowners and the FHA essentially barred African Americans from purchasing a house there. Even the City of Compton which is today well known as a majority non-white city was initially only white, and it took until 1952 before housing developments began to be sold to non-whites. Many of the white people in Compton were against this change, to the extent that the city council considered public housing projects to be: “Negro Housing”, going so far as to keep the African American population “North of 130 street”. As we can see the population was opposed to an influx of African Americans in the neighborhood and subsequently moved to the suburbs. By the time the Fair Housing Act was enacted in 1968 it was too late, the communities were separated and the damage had been done. 

With the decline of the manufacturing and factory work provided by the defense industry led to high unemployment rates, which helped promote the gangs created from the crumbling Black Panther Party. Initially these gangs started off with the intention to help the community, but ended up separating communities even more through violence. Hatred and unrest towards the whites grew, as they largely ignored the situation at hand. Nothing was done to integrate communities and the hatred between them grew. Unfulfilled campaign promises and neglect of the communities fostered the divide and anger for whites. In a segregated society, the unrest between different groups is a result of the lack of discourse that exists. Ultimately, these racial tensions from an overtly racist housing policy that kept communities segregated aggravated and exacerbated the response to the Rodney King trial and the subsequent civil unrest.


-Nicolas Menand