Built in 1937, Dorsey holds the number two record in the country for sending most graduates to the NFL.  Dorsey has numerous alumni who have succeeded in the fields of education, music, politics, law, sports, film and television, etc.  In the 1960’s, Dorsey boasted having a fully integrated enrollment of one third, one third, and one third of African American, Japanese and Anglo students respectively.  The school demographic enrollment represents the demographics of the parents and the community.  Once more there is evidence of African Americans and Japanese Americans building a community of peace not of race riots. 

This multi-racial community is an example of diversity at work at its best.  In the music field, it is easy to see some of the cultural exchanges.  For example, the group Hiroshima has incorporated traditional Japanese instruments in jazz.  The group is a jazz ensemble of Japanese Americans. Most members grew up in the Crenshaw district and some graduated from Dorsey High.  It is in the district and at Dorsey where several members felt the “soul” of traditional African American jazz rhythms and infused the rhythm with traditional Japanese instruments.

“Hiroshima is an American jazz fusion/smooth jazz/Asian-American jazz band formed in 1974 by Sansei Japanese American Dan Kuramoto (wind instruments and band leader), Peter Hata (guitar), June Kuramoto (koto), Johnny Mori (percussion and taiko), Dave Iwataki (keyboards) and Danny Yamamoto (drums). Named for the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the band is best known for the fusing of Japanese music and other forms of world music into its playing. Its early jazz-pop R&B sound gave the group a huge following among the African American community and they are regarded as musical pioneers among the Asian American and Japanese American community. One of the highlights of Hiroshima's career was serving as the opening act for the jazz genius Miles Davis 1990 world tour.  The group continues it's style of jazz fused with Asian instruments and synthesizer, which sounds like no one else.”  source>

The music lives on but what happened to the cohabitating African American and Japanese American community? The integrated “hang out” has been removed in the name of progress, adding yet another mall, one step above a strip, in the community. The music culture survives; the education environment survives; the physical space survived the civil unrest so yet again, what happened?  In the beginning there was Little Tokyo-Bronzeville that paved the way to African Americans and Japanese Americans working together in times of civil unrest and even went further on to give rise to the Asian American Civil Rights Movement. What destroyed the beginning of such a powerful coalition?  Was that destruction intentional?