History of African Americans in Los Angeles

The History of African Americans in Los Angeles includes significant contributions in the arts and culture, science, education, architecture and politics.
Spain and Mexico.
In 1781, the early non-Indian settlers in Los Angeles included two black people and eight mixed (black/white) people.
Pío Pico, California's last governor under Mexican rule, was of mixed Spanish, Native American, and African ancestry. Pico spent his last days in Los Angeles, dying in 1894 at the home of his daughter Joaquina Pico Moreno in Los Angeles. He was buried in the old Calvary Cemetery in downtown Los Angeles.
Post-Mexican era.
Blacks and mulattoes did not face legal discrimination until after California was handed over to the United States in 1848. Many white Southerners who came to California during the Gold Rush brought with them racist attitudes and ideals. In 1850, there were twelve black people registered as residents of Los Angeles. Because many blacks were enslaved until abolition in 1865, few blacks migrated to Los Angeles before then. Due to the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad and a settlement increase in 1880, increasing numbers of blacks came to Los Angeles. By 1900, 2,131 African-Americans, the second largest black population in California, lived in Los Angeles.
In 1872, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles (First A.M.E. or FAME) was established under the sponsorship of Biddy Mason, an African American nurse and a California real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist, and her son-in-law Charles Owens. The church now has a membership of more than 19,000 individuals.
20th Century.
The presences of the Southern Pacific and Transcontinental railroads meant that Los Angeles had a relatively high African-American population for a city in the Western United States; in 1910 it had 7,599 African-Americans. The first branch of the NAACP in California was established in Los Angeles in 1913.
Housing segregation was a common practice in the early 20th century. Many private property deeds explicitly banned owners from selling to anyone but caucasians.
The African-American population did not significantly increase during the first Great Migration. From approximately 1920 to 1955, Central Avenue was the heart of the African-American community in Los Angeles, with active rhythm and blues and jazz music scenes.
Jazz legend Charles Mingus was born in Los Angeles in 1922. Raised largely in the Watts area of Los Angeles, he recorded in a band in Los Angeles in the 1940s.
Central Avenue had two all-black segregated fire stations. Fire Station No. 30 and Fire Station No. 14 were segregated in 1924. They remained segregated until 1956 when the Los Angeles Fire Department was integrated. The listing on the National Register says, "All-black fire stations were simultaneous representations of racial segregation and sources of community pride." In 1928, World War I veteran William J. Powell founded the Bessie Coleman Aero Club. In 1931, Powell organized the first all-black air show in the United States for the Club in Los Angeles, an event that drew 15,000 visitors. Powell also established a school to train mechanics and pilots.
World War II brought the Second Great Migration, tens of thousands of African American migrants, mostly from Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas, who left segregated Southern states in search of better opportunities in California. The African-American population significantly increased in the Second Great Migration of the 1940s as area factories received labor for the effort in World War II. In 1940 the black population was 63,700.
William Parker became police chief in 1952. He largely refused to hire Black police officers. During most of his tenure, those already on the force were prohibited from having white partners.
The 1965 Watts Riots were triggered by the arrest of a 21-year-old black man named Marquette Frye at 116th Street and Avalon Boulevard for driving drunk. A torrent of built-up rage erupted in the streets of Watts and South Los Angeles. An investigating commission found that the African American citizens felt they had been denied respect and endured substandard housing, education and medical care. The King-Drew Hospital in Willowbrook opened in 1972 as a response to the area having inadequate and insufficient hospital facilities.
In 1972, Wattstax, also known as the "Black-Woodstock," took place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Over 100,000 black residents of Los Angeles attended this concert for African American pride. Later, in 1973, a documentary was released about the concert.
In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as Mayor of Los Angeles, a role he'd hold for 20 years. L.A.'s first African American mayor, Bradley served over five terms, prior to the establishment of successive term limits, making him the longest-serving mayor of Los Angeles.
In 1991, Rodney King was beaten by police officers. His videotaped beating was controversial, and heightened racial tensions in Los Angeles.
Just 13 days after the videotaped beating of King, a 15-year-old African-American girl named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by a 51-year-old Korean store owner named Soon Ja Du. A jury found Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter, an offense that carries a maximum prison sentence of 16-years. However, trial judge, Joyce Karlin, sentenced Du five years of probation, four hundred hours of community service, and a $500 fine.
When four Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted of charges associated with the beating of Rodney King, the decision led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
The trial of the O. J. Simpson murder case took place in 1994.
21st century.
In 2004, Singer-songwriter Ray Charles's music studio on Washington Blvd. was declared a historic landmark. He had moved to Los Angeles in 1950.
Geography and population.
1950s and 1960s.
Philip Garcia, a population specialist and the assistant director of institutional research for California State University, stated that a group of communities in South Los Angeles became African-American by the 1950s and 1960s. These communities were Avalon, Baldwin Hills,<ref name="laist.com 2007/08/17"></ref> Central, Exposition Park, Santa Barbara, South Vermont, Watts, and West Adams. Since then the Santa Barbara street was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. 98,685 blacks moved to Los Angeles in the period 1965 through 1970. During the same period 40,776 blacks moved out.
1970s and 1980s.
In 1970 there were 763,000 African-Americans in Los Angeles. They were the second largest minority group after the then estimated 815,000 Mexican-Americans. Los Angeles had the west coast's largest black population. Between 1975 and 1980, 96,833 blacks moved to Los Angeles while 73,316 blacks left Los Angeles. Over 5,000 of the blacks moved to the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area. About 2,000 to 5,000 blacks moved to the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Garden Grove area. James H. Johnson, a University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) associate professor of geography, stated that due to affordable housing, blacks tend to choose "what is called the balance of the counties" or cities neutral to the existing major cities. In the Inland Empire, blacks tended to move to Rialto instead of Riverside and San Bernardino.
Of the blacks who left the City of Los Angeles between 1975 and 1980 who moved away from the Los Angeles area, over 5,000 moved to the Oakland, California area, about 2,000-5,000 went to San Diego, about 1,000-2,000 went to Sacramento, and about 1,000 to 2,000 went to San Jose, California. About 500 to 1,000 blacks moved to Fresno, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Simi Valley, and Ventura. Johnson stated that the areas from Fresno to Ventura are "areas that traditionally blacks haven't settled in". Many blacks leaving Los Angeles who also California moved to cities in the U.S. South, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Little Rock, New Orleans, and San Antonio. Other cities receiving LA blacks include Chicago, New York City, and Las Vegas.
1990s.
In the late 1990s, many African Americans moved away from the traditional African-Americans neighborhoods, which overall reduced the black population of the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. Many African Americans moved to eastern Los Angeles suburbs in Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the Inland Empire, such as Moreno Valley. From 1980 to 1990 the Inland Empire had the United States's fastest-growing black population. Between the 1980 U.S. Census and the 1990 U.S. Census, the black population increased by 119%. As of 1990 the Inland Empire had 169,128 black people.
Many new African-American businesses appear in the Inland Empire, and many of these businesses have not been previously established elsewhere. The Inland Empire African American Chamber of Commerce began with six members in 1990 and the membership increased to 90 by 1996. According to Denise Hamilton of the "Los Angeles Times", as of 1996 "there has been no large-scale migration from the traditional black business districts such as Crenshaw, black business people say." During the 1990s, the black population of the Moreno Valley increased by 27,500, and by 1996 13% of Moreno Valley was African American.
In addition, in the 1990s many African Americans moved to cities and areas in north Los Angeles County such as Palmdale and Lancaster and closer-in cities in Los Angeles County such as Hawthorne and Long Beach. In the 1990s, the black population of Long Beach increased by 66,800.
21st Century.
In the 2019 Census, 9% of the Los Angeles County population identified as Black or African-American. 
In 2001, within the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Compton, Ladera Heights, and View Park had the highest concentration of blacks. The cities of Malibu and Newport Beach have the lowest concentrations of blacks. As of 2001, in the majority of cities within Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties had black populations below 10%. From 1990 to 2010 the population of Compton, previously African-American, changed to being about 66% Latino and Hispanic.
In the 2000s, new black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas have arrived in Los Angeles. Nigerians, Ethiopians, Ghanaians, Belizeans, Jamaicans, Haitians and Trinidadians are clustered in African-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
Culture.
The Compton Cowboys, a group of horseback riders, does so to avoid harassment from police and gangs and to promote a more positive Compton.
There are black owned soul food restaurants in Los Angeles. African Americans influenced West Coast hip hop with African American rappers such as Ice Cube and Dr Dre.
Notable people.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual.
In 2007, 4% of African-American adults in Los Angeles County identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.
Most black LGBTQ+ persons live in black neighborhoods. Of black LGB persons, 38% lived in South Los Angeles, 33% lived in the South Bay, and less than 1% lived in the Los Angeles Westside. Mignon R. Moore, the author of "Black and Gay in L.A.: The Relationships Black Lesbians and Gay Men Have to Their Racial and Religious Communities," wrote that black LGB people had a tendency to not have openness about their sexuality and to not discuss their sexuality, and also that "they were not a visible group in neighborhoods like Carson and Ladera Heights".