Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles Book

Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction Acts of Culture, or, Maybe the People Would Be the Times 1

Part I Cultural Democracy in the Racial Metropolis

1 Hollywood Scuffle: The Second World War, Los Angeles, and the Politics of Wartime Representation 21

2 The Negro as Human Being? Desegregation and the Black Arts Imperative 52

3 Writing Watts: The Rise and Fall of Cultural Liberalism 90

Part II Message from the Grassroots

4 Notes from the Underground: Free Jazz and Black Power in South Los Angeles 117

5 Studios in the Street: Creative Community and Visual Arts 153

6 The Arms of Criticism: The Cultural Politics of Urban Insurgency 187

Part III Festivals and Funerals

7 An Intimate Enemy: Culture and the Contradictions of Bradleyism 221

8 How to Survive in South Central: Black Film as Class Critique 250

Epilogue 283

Notes 291

Works Cited 329

Index 353