Exposed:
The images in this exhibition expose the history of African Americans in Los Angeles. Often overlooked, dismissed or assumed to be non-existence, racial tensions permeated the City and various communities within its boundaries. Los Angeles offered greater opportunities for Blacks, albeit, along segregated pathways. Many civil rights leaders migrated to the City, establishing homes, businesses and effecting community action to promote Civil Rights and equalize conditions of African Americans. Local men and women played a prominent role in changing the lives of Blacks locally and nationally. In this exhibition we present the conditions of Blacks in L.A, community and national leaders in the City, and the unfamiliar history of Los Angeles that, not only changed the lives of Blacks, but every citizen in the City and across the nation.
Sections:
Los Angeles African American Civic Leaders - Highlights local leaders who were the first of many to break racial barriers and promote equality changes in the City.
Desegregating Los Angeles - Looks at civil rights and civic leaders who transformed the City and dissolved color lines.
Circumstances of Living in Los Angeles - There were greater opportunities in Los Angeles for Blacks. Men and women employed themselves in various occupations and social clubs that sponsored community events and promoted changes in the lives of City residents.
National Leaders in Los Angeles - The City was a second home to many national civil rights leaders. Civil rights leaders visited the City to promote the Civil Rights Movement, garner support and raise funds for the Movement including the Freedom Rides and legal fees for activists in Birmingham, AL.
A look at Loren Miller, Los Angeles-based civil rights journalist, attorney and Judge. Loren Miller came from a diverse background and dedicated his life to the pursuit of social justice as one of the country's leading civil rights attorneys. Born to a former slave and a white Midwesterner in Nebraska, Miller moved to Los Angeles in 1929 with a law degree. He worked as editor for the California Eagle, the oldest Black newspaper in Los Angeles, which he bought in 1951 from Charlotta Bass. Along with Thurgood Marshall (the first African American justice of the Supreme Court), Miller argued two landmark rulings before the U.S Supreme Court to abolish restrictive racial housing covenants, in Shelley v. Kraemer, and for school integration, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1964 he was appointed to the Los Angeles County Municipal Court by governor Pat Brown.
This digital exhibition is drawn from the collections of the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center. The images were taken by photographers Harry Adams and Charles Williams between the 1960s – 1970s in Los Angeles. Visit the Bradley Center website or Online Collections for more information.