Los Angeles civil rights history and struggles of Black, Brown

Los Angeles’s civil rights history is a long and drawn-out battle that features monumental moments throughout the era before and after the signing of the Civil Rights Bill. L.A. is a city rich in culture and diversity but littered with historical moments, good and bad, especially for the Black community. In the mid-1960’s, leaders on a national and local level convened in Los Angeles to hold protests and met to discuss the next course of action. These leaders include Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, and the organization Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Their work during the movement was the catalyst for the bill being signed in 1964, but a by-product of their work also encouraged other groups to fight for their freedom and rights.
” The Black community set the tone for how people should fight and never give up on what they believe in. They were instrumental in encouraging and supporting my people in their fight for representation,” said artist Judy Baca during her speech as she introduced her “Great Wall” Mural at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “We learned Black was beautiful, but as my people started to use their voice for cultural representation in Los Angeles, I learned that Brown was beautiful and we deserved the right to be seen.”
The mural was a seven-week project painting scenes from the Cooper Do-nuts Riots, the 1969 uprising in Los Angeles when police harassed LGBT people at a donut café, the first Gay Pride Parade in Los Angeles in 1970, and the 1969 Woodstock music festival. It also featured panels related to the Chicano Movement and Watts Renaissance of the 1960s in the iconic Los Angeles mural.
Discrepancies in the education of Anglo and Mexican-American students surfaced in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. Mexican-American students experienced a 60-percent dropout rate from high school, and those who did graduate averaged the reading level of an 8th-grade Anglo student. In some schools, teachers prohibited students from speaking Spanish, and in others, school staff recommended Mexican-American students educational curriculum meant to help students with mental disabilities. These schools funneled many Mexican American students into vocational programs and discouraged them from post-secondary studies. In response, students, teachers, parents, and activists began to organize.
In March 1968, nearly 20,000 students from the predominantly Latino neighborhoods of East Los Angeles walked out of their classrooms to call attention to the racial injustice and inequity rampant in public schools. It was the first mass demonstration by Chicano and Chicana people in an urban center.
“The walkouts became a focal point of the Chicano civil rights movement, bringing larger public attention to the unequal access to quality education experienced by the Chicano population in Los Angeles and elsewhere,” said Chon Noriega, director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center.
“The major change driven by the 1968 walkouts was within young Chicanas and Chicanos, including an awareness of self-worth, a motivation to educate ourselves and the community, and the understanding that we had to create change in education and all aspects of society,” Haro said. “It changed a generation, and that generation caused change.”