When I was growing up in Watts during the 1960s and ’70s, evidence of August 1965 was inescapable. It was the relentless topic of family dinner conversation and my daily walk to school was lined with the burned-out lots that remain part of the scenery today.
Fifty years later, my life remains in Watts as executive director of Grant Housing, the nonprofit connected to Grant AME Church on South Central Avenue, which will celebrate 110 years in the community next year. The residual effects of 1965 that I see each day serve as a comfort somehow but also a source of anger and frustration. I’m working now to change my mind’s eye to see the inspiration that Watts is becoming.
If you come to Watts, it daily welcomes visitors from around the world, ranging from international tourists at the iconic Watts Towers to cyclists traversing wide neighborhood streets. Yet for residents and visitors alike, the truth of the 2-square-mile home to 40,000 souls can be elusive.
Music, friendly pedestrians and a profusion of flowers greet you on one street; blight and human isolation are just around the corner. A half-century after the “revolt” — the word I prefer to use because it leaves open fundamental questions about what happened in 1965 — uncomfortable questions remain like the yawning stretches of empty concrete slabs I stroll past each day.
Such questions are obvious in the modern-day statistics of Watts. Its residents have the worst life expectancy of any neighborhood in California. Thirty percent of Watts residents live in poor households — twice the state average. Those ubiquitous and unsightly lots attest to the private market calculation against investing in Watts.
A history of inaction
For years, experts conducted field research and produced learned papers on Watts’ issues, with few remaining to deliver results benefiting those they studied. As a result, Watts people have a prickly skepticism about the intentions of outsiders “just here to learn and help.” But sustained efforts in Watts can work, especially when, or only when, the community is meaningfully engaged. One good example is the Jordan Downs public housing master planning effort carried out by the city’s Housing Authority in partnership with Jordan Downs residents, themselves.
At times, Watts even inspires. The county museum has invested substantial effort in conserving Watts Towers, whose significance is understood worldwide. Watts generates creative expression in music, visual arts, literature, movies, dance and street performing — the grit fueling the greatness, as our friend, the late Tommy Jacquette, knew in helping to organize WattsStax and the Watts Summer Festival. Of course, there’s exploitation, too, with “South Central” sometimes mined by Hollywood for cheap drama.
National discussions of the recent violence in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and elsewhere have naturally led back to events in Watts 50 years ago. Such discussions are familiar to Watts — questions about the enduring reality of institutional and individual racism and the responsibility of individuals, politicians, academics, organizations and the news and entertainment businesses in helping to resolve them.
Some of those issues were once addressed through a myriad of plans for redevelopment via the California Redevelopment Agencies, the primary public vehicle for improvement in core communities. But that promise was severely damaged with the 2012 dissolution of the CRA. I served for 10 years as chair of the CRA’s Community Advisory Board and experienced first-hand both the bureaucratic imperfections of CRA-LA but also the necessity of a planning and financing entity responsible for improvements in the urban core.
A positive shift
Still, Watts’ long history with these issues may finally be working to its advantage.
While the CRA is gone, Watts is responding, including with a major new commitment for positive action, expressed in the Watts Re:Imagined initiative and the long-awaited reopening of MLK Hospital by Los Angeles County
Watts Re:Imagined is a comprehensive improvement program for Watts that is co-led by Grant Housing & Economic Development Corporation (GHEDC), a nonprofit connected to the Grant AME Church, and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Urban Solutions program. It focuses on practical measures across a range of concerns: housing, jobs, public health, green infrastructure, public transit and sustainable commercial building projects, the arts, culture and education.
After so many failed attempts to bring Watts back, the difference this time is that the community, itself, is leading many of these efforts. That’s the only way to make meaningful progress towards improving the lives of residents within one of America’s most historic city communities.
After August 1965, community leader Ted Watkins, founder of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, urged people: “Don’t Move, Improve.” When thinking of a slogan 50 years later, we give this answer for Watts: “Still here. Not done.”
There is no longer the option of ignoring a community so alert and ready for change. It’s Watts’ time.
Chris Jordan is executive director of the Grant Housing and Economic Development Corporation in Watts and co-lead with NRDC Urban Solutions of the Watts Re:Imagined initiative, www.wattsreimmagined.org.
