African American Historic Places Los Angeles

Since 2005, Getty has been working with the City of Los Angeles to establish a comprehensive framework for the identification and management of the city’s historic resources. This partnership resulted in SurveyLA, Los Angeles’ first-ever citywide survey of historic resources, and the citywide inventory of historic resources, HistoricPlacesLA.

In 2018, the City of Los Angeles completed the African American History of Los Angeles context statement, a framework for identifying and evaluating properties related to African American history in Los Angeles. Produced as part of the overall citywide survey, the context statement was a first step in addressing the little-known and under-recognized heritage of African Americans in Los Angeles.

In December 2020, we convened a virtual roundtable of national and local thought leaders with experience in urban planning, historic preservation, African American history, and grassroots and community organizing. Their discussions of diversity and inclusion in preservation policy helped shape the project and its goals.

Despite the ambitious and comprehensive survey efforts undertaken by the city, its traditional historic designation programs do not yet equitably encompass the diversity and richness of the African American experience in Los Angeles. As of January 2023, only 4% of the city’s 1,260 locally designated landmarks (Historic-Cultural Monuments) reflect associations with African American history.

African American Historic Places Los Angeles will advance the city’s 2018 context statement by reconnecting with communities to more closely examine the African American heritage of the city, prioritizing places to bring forward for historic designation, and developing cultural heritage preservation strategies for neighborhood communities to understand, recognize, interpret, and protect this heritage.

A robust community engagement program will facilitate meaningful input into the process, draw on local knowledge of hidden histories, and contribute to the development of creative approaches that best meet communities’ own aims for placemaking, identity, and empowerment.

In addition to a specific focus on significant African American heritage sites and neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the project seeks to identify current land use planning and historic preservation policies and practices that must be rethought to ensure support of antiracist outcomes. This work will be informed by a research program and convening of international, national, and local experts to share knowledge and identify tools that could be adopted, adapted, or developed to support the work.

First Phase Activities

• expanding and refining the city’s existing 2018 African American historic context statement

• identifying and officially designating additional African American historic places

• developing better cultural heritage preservation strategies to manage, preserve, interpret, and celebrate the tangible and intangible heritage of historically Black neighborhoods

• creating a network of community-based preservation advocates

• intentionally engaging local communities and providing opportunities for public participation in conserving their heritage

• providing opportunities for emerging professionals working to preserve Black heritage through activities such as dedicated Getty Marrow Undergraduate and Graduate internships

• researching emerging tools, methodologies, and associated processes in the United States and internationally; analyzing their potential to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the identification and management of cultural heritage; and convening of an experts’ meeting on the subject

Future Phases

These will examine how the lessons learned in Los Angeles can be shared nationally.

Fifteen leaders in their respective communities and areas of expertise provide advice and support to advance the project’s work:

Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager, California African American Museum; David Crippens, Consultant and Civic Leader; former Vice President, KCET; Jason Foster, President and Chief Operating Officer, Destination Crenshaw; Lorn Foster, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Pomona College; Sherri Franklin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Urban Design Center ; Karen E. Hudson, Director, Paul R. Williams Architectural Collection; Author; Crystal Jackson, President, Pacoima Historical Society; Producer, “Pacoima Stories”; Gail Kennard, Cultural Heritage Commission, City of Los Angeles; Principal, Kennard Design Group; R. Steven Lewis, FAIA, NOMA, Principal, ZGF Architecture and Interior Design, Los Angeles; Board Member, National Organization of Minority Architects; Oshea Luja, Founder, StillWaters Network; Author and Poet; Karen Mack, City Planning Commission, City of Los Angeles; Executive Director, LA Commons; Naomi Nightingale, PhD, Owner, Nightingale and Associates, LLC; Diane Robertson, President, CBS Studios Law Department; Roland Wiley, AIA, NOMA, Founding Partner/Principal, RAW International; Jasmin A. Young, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside

Brent Leggs, Executive Director, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, National Trust for Historic Preservation; Fallon Aidoo, PhD, Jean Brainard Boebel Endowed Professor of Historic Preservation, Department of Planning and Urban Studies, University of New Orleans; Carson Anderson, Preservation Director / Senior Planner, Community Development Department, City of Sacramento Planning Department; Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager, California African American Museum; Milton S.F. Curry, Dean, Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair, University of Southern California School of Architecture; Denise E. Gilmore, Senior Director, Office of Social Justice & Racial Equity, Office of Mayor Randall L. Woodfin, City of Birmingham & Special Director of Transition, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; Gail Kennard, Cultural Heritage Commission, City of Los Angeles & Principal, Kennard Design Group; R. Steven Lewis, FAIA, NOMA, Principal, ZGF Architecture & Interior Design, Los Angeles & Board Member, National Organization of Minority Architects; Karen Mack, City Planning Commission, City of Los Angeles & Executive Director, LA Commons; Justin Garrett Moore, AICP, NOMA, Executive Director, New York Public Design Commission & Board Member, BlackSpace; Andrea Roberts, PhD, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and an Associate Director of the Center for Housing & Urban Development at Texas A&M University, founder of The Texas Freedom Colonies Project

Lauren O’Brien, Getty Graduate Intern (2022–2023); Getty Marrow Undergraduate Interns: Jeremiah Taylor (2023), Elena Prado (2022), and Jordan White (2021)