Resurrecting the city of angels - riot-torn South Central Los Angeles, California - includes partial list of organizations rebuilding Los Angeles

Black Enterprise, Nov, 1992 by Matthew S. Scott

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Out of the spontaneous combustion that black Los Angeles refers to as "The Rebellion" has come a grand plan for economic revolution in America's most watched urban center. Mayor Thomas Bradley has staked the future of Los Angeles on "Rebuild L.A." (now called R.L.A.). The challenge of this partnership between government, corporate America and Los Angeles' multicultural communities cannot focus solely on resurrecting buildings. Nor can it simply return things to the way they were before the riots. The only way to truly "Rebuild L.A.," as well as the rest of the nation's urban centers, is to establish a program of job training, job creation and business development with the long-term support of government, major corporations and residents of the communities involved.

But the concept of teaming up three entities--government, private industry and the community--that have a history of adversarial and parasitic relationships, while the subject of much lip service, during this election year, has never been tested on a significantly large scale. Can this trinity cooperate long enough to resurrect the City of Angels? Or is this just another smoke screen to pacify the poor residents of South Central Los Angeles whose angry response to the Simi Valley verdict in the Rodney G. King beating sparked the riots?

To be successful, the members of this alliance must trust one other. They must believe that the long-term stability and productivity of L.A.'s poor urban neighborhoods are of greater value than their respective short-term political and profit motives. Finally, the triumvirate must be committed to following through quickly and expediently on a consensus agenda of economic aid, job creation and community redevelopment. How well these parties meet these objectives could provide the answers and incentives to rebuild declining urban centers across the nation. Seven months after the death and destruction of the riots, BLACK ENTERPRISE examines the successes, failures and challenges facing this fragile alliance.

A War Against "Business As Usual"

Danny J. Bakewell was prepared to start a war. In the heat of June, the president and CEO of the Brotherhood Crusade/Black United Fund rallied a crowd of angry, unemployed community residents to shut down the construction site at Vermont Avenue and 85th Street. Encircling the work site he and his followers chanted loudly, "If we can't work, nobody works!"

Nobody worked.

This bold confrontation was part of the fallout from five days of civil unrest that rocked the city little more than a month earlier. Nearly $1 billion in damage was caused by the riots that followed the not guilty verdicts for four Los Angeles police officers charged in the videotaped beating of Rodney King. Los Angeles was just beginning to dig out from under the rubble of more than 1,500 buildings that were damaged or destroyed. Rebuilding them promised a renaissance of redevelopment and job creation in the South Central Los Angeles community.

Many local minority contractors eagerly awaited the opportunity to win millions in contracts clearing away the devastation. And thousands of unemployed residents saw this as perhaps their only opportunity to earn a decent wage and learn valuable skills.

But there were no opportunities forthe community at Vermontand 85th. The prime contractor for the site was Kenco Construction, a white-owned firm based in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb. The Latino workers on the site had been "imported" from a suburban subcontracting firm. That's why Bakewell led the offensive to shut the operation down.

Within days, Superior Salvage, a local black-owned subcontracting firm, replaced the suburban subcontractor. The out-of-town Latino workers were replaced by unskilled community residents. South Central had scored a victory and "sentone hell of a message," scowls Bakewell. "If we are not part of developing this community, then it's not going to get developed."

Bakewell's message captures the community's desire to free itself from the economic, social and political inequities that have come to characterize life in poor urban communities. The uncontrolled expression of that desire resulted in the Los Angeles riots and the accompanying violence in other American cities. The calculated application of that desire was the work-site stoppage campaign that Bakewell has continued since the standoff at 85th Street. Bakewell and others in the community have set out to wage war against "business as usual," and the battle lines have been drawn around the rebuilding of Los Angeles.

On the surface, the level of activity suggests that all systems are go. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Small Business Administration (SBA) and city government are identifying new sources of economic aid for riot victims and start-up entrepreneurs. Large corporations such as Hughes Aircraft Co. and Nissan Motor Corp., U.S.A. are forwarding proposals for placing jobs and job-training centers in depressed urban communities. Black businesses are running "buy black" campaigns to capitalize on community awareness. And many community organizations, from the Black Business Association of Los Angeles to the Cross Colours/Common Ground Foundation, have sprung to life, doing everything from harnessing the energy of idle gang members to lobbying for a greater share of government and private sector aid.