Black Journal; 312; Black Compton

so for those the pay to play why journalism on their magazine

reporting on the personalities ideas and issues that affect black america it tends to achieve balance by reporting from a black perspective gay web journals fifth season is highlighted in this new black journal magazine theater in certain articles as a wrap up and then he builds on our little group of friends a black journal and a black on white racism or your free souvenir a copy send your name and address and fifty cents in postage they're not sending a black journal ten kilometer circle your journal in columbus circle in new york i hear a certain area almost any large city in the united states a population of seventy thousand six hundred which we are not at the service workers are seventy two percent like to have a phone that the ties

and it's a matter of living in a racist society like people are forced to resort to an event or you know looking at gw raging deep only vote i mean his wife had no money and we have caught our eyes for integration but we're actually talking about segregation and we cannot let alone we have no money we have no resources we have to have the right how to scare tactics have occurred in which an industrial commercial interests have said will have to leave the city because it's going to be all black which are all means

it'll be dead which isn't necessarily true robin is truly a community situation and the task now is to find out whether it can operate our two decades ago compton california was a lily white affluent bedroom community known as the hub city today it is known as the most black city west of the mississippi what happened in between was classic of what has happened in several other cities across the nation as blacks move into camp and whites fled as usual to the suburbs leaving the now over seventy percent black population to unheard a city overburdened with basic economic problems company situated twelve miles outside of los angeles and just next door to the well known community wants it is surrounded by a small towns that have managed to preserve their white majority population compton is a city that typifies the frustrations problems and aspirations of majority black cities and

administrators across the country who were strikes some balance between citizens demands for improvement a civil services and inadequate near stagnant sources of revenue sales income and property taxes are usually as high as they can go and the city is considering the majority of us black population is already overtaxed and usually underplay giving already established businesses and attracting new business as a problem unemployment is another even one company was predominately white most residents work outside of the city the situation has remained unchanged bus companies called a bedroom community however the blacks and robin as elsewhere the task of finding and keeping an adequate job with him or outside of the city is much harder than it is for whites in nineteen sixty three cup in elected its first black councilman and automobile sales manager named douglas dollar high six years later in nineteen sixty nine he became the first black mayor

we have the same type of government that all of the other citizens they go on yeah we hear relate to the county government the state government and the federal government in the same sense of other cities fairly uniquely i guess we're both seventy two percent of likely about ten percent mexican american and we have quite a few civilians or american indians and the few white people are around so i guess in that sense that we are unique we may be unique and problems as well because we have a very difficult time trying to get there and just for our businesses and for our homeowners there's a problem of getting the financing is forest floor and a lot of those problems relate since this flooring of merchandise for appliance stores like that and actually in the white community as we have the type of problems that most of us who are black excerpt unleashing years

with the idea or at least with the constant reinforcement that things that were black or black men were inherently inferior to things that were quieter quite right and so we have an internal probe that respect and we can overcome the internal problem until there are enough success examples in black people for us to recognize that these things are mythology and that we need to go on and get on to the next thing robin warren about how good somebody else's will be get ourselves together many problems and programs that we're trying to implement an address it takes eighteen months three if it is perhaps the sea of those voyages for example a case in point would be our downtown waited on monroe's band project the development and the development of our civic center which is also part of these buildings the plans that have to be drawn out and then we have to buy the land we have to condemn buildings or the various health crisis is that we have to go through before the

actual physical building can be there have a large department store el nino in the city have to offer is close restaurants in a major portion of the city a section of the city we have basically is what we're trying to do about it two large department stores and businesses in the city we're making attempts to annex portions of territory that include industrial parks that that will increase the population a city and also increase the tax basis season pjm is a

couple of people in the situation and we're trying to involve them in programs here in compton in government company and having some say about what happens in compton and it's extremely difficult because we first have to teach concepts of organization and a kind of organization that involved and here it's thrown on this all at once we had were nice people we have to educate people to believe the organization and then we have to explain what the organization is going to do as a result of being organized were going what's the goal today william

wegman although many blacks only on a psychological identification of africa many as denise compton blacks disagree on whether african countries can contribute economically to black america the channel of communication between city law officials and the community is underway the compton special services center weekly wrap sessions provide an opportunity for all concerned to air their diverse opinions on any subject dealing with blackwater used economic and one reason that black people are really getting what they want but what they need from the society present because we haven't is that as an economic base and that's right there but yet it still is divided up to somewhere and you're not going to get an economic yeah my fantasy

and the economics of this country economic development that's not one problem the city number two would be on suppression of crime that allowed justice system number three would be parker use development for would be parks and recreation and five would be untrue or his original development mean that within the city we feel that there may be a necessity for re orientated every orientation of the way that we go about solving problems as the primary focus all of our lives in marshes program is too to work with the economic development housing is one part of that we hoped to at the housing program that will be attractive to investors who unlikely that whites who fled the city will not flee the new stadium built one at the community many whites that live in the community all of a lot of the poses so unstable knowledge in business is out of the

community's well physically we have a larger national base not only at nineteen sixty three and fight like a circus of thousands of have annexed forty acres of land without many of the major firms are located here in the city particularly japanese firms such as bats and saudi arabia and many other japanese her electronic component five years we have recently two symmetry a fifty million dollar budget over forty percent budget that is possibly seven million dollars comes from federal funds so that means that the idea that approximately eight million dollars our development poppy tax sales tax and licenses and fees at the city clinics and hope that as time goes by we'll be able to do more things that relate to the university the reason we have such an emphasis on that desire emphasizing youth is that the median age of our community of eighty

thousand is nineteen point one years which means that almost half of the people in the city are teenagers many believe the vatican obama to get it all out of all maggie you know she's a monday and they can't apply ten o'clock was in the day she wasn't asked me now that it was really because again until her device those two and they know about boston that's your motivation my family's the white school system or whatever they get steele nobody is really offering anything to substitute does it is up i feel personally it's up to black people with it and i don't even having me this up the black people themselves to accept the responsibility that they've got to do a lot of this of black environment and also have to intentionally money that nobody got to you know so we can deal with it all the twenty

nine thousand settlers who is she as clarice starling mike our schools guys were dangerous we have to go to the beach high school maybe four to five times per day platinum when i was going to work or book or sitting in a high that i didn't see i never saw policemen this was career day or something like that now every day we have to go there for five times a day the wrist reinforcements for three years is how calm and happy man of hard drugs like heroin cocaine that they have in the city we just recently this year started a narcotics detail and these guys have been making numerous arrests on heroin addicts and confiscating as much as a thousand dollars worth of one

hostage taker a certain area almost any large city in united states it a population of seventy thousand six hundred which we are happy to work with sir seventy two percent like the crime rate and it's a matter of are living in a racist society by people forced to resort to crime because you know once they get arrested juvenile taken to the police station and even before you finished writing jarecki forties been released with there is no one day when i arrest you for having the gun at us who floated plus units and fuels rebels aren't any rescue brought into the station and i was driving our report and decide to this report and that officer came into the port writing until midday show really at risk in the same key that it raised about our earlier

then they had the good will he went home with his mother climbed out a window that looked at a school has done something else and subsequently got arrested mosul is a predominantly why aren't areas even in the largest cities where there's a very heavy riots and this order and save companies never had any of the riots there never had any major disorders we've been trying though although company hasn't erupted in the large scale violence daily crime was a problem company has one of the highest crime rates of any city in the country since january there have been thirty eight homicides in the city of ten point five square miles the crime has its roots in a number of other problems such as poor housing unemployment and lack of recreational facilities which can be blamed on the economic woes of compton it's a vicious cycle the fact the company has to recreational facilities contributes to the prime rate

the crime rate keeps busy his investors out the lack of business creates an economic problem for the city which makes more recreational and other social facilities impossible one solution may be an unprecedented cultural renaissance going on daily at the compton arts academy sponsored by city funds the academy provides a mecca of entertainment and learning for people of all ages a device again is a nonprofit organization that sponsored by the compton community action agency and we have classes and workshops art and drama dance visual arts very good photograph and tremendous fans have a decision now about seven hundred people in the community have something to

offer and doesn't feel the distance bring us as much as we could ever offer them our jobs our words like all the rest of people come and they come with themselves and they they just bring itself i think it has been they do the peak right now the jazz workshop and now possibly detain and credits really invites this because i said to the young people who read it in school that is just very

easy on the seine young people at this conference trees but our roots are here and the only thing we have to do is it's going to really involved this bill is big here we live in the

area you know we're we might be and let me get here the yellow and i think in an rt fly the country going down too we are here to talk about to talk about the seasons but we talk about you the apollo

apart peaches and i'm very well aware of black awareness that black power and things of this nature i feel that that's very positive but it's all the same and the total picture we do not live in an all black world we do not live in the white world we were world and therefore we have to address our cells to me and now that we have and maybe we dance so sweet do you realize what they are you know

in the nineteen twenties oh yeah he wanted to eliminate i have racial awareness but i don't have a math i think quite because the guidelines are written by whites by adding bike with a minute you're in america you have a black collar that the guidelines and the system's white jacket changing a lot of the changes and comments around it have to look the people in compton are the most part i'm familiar with many the

dynamics of city government were still in a really alarming situation here involving the whole community which in actuality is never i feel existed in the country where the whole community has been involved in the community i would say that we face the same problems that our costumes faced including her hatchet face interiority it's interesting work and that is that it attitudinal perceptions of black ministers is one that goes back to be a reconstruction period and they tend to forget that need mayhap we came out of the same schools and the same experiences and i think that if we start to look at possibly we have an additional dimension to our capability that those were not like to not have compton california symbolizes other predominantly black and black controlled cities across the country struggling to survive against tremendous odds whether or not compton can survive depends on how

and how soon it's black administrators can alleviate the major problems plaguing the city this means one dealing with white hearse holders of a large portion of their budget in the federal government which have previously been insensitive to the black community's needs to finding and no means of getting all sources of revenue or finding entirely new revenue sources for the city but three improving social conditions will compton citizens without going bankrupt and for passing out sound on much of the o in lieu of new program there are a lot of variables to juggle a lot of gifts to make happen but one thing for certain and black cities anywhere can exist in this society the city of compton calif has a will i think that it will survive i think that we've gone through a period

of which is common to any group to suddenly been thrust into positions that they would not be in our eye view of all that in order to survive they will have to be a new awakening among the solutions that it was a decision that has to be decided by himself and not by others and it could there will be stated that this is a problem facing black america if we're the people that care don't get to know each other and don't realize that there other people like that were injured working towards making art and the kind of scene that anyone would want to live in and have the kind of security that anyone would feel perfectly safe in walking streets well if that doesn't happen then the future is dark i see compton as being an example it will turn out to be either a good example or very very bad luck and unfortunately we don't have that much time to decide which which will happen

thank you

june only and then move in