The notorious street gang the “ Crips” was founded in 1969 in south central Los Angeles. Growing unemployment and poverty led to a rise in crime and black street gangs. By the 1980s, Compton’s “ghetto” image had emerged as unemployment among black men rose to 10 percent, almost twice the national average for all unemployment. In 1969, Douglas Dollarhide was elected the first black mayor of Compton. In the early 1960s, while whites still controlled politics and law enforcement, blacks began to make political progress. By 1970, Compton had become 65 percent African American. The Watts Riots of 1965 accelerated black flight from Los Angeles and in turn increased white flight from Compton.

The black population in Compton rose from 5 percent in 1940 to 40 percent in 1960. Real-estate brokers accelerated this process by scaring white families with threats of low property values due to the new racially integrated neighborhoods. Some of the first black families entering Compton neighborhoods were met with violence, vandalism, and terror.īy the mid-1950s, white flight-the process of white families rapidly leaving a neighborhood due to changing racial demographics-was spreading in Compton. Supreme Court’s ban on restrictive covenants in 1948 and began to purchase houses in Compton. Many African Americans in south central Los Angeles were now prosperous enough to move to Compton. Civic leaders, real-estate agents, and law-enforcement agencies perpetuated this racial exclusion with their own practices.Ĭompton’s demographics began to change during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The city adopted racially restrictive covenants in 1921 to bar African Americans and other people of color from the municipality. Prior to World War II, Compton was 95 percent white.

Throughout the twentieth century, Compton was a middle-class suburb with relatively inexpensive housing.

The first black families came to the city just before World War II. Compton was settled in 1867 by thirty pioneer families led by Griffith Dickenson Compton, after whom the city was named. LA is too sprawling and disjointed to ever have a schlocky communal anthem, but after two decades “I Love LA” is still the closest thing we've got.Compton is a city in Southern California, located in south Los Angeles County. Of course, this is still the same sardonic songwriter as always, so Newman’s love of big, nasty redheads and the Beach Boys is balanced by a line like, “Look at that mountain, look at those trees, look at that bum over there, man he’s down on his knees.” Unlike pretty much every other ode to Los Angeles, “I Love LA” doesn’t tie itself to any one trope-the industry bubble, gangsta cred, beach bum life-and instead professes the crazy idea that LA as a whole, the very condition of living in this weird and wonderful city, is a cause worthy of celebration (and a rousing chorus). As he dismisses the Frank Sinatra anthem towns of New York and Chicago, a crunchy synth kicks in-‘80s production be damned-and a nasally proclamation that “we was born to ride” inspires a sense of, dare we say, pride in LA, Santa Anas blowing and all. It may not be the most, ah, complex composition, but Randy Newman's 1983 anthem has a simple message you can't mess with-overwhelming love for the city (while having a shitload of fun).

City of compton parody songd