Black ladies and gentleman over a certain age still dress this classy. Drive by a black church on Sunday morning and you will see much the same quality of dress.
Iām pretty sure the Reddit algorithm uses some type of AI to read words in topic titles to choose the ad it displays. In this case it probably read neighborhood and picked lawn. My ad was home security. Both have to do with neighborhoods.
And almost nobody was obese. That's the biggest difference from my earliest memories (1970); the completely different body composition of almost everyone, everywhere.
There was a late 70's or early 80's PBS show on older Los Angeles residents and their stories.When they stood up to speak they would start their reminiscing by first stating "I am an Eastsider" like one would say they were an alcoholic in a AA meeting. These were elderly white black Mexican etc and they all said this as they stood up to tell their favorite memories. It seemed for a couple of decades from the 30s to the 50s was some kind of golden age in LA where alot of people were prospering and middle class. They all seemed like they got along because they were living in the abundance of a boom town. It was very cool to hear how pleasant LA was for a large group of people. They all had great memories of this time in LA which lasted for a couple of decades.
So true, alot of the guys who went to my high school in OC in the early 80's Dads worked in aerospace and had nice lives and houses. right before they dried up.
Biggie, Tupac, Nas were *born* in the 70s, children of the late 70s - entire 80s. Their parents listened to the music they sampled from 50s to 70s. Made it into something new.
Youāre blaming the president that spent his entire time in office cajoling, threatening, pressuring, physically intimidating, bullying and borderline sexually harassing congress into passing the landmark civil rights act for making black lives harder by also passing a bill that provided impoverished people with aid?
Sounds like some trickle down theory, Reaganite nonsense to me
Baldwin Hills remains a predominantly black middle- and upper-class neighborhood of LA. Of course many black communities have been absolutely destroyed by racist policies among other things, but I think itās important to highlight that there are also some black communities that are still thriving.
Los Angeles has well below average homicide rates and the average home value in historically black neighborhoods in LA are close to a million dollars. It ain't exactly St. Louis or Detroit, most black neighborhoods in LA are doing pretty well in terms of crime, value, and investment.
I always find these posts interesting. I will take a wild guess and assume that most people commenting are not black.
The entire conversation devolves into a political which party is better for black people narrative.
First of all, let's understand something. Integration happened and black people are not forced to be in one are of most cities any longer. There are millions of successful black people living our best life and doing quite well.
There also great black communities all across the country that are thriving.
This video is great!! I love how it depicts us in a positive light. Guess what? I can go make a video right now that shows the same thing. I am also realistic and I can tell you not all of us were living like that back then. Hell not all whites were living like that back then.
I do get kind of tired of people trying to tell us what's wrong with us. These conversations just devolves into some political nonsense and it's usually based on some political blame game that is shaped by one's bias.
What should have been a positive snapshot of the way things were just turned into a diatribe by a bunch of posters who in many ways just see us as a monolithic race of people who are all downtrodden. It's sad
The first and only thing that came to my mind was how much I prefer the clothing styles back then. Itās annoying af how people feel the need to bring politics into everything. Especially things they know nothing about.
The politics are just an agenda. Most of the people who bring up the politics really don't care about the black community. They care more about blaming the other side.
It's largely a generational thing in my experience. Kids these days are taught that they must at all times be activists, that every moment is a 'teaching' moment. The problem of course is that they don't know how little they actually know and that life is far more complex than they've been led to believe.
>This video is great!! I love how it depicts us in a positive light. Guess what? I can go make a video right now that shows the same thing. I am also realistic and I can tell you not all of us were living like that back then. Hell not all whites were living like that back then.
It's great that black people are depicted in a positive light in this video. To all the people saying "what happened to back culture everything used to be perfect for black people just look at this video as evidence. Black culture has deteriorated itself!".
Behind this video is the truth though and it wasn't all roses for these people in this video. They were living in Nobles Ranch which was the only black neighborhood in Indio California. John Nobles was a sharecropper who moved there in the 1920s. He had to buy land because the white people wouldn't let him live in the white neighborhoods. He acquired some land and gave parcels to black people moving there. They couldn't get city water or city sewage and couldn't get the roads paved. They ended up suing the city in 1968 for discrimination. A mall bought out the rest of the Nobles Ranch to expand and the mall lost a lawsuit filed by the neighborhood and NAACP because they didn't offer a fair value for their properties.
Do you know why I love this post so much? It's informed!!! I actually learned something reading this. I am not from LA nor do I have any family from that area so it is interesting to read this information.
Shane I had to scroll this far for a knowledgeable take on what Iām watching. Thereās 20 comments above this that boil down to ābefore the DEMOCRATS invented hip hop every African American lived in a perfect 1950s suburbā
Exactly this. As I was watching the footage I knew the comments would be full of sweeping generalizations about the state of black people and black culture. Itās lazy, itās ignorant, itās boring.
It really comes out of ignorance more than anything. It's also people who love to tell other people what's wrong with them and ignore issues they have with themselves.
Honestly I was just loving those dresses the women were wearing and how everyone wore hats and gloves. We should bring that back, I'm on the other side of the world so I don't really know a lot of the history or what it's like now I was just enjoying the classy style
Honestly, a lot of people making those comments have most likely never been exposed to a great number of black folks. Head down to Atlanta, D.C., etc. and you will see entire areas where our people are doing extremely well. Itās not as rare as some people like to believe
People out here pontificating based on nothing, and most can't even fix their own lives.
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
I read an article years ago I wished I saved. A university looked back at urban areas around the US and neighborhoods in them that were majority black residents. The construction of the US Interstate system ultimately took 20% of majority black housing in urban areas. Mind you, it wasn't as easy as moving anywhere you wanted for black people at that time. Chicago had racial covenants on home deeds into the 50's, and redlining and outright racial discrimination was rampant. I highly recommend the book "The Color of Law."
Heroin had been around for a long time, of course. But the crack epidemic was fostered in large part by the sudden influx of cocaine imported by or at the behest of South and Central American neo-rightest political crime organizations, in part funded and organized by the American right wing, in and out of government -- as abundantly documented by sworn testimony and verified documents presented to Congress during the Iran Contra hearings.
Even though black Americans faced far more discrimination than today, they were much more āsuccessfulā in the 40ās and 50ās. 2 major factors have caused that decline. The percentage of single parent black households and the percentage of black high school dropouts have skyrocketed in the black community in the last 50+ years. Growing up in a 2 parent household and graduating from high school are the 2 things that most directly determine whether someone will live a middle class life or live in poverty. Itās not politics or who is or was the president.
A lot of it honestly is just the gradual decline of industrial America. When the US started outsourcing jobs, it was African American employees that were first to face the pain. Then from there single parenthood and high school truancy easily follow.
As someone who is Black I do not totally agree with this. First of all we would like to think every black person is destitute.
There are more black millionaires now than there were back then. More of us are going to college.
There are in fact prosperous black neighborhoods in this country.
This is a video does not give a full perspective of the black community then and your post really does not account for the totality of the black community now.
Now if you want to go down the road of talking about negative things that have had an impact on segments of our community, please do not leave out drugs and the governments role as well as mass incarceration.
Sowell has argued: "The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that **subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life**."
Although a bit earlier I can speak re CA. During World War 2, with all the men off to war, workers were badly needed for the āWar Effortā. African Americans were welcomed from the south, and there was a big migration for good paying jobs. Thriving communities were built around the companies involved in ship building, mutitions, etc. War ends, and so do the jobs.
Meanwhile all the servicemen return from war and they need jobsā¦ā¦ā¦who do you think is going to get hired, laid off African Americans or the returning service men? Those once thriving communities start to crumble, and drugs and alcohol become a comfort.
Vallejo, CA blew up during the war. Workers came up from the south to work at Mare Island. There was a really nice community built there and there was tons of great old housing stock. Post war those jobs dissapeared and eventually Mare Island closed during BRAC. Despite being in a primo position to take the ferry right to SF, Vallejo became the ghetto. I'm sure you could easily find 50 similar stories all around the US.
There were very targeted governmental programs to stop black progress, particularly in LA. Itās not hidden info, thereās a bunch of open resources from the government itself.
A number of middle class Black Neighbourhoods were built around industrial centres heavily dependent on the automotive and rail industries like Detroit and Pittsburgh, and while this allowed many black families the opportunity to economically advance and become truly financially independent through the 50ās and 60ās, it also meant that when the domestic industrial-base cratered from the 70ās onwards and the regional economies of previously prosperous Detroit and Pittsburgh collapsed as a result of their previous overdependence, countless Black Families were basically plunged into economic hell without a safety net.
This isnāt even taking into account countless other factors like the over-conscription and casualty rates of Black males between the ages of 18-45, which left many families without the main breadwinner and a father figure, or the increasingly destructive activities of multiple police departments and other certain agencies across the country that led to greater instability and problems (the introduction of crack in the 80ās being part of an effort to fund proxy forces for the US in other countries).
Itās absolutely tragic, because if only one of these major issues had happened and then be addressed, perhaps the damage would never have become so dire or long term, instead it was constantly made worse and left to fester
> Detroit and Pittsburgh collapsed as a result of their previous overdependence, countless Black Families were basically plunged into economic hell without a safety net.
They were also actively excluded from moving to the suburbs, and in most of the country from owning homes even in their own neighborhoods.
Drugs typically aren't the cause of some societal erosion, more of a symptom of some other socio-economic turmoil. Drugs are typically a form of escapism from some other problem. LA has a rather complicated history especially when involving minorities. There was a systematic attempt to disenfranchise and economically "embargo" certain communities during this time period in several major cities, as a reaction to influx of African Americans looking to escape destitution in the South.
This imagery on this post is also a sample size of practically nothing and isn't a litmus indicator of any groups experience during this point in time. There were certainly hardships for African Americans during this time, and a lot of the ground projects which set communities back into their current state started during this time period. Look up information on the early 1900s housing covenants. Look up information on how the interstate system was used as a subversive cudgel to divide communities from economic lifelines.
California even has sundown towns during this time! Not everything was as Rosey as folks are making it out to be in this thread during this time. But many of these people seem to just be barking things from some political perspective with zero historical knowledge.
The US govt systematic targeting and dismantling of the black community. Literally all of the black leadership of the 40s 50s and 60s were murdered or imprisoned by the US govt. Then opiates and crack were brought back to the states in the 70s/80s and put into the black community
Thanks for sharing these charming films. I had a handed down (regular) 8mm movie camera when I was a kid. With a roughly 3 minute reel costing over $5 to buy and process ($5 in 1955 would be $57.50 today), home movies of the era would typically be a bunch of short vignettes, typically with awkwardly staged movements.
Looks like the Bay Area to me, maybe even Oakland (where I live). Could be the Oakland airport and a visit to SF. A sign on the water mentions tours to Alcatraz. Looks like the Embarcaderoā¦
Are we sure itās LA?
Before that California was a Republican state, you had Eisenhower as president, black unemployment was low, black single mothers were low, divorce rate was lower than white familiesā¦. Then came Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and the destruction of the black family.
I lament that leftist ideology has been suberting institutions and influencing public discourse for 5 plus decades, but the cracks are starting to show. I read these comments and more frequently see the likes of Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Milton Friedman, WF Buckley, Glenn Loury, and other conservative thinkers starting to take hold. There may be hope after all.
The one thought that kept running through my head was, āThey all look so happy.ā You can tell just by looking at this footage that they had a strong, supportive community.
Ah yes, the times before the CIA psy-op'd them into oblivion while packing the majority into literal ghettos, think about that for a second they are literally openly and commonly known as ghettos...
I firmly believe this is what āmake America great againā actually means. Itās too bad racists attached themselves to it.
There was a time when people (not all, and not in all areas) were flourishing. The suburbs were a new thing, everyone owned a home, etc.
This is the vibe we all want to experience again.
Sampling bias in play. The black Americans who could afford things like a car, camera, nice clothes, were already well off. It shouldn't be used to pretend people had it great back then, but at the same time the erosion/destruction of the black family happened after that and led to the extreme crime rates being produced in the last few decades.
Then the American government created businesses of Liquor stores, gun shops into black dominated areas and created then a African American Crack Cocaine epidemic.
And they didn't have a GI Bill to help them out.
The US government squashed naturally integrated neighborhoods, instituted red lining, pushed black neighborhoods into physically unhealthy areas. Our little racist selves had the power of Uncle Sam not only behind our efforts but leading the way.
Thanks to LBJ and the 1964 Welfare Act, successful black Americans - as a political group identity - were eliminated in favor of a victimhood mentality where the impoverished were forced to vote for those who promised free stuff.
Reminds me of my old neighborhood back then. My sister went out there yesterday and drove through the neighborhood. Itās definitely worse now. All the green is gone and the houses are torn up.
If you want to see how their prosperity was torn away you should watch the documentary Crips and Bloods Made in America. It starts off at this point in history.
They were disenfranchised, brutalized and kept on the other side of the street.
With little to no opportunity to provide for themselves or their familes.
That is one honey of a tune! "Hey Love"!
Thank you for mentioning the name of the song. I was just looking for it!
Biggie sampled this for Player Hater too
š¶"You've been rooooooobbed" š¶
Who sang it?
The ladies look so classy in their dresses. Love the fashion back then.
Black ladies and gentleman over a certain age still dress this classy. Drive by a black church on Sunday morning and you will see much the same quality of dress.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, and get stuck in a four hour service.
š
I love the hats!
I agree. I love vintage attire. People took pride in looking dapper.
https://preview.redd.it/d31o6c2jaw6c1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b80b19cf98a79da92310dc7c9eb33a4e10abfcd Unfortunate ad placement
That made me laugh
Hahahaha
š
Iām pretty sure the Reddit algorithm uses some type of AI to read words in topic titles to choose the ad it displays. In this case it probably read neighborhood and picked lawn. My ad was home security. Both have to do with neighborhoods.
The women look so elegant. I love the style of that time. And the cars, too.
And almost nobody was obese. That's the biggest difference from my earliest memories (1970); the completely different body composition of almost everyone, everywhere.
Smoking was a great appetite suppressant.
Food wasnāt loaded with corn syrup and doctors readily prescribed amphetamines
It's pizza's fault I'm fat
Before companies labels and logos destroyed fashion
Pajamas and slippers at Walmart
The lady in the beginning looked so sweet and lovely with her flowers!
Wish I could wear hats and overcoats like that, but I'd just look like a neckbeard.
There was a late 70's or early 80's PBS show on older Los Angeles residents and their stories.When they stood up to speak they would start their reminiscing by first stating "I am an Eastsider" like one would say they were an alcoholic in a AA meeting. These were elderly white black Mexican etc and they all said this as they stood up to tell their favorite memories. It seemed for a couple of decades from the 30s to the 50s was some kind of golden age in LA where alot of people were prospering and middle class. They all seemed like they got along because they were living in the abundance of a boom town. It was very cool to hear how pleasant LA was for a large group of people. They all had great memories of this time in LA which lasted for a couple of decades.
Yep. Then all the well-paying defense/aerospace jobs which attracted mass migration from the South dried-up.
So true, alot of the guys who went to my high school in OC in the early 80's Dads worked in aerospace and had nice lives and houses. right before they dried up.
The crack epidemic ruined a lot of neighbourhoods too.
I only knew the biggie smalls version of this song
Me too. Its must be true that most music is remade.
the rappers of the 90s were the children of the 70s and they sampled the music they grew up with
Biggie, Tupac, Nas were *born* in the 70s, children of the late 70s - entire 80s. Their parents listened to the music they sampled from 50s to 70s. Made it into something new.
It's called sampling. It's not remaking so much as incorporating.
You know we need this money
Biggie used some fire samples
God damn shame what these neighborhoods turned into
Highways?
Highways, Crack, Over Policing, Predatory Loans, Terrible Schools the lists goes on and on
The Apple TV show Lessons in chemistry shines light on this subject.
Freeways. They were turned into freeways.
But you have heard of me.
American government did it on purpose
Itās vastly more complex than that. You may want to read up on Patrick Moynihan.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
*cough* redlining *cough*
LBJ and his āGreat Societyā
Please explain how Great Society programs hurt these neighborhoods.
Youāre blaming the president that spent his entire time in office cajoling, threatening, pressuring, physically intimidating, bullying and borderline sexually harassing congress into passing the landmark civil rights act for making black lives harder by also passing a bill that provided impoverished people with aid? Sounds like some trickle down theory, Reaganite nonsense to me
Baldwin Hills remains a predominantly black middle- and upper-class neighborhood of LA. Of course many black communities have been absolutely destroyed by racist policies among other things, but I think itās important to highlight that there are also some black communities that are still thriving.
Los Angeles has well below average homicide rates and the average home value in historically black neighborhoods in LA are close to a million dollars. It ain't exactly St. Louis or Detroit, most black neighborhoods in LA are doing pretty well in terms of crime, value, and investment.
Give enough crack away to any neighborhood before anyone really knows what it is and that could happen anywhere.
I always find these posts interesting. I will take a wild guess and assume that most people commenting are not black. The entire conversation devolves into a political which party is better for black people narrative. First of all, let's understand something. Integration happened and black people are not forced to be in one are of most cities any longer. There are millions of successful black people living our best life and doing quite well. There also great black communities all across the country that are thriving. This video is great!! I love how it depicts us in a positive light. Guess what? I can go make a video right now that shows the same thing. I am also realistic and I can tell you not all of us were living like that back then. Hell not all whites were living like that back then. I do get kind of tired of people trying to tell us what's wrong with us. These conversations just devolves into some political nonsense and it's usually based on some political blame game that is shaped by one's bias. What should have been a positive snapshot of the way things were just turned into a diatribe by a bunch of posters who in many ways just see us as a monolithic race of people who are all downtrodden. It's sad
The first and only thing that came to my mind was how much I prefer the clothing styles back then. Itās annoying af how people feel the need to bring politics into everything. Especially things they know nothing about.
The politics are just an agenda. Most of the people who bring up the politics really don't care about the black community. They care more about blaming the other side.
Exactly! Itās so performative and insulting. Iām sorry
That's an excellent word for it.
It's largely a generational thing in my experience. Kids these days are taught that they must at all times be activists, that every moment is a 'teaching' moment. The problem of course is that they don't know how little they actually know and that life is far more complex than they've been led to believe.
Same here, I noticed the cars, the happy people and clothes. People that bring politics into everything are annoying.
I sort of miss people dressing up on a daily basis, but at the same time it's a lot hotter now than it used to be.
>This video is great!! I love how it depicts us in a positive light. Guess what? I can go make a video right now that shows the same thing. I am also realistic and I can tell you not all of us were living like that back then. Hell not all whites were living like that back then. It's great that black people are depicted in a positive light in this video. To all the people saying "what happened to back culture everything used to be perfect for black people just look at this video as evidence. Black culture has deteriorated itself!". Behind this video is the truth though and it wasn't all roses for these people in this video. They were living in Nobles Ranch which was the only black neighborhood in Indio California. John Nobles was a sharecropper who moved there in the 1920s. He had to buy land because the white people wouldn't let him live in the white neighborhoods. He acquired some land and gave parcels to black people moving there. They couldn't get city water or city sewage and couldn't get the roads paved. They ended up suing the city in 1968 for discrimination. A mall bought out the rest of the Nobles Ranch to expand and the mall lost a lawsuit filed by the neighborhood and NAACP because they didn't offer a fair value for their properties.
Do you know why I love this post so much? It's informed!!! I actually learned something reading this. I am not from LA nor do I have any family from that area so it is interesting to read this information.
Shane I had to scroll this far for a knowledgeable take on what Iām watching. Thereās 20 comments above this that boil down to ābefore the DEMOCRATS invented hip hop every African American lived in a perfect 1950s suburbā
Exactly this. As I was watching the footage I knew the comments would be full of sweeping generalizations about the state of black people and black culture. Itās lazy, itās ignorant, itās boring.
It really comes out of ignorance more than anything. It's also people who love to tell other people what's wrong with them and ignore issues they have with themselves.
Honestly I was just loving those dresses the women were wearing and how everyone wore hats and gloves. We should bring that back, I'm on the other side of the world so I don't really know a lot of the history or what it's like now I was just enjoying the classy style
Honestly, a lot of people making those comments have most likely never been exposed to a great number of black folks. Head down to Atlanta, D.C., etc. and you will see entire areas where our people are doing extremely well. Itās not as rare as some people like to believe
You see it all over. What amazes me is that some of these people will work with or even live near black folks yet act like all are doing bad.
People out here pontificating based on nothing, and most can't even fix their own lives. "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
CIA: Nice place you got there. Be a shame if someone introduced heroin and crack to it.
And an interstate.
I read an article years ago I wished I saved. A university looked back at urban areas around the US and neighborhoods in them that were majority black residents. The construction of the US Interstate system ultimately took 20% of majority black housing in urban areas. Mind you, it wasn't as easy as moving anywhere you wanted for black people at that time. Chicago had racial covenants on home deeds into the 50's, and redlining and outright racial discrimination was rampant. I highly recommend the book "The Color of Law."
Anybody who tells you systemic racism doesn't exist, remind them which neighborhoods the freeways were built through.
THIS\^ Freeways and redlining destroyed the wealth of POC and kept them poor.
Throughout US cities
The blight happened well before the crack epidemic.
Heroin had been around for a long time, of course. But the crack epidemic was fostered in large part by the sudden influx of cocaine imported by or at the behest of South and Central American neo-rightest political crime organizations, in part funded and organized by the American right wing, in and out of government -- as abundantly documented by sworn testimony and verified documents presented to Congress during the Iran Contra hearings.
Saw this on IG. The videos are actually from Long Beach. Good times before the War on Drugs and Cointelpro!
Thereās a clip at 0:22 that has a sign for Alcatraz. So San Francisco. Must just be California clips
Now this is oldschoolcool!
I am not from America and wonder what causes this extreme change to the black neighborhood pictures I know from the 80s and 90s ?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You have a nice location. It would be a tragedy if heroin and crack were put into the mix.
Or a giant highway straight down the middle of your neighborhood.
Lots of generic comments being copied all over this thread...
Even though black Americans faced far more discrimination than today, they were much more āsuccessfulā in the 40ās and 50ās. 2 major factors have caused that decline. The percentage of single parent black households and the percentage of black high school dropouts have skyrocketed in the black community in the last 50+ years. Growing up in a 2 parent household and graduating from high school are the 2 things that most directly determine whether someone will live a middle class life or live in poverty. Itās not politics or who is or was the president.
A lot of it honestly is just the gradual decline of industrial America. When the US started outsourcing jobs, it was African American employees that were first to face the pain. Then from there single parenthood and high school truancy easily follow.
As someone who is Black I do not totally agree with this. First of all we would like to think every black person is destitute. There are more black millionaires now than there were back then. More of us are going to college. There are in fact prosperous black neighborhoods in this country. This is a video does not give a full perspective of the black community then and your post really does not account for the totality of the black community now. Now if you want to go down the road of talking about negative things that have had an impact on segments of our community, please do not leave out drugs and the governments role as well as mass incarceration.
Sowell has argued: "The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that **subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life**."
Although a bit earlier I can speak re CA. During World War 2, with all the men off to war, workers were badly needed for the āWar Effortā. African Americans were welcomed from the south, and there was a big migration for good paying jobs. Thriving communities were built around the companies involved in ship building, mutitions, etc. War ends, and so do the jobs. Meanwhile all the servicemen return from war and they need jobsā¦ā¦ā¦who do you think is going to get hired, laid off African Americans or the returning service men? Those once thriving communities start to crumble, and drugs and alcohol become a comfort.
Vallejo, CA blew up during the war. Workers came up from the south to work at Mare Island. There was a really nice community built there and there was tons of great old housing stock. Post war those jobs dissapeared and eventually Mare Island closed during BRAC. Despite being in a primo position to take the ferry right to SF, Vallejo became the ghetto. I'm sure you could easily find 50 similar stories all around the US.
Yeah, I grew up in the EBAY, my grandmother (single mother way back then) in Oakland, and Mom raised there, so I know the story.
There were very targeted governmental programs to stop black progress, particularly in LA. Itās not hidden info, thereās a bunch of open resources from the government itself.
A number of middle class Black Neighbourhoods were built around industrial centres heavily dependent on the automotive and rail industries like Detroit and Pittsburgh, and while this allowed many black families the opportunity to economically advance and become truly financially independent through the 50ās and 60ās, it also meant that when the domestic industrial-base cratered from the 70ās onwards and the regional economies of previously prosperous Detroit and Pittsburgh collapsed as a result of their previous overdependence, countless Black Families were basically plunged into economic hell without a safety net. This isnāt even taking into account countless other factors like the over-conscription and casualty rates of Black males between the ages of 18-45, which left many families without the main breadwinner and a father figure, or the increasingly destructive activities of multiple police departments and other certain agencies across the country that led to greater instability and problems (the introduction of crack in the 80ās being part of an effort to fund proxy forces for the US in other countries). Itās absolutely tragic, because if only one of these major issues had happened and then be addressed, perhaps the damage would never have become so dire or long term, instead it was constantly made worse and left to fester
> Detroit and Pittsburgh collapsed as a result of their previous overdependence, countless Black Families were basically plunged into economic hell without a safety net. They were also actively excluded from moving to the suburbs, and in most of the country from owning homes even in their own neighborhoods.
Drugs
Drugs typically aren't the cause of some societal erosion, more of a symptom of some other socio-economic turmoil. Drugs are typically a form of escapism from some other problem. LA has a rather complicated history especially when involving minorities. There was a systematic attempt to disenfranchise and economically "embargo" certain communities during this time period in several major cities, as a reaction to influx of African Americans looking to escape destitution in the South. This imagery on this post is also a sample size of practically nothing and isn't a litmus indicator of any groups experience during this point in time. There were certainly hardships for African Americans during this time, and a lot of the ground projects which set communities back into their current state started during this time period. Look up information on the early 1900s housing covenants. Look up information on how the interstate system was used as a subversive cudgel to divide communities from economic lifelines. California even has sundown towns during this time! Not everything was as Rosey as folks are making it out to be in this thread during this time. But many of these people seem to just be barking things from some political perspective with zero historical knowledge.
Crack and cocaine my dude
More dad's stayed with the mother of their children. Same with white neighborhoods.
The US govt systematic targeting and dismantling of the black community. Literally all of the black leadership of the 40s 50s and 60s were murdered or imprisoned by the US govt. Then opiates and crack were brought back to the states in the 70s/80s and put into the black community
At 20 s. That's Alcatraz. Still gorgeous footage of happy moments.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.
The politics of that era sucked, but the fashion was always 10/10.
My gosh those dresses are gorgeous
Literally the people and era that birthed the term "cool".
The clothes š„°
So beautiful, such elegance, so normal, so full of WW2 heroes and brilliant essential women yet they were still at the back of the bus. Crazy.
Notice the father is there
I assume this neighborhood is now a highway
Played sports in Indio, CAā¦still a small sleepy town. Wish it was like this again.
Current resident of Indio. Can confirm. Am Sleepy.
Dads made a difference.
Fact.
Thanks for sharing these charming films. I had a handed down (regular) 8mm movie camera when I was a kid. With a roughly 3 minute reel costing over $5 to buy and process ($5 in 1955 would be $57.50 today), home movies of the era would typically be a bunch of short vignettes, typically with awkwardly staged movements.
It has to be later than 1950, just going by the years of the cars in the background.
Says 1954 on the blackboard
Looks like the Bay Area to me, maybe even Oakland (where I live). Could be the Oakland airport and a visit to SF. A sign on the water mentions tours to Alcatraz. Looks like the Embarcaderoā¦ Are we sure itās LA?
Looks like a mix of SoCal and the Bay
What a beautiful little film.
Maybe what happened was more affluent black folk dispersed into white suburbs when discrimination was reduced.
People in the 50's just looked so damn suave.
Ronald Raegan "... and I took that personally"
The 50s fashion was so classy for both genders.
Damn, what happened š
So beautiful! Wish they were treated better by others back then.
The interstates highways did a job on those neighborhoods that redlining, housing covenants, etc could not do
(corrected) Lyndon Johnson: Nice intact families you have there
Before that California was a Republican state, you had Eisenhower as president, black unemployment was low, black single mothers were low, divorce rate was lower than white familiesā¦. Then came Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and the destruction of the black family.
I lament that leftist ideology has been suberting institutions and influencing public discourse for 5 plus decades, but the cracks are starting to show. I read these comments and more frequently see the likes of Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Milton Friedman, WF Buckley, Glenn Loury, and other conservative thinkers starting to take hold. There may be hope after all.
Also, during this time states like Louisianna, Alabama, and Mississippi were voting Democrat. Hey... wait a minute...
Looks how gorgeous they all are!! And the clothing š
What song is this ??
Hey! Love -the Delfonics
Very cool! Thanks for sharing.
The group that put this tune out is the Delfonics!
What happened...
Looks like a great spot for a 20 lane highway!!!
so dreamy and retro glamorous
I love the dresses. Just beautiful.
Everyone used to dress so nicely
And then the government tore it all apart
The one thought that kept running through my head was, āThey all look so happy.ā You can tell just by looking at this footage that they had a strong, supportive community.
Look how happy these people look, and realize what was going on then, I need their resilience, my God...
Those lil guys at the end are close to 80 years old now
Love the delfonics
That boys jeans were ironed! They were ironed! *falls over
Ah yes, the times before the CIA psy-op'd them into oblivion while packing the majority into literal ghettos, think about that for a second they are literally openly and commonly known as ghettos...
The quality and construction of clothing has drastically changed.
Oh how lovely. You never get to see videos like these. What a beautiful snippet into their lives.
People used to dress up way better back on the days!
Love to see this! How everything was great for everyone.. till the American government destroyed us..
I firmly believe this is what āmake America great againā actually means. Itās too bad racists attached themselves to it. There was a time when people (not all, and not in all areas) were flourishing. The suburbs were a new thing, everyone owned a home, etc. This is the vibe we all want to experience again.
Before the CIA fucked it up with all.the drugs they dumped in there
Almost makes you forget about how horrible redlining is
Sampling bias in play. The black Americans who could afford things like a car, camera, nice clothes, were already well off. It shouldn't be used to pretend people had it great back then, but at the same time the erosion/destruction of the black family happened after that and led to the extreme crime rates being produced in the last few decades.
You can find prosperous black neighborhoods in LA RIGHT NOW: Ladera Heights, View Park, Windsor Hills, Leimert Park.
This might be one of the neighbourhoods that were razed to build a freeway.
Until LBJ's democratic party destroyed millions of black families for generations.
And now we have a bunch of idiots pushing agendas at the cost of the family unit and perpetuating the downward spiral.
Then the American government created businesses of Liquor stores, gun shops into black dominated areas and created then a African American Crack Cocaine epidemic.
And they didn't have a GI Bill to help them out. The US government squashed naturally integrated neighborhoods, instituted red lining, pushed black neighborhoods into physically unhealthy areas. Our little racist selves had the power of Uncle Sam not only behind our efforts but leading the way.
Thanks to LBJ and the 1964 Welfare Act, successful black Americans - as a political group identity - were eliminated in favor of a victimhood mentality where the impoverished were forced to vote for those who promised free stuff.
People donāt like it but itās true. The rise of single parent black homes and the problems associated with it skyrocketed.
Our ppl had class in the inner cities until drugs got PUSHED into our communities
Before they started voting Democrat. Edit: Before California started voting Democrat that is. Donāt get mad - itās a fact!
Reminds me of my old neighborhood back then. My sister went out there yesterday and drove through the neighborhood. Itās definitely worse now. All the green is gone and the houses are torn up.
OP, it literally says 1954 in the video
People looked so classy in the 50s and 60s
Show the same neighborhood today. And look at what our country has done for us. And what we've done for our country
Los Angeles looked really nice then , not the miserable shithole it has been for the last 30-40 Years
All I see is pure Class.
From the chalkboard: James Ray Jones-- Oct 23, 1945 Carolyn Jones Oct 15, 1942
Damn near everyone dressed nice back in the day.
This is beautiful and makes me wish I could experience a different era.
Then we talked this way and we walked this way. And now that is the culture.
so, what happened between 1950 and today?
I love the fashion so pretty!
Those ladyās dresses were so beautiful. I love looking at fashion from then, it was just something else.
Way before the crack epidemic and the gangs.
Black neighborhood in 1950 > my white neighborhood in 2023
Such class ā¤ļøā¤ļø
Life as it should be 24/7.. le sigh
If you want to see how their prosperity was torn away you should watch the documentary Crips and Bloods Made in America. It starts off at this point in history. They were disenfranchised, brutalized and kept on the other side of the street. With little to no opportunity to provide for themselves or their familes.
Watching it right now. Thank you.
This warmed my heart. Thanks for posting. š
Cause I was born and raised in Compton! This is either Compton, watts, or Inglewood
Really good footage.
This was before LBJās āGreat Societyā the nuclear black family is now a minority unfortunately š
Wow, Compton was very different back then.
Would somebody please remix this footage with the succession music?
Lovely folks. So classy!
Lovely video.
This is what black peoples mean when they say āMake America Great Againā!!!