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Bronzeville
Bronzeville2
people are having to share a bathroom with 40 other people because there was only
one also sharing one room with 16 people.
Hilary Jenks, The wasp, southern California Quarterly, University of California Press, summer
2011.
When Japanese were evacuated from Little Tokyo. Africans Americans took place in
Little Tokyo. After that Little Tokyo were named Bronzeville because of the war. The
Japanese were sent back to Little Tokyo and both races have to be sharing the
place.In 1950 a second evacuation was realized because of the new police
headquarters and it was because of the returning of the Japanese. Anyway, both
communities learned from the brief experience of little Tokyo/Bronzeville.
Little Tokyo Historical Society, Los Angeless Bronzeville, California Publisher Arcadia
Publishing, November 15, 2010
After Japanese were forcibly removed to internment camps. Little Tokyo/Bronzeville
became a place for African American. They started to bring their cultures as popular jazz clubs
and churches. Despite the War Relocation Authority's opposition to re-establishing Little Tokyo
following the war, Japanese Americans gradually restored the strong ties evident today in 21stcentury Little Tokyo--a multicultural, multigenerational community that is the largest
Nihonmachi (Japantown) in the United States
Memories of Bronzeville, a Forgotten Downtown Era, Kirk Silsbee, 2013
In 1943 during World War II the town was called Bronzeville and then it
was called Little Tokyo. During that time the Japanese were forced to move from
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their homes. The African Americans moved to Bronzeville. After the war the blacks
moved west and the Japanese moved Popular fronts: Negro Story Magazine and the
African American literary response to WWII, Bullen, Bill
Nakawa Martha, Bronzeville Little Tokyo, health, Little Tokyo/Bronzeville, Los Angeles CA.
January 9, 2014
Fortunately Little Tokyo/Bronzeville had good health services. Various organizations
and city officials offered free lectures and services to combat diseases such as tuberculosis and
venereal diseases. In 1943 Dr. George Ulh stated that in little Tokyo much tuberculosis and
venereal diseases discovered".
Nakawa Martha, Crime on Little Tokyo/Bronzeville, Los Angeles, CA, January 9, 2014
During 1943 Little Tokyo/ Bronzeville became the main attraction for criminals or
people with mental illness. During this time robberies, rapes, prostitution, and hit and run
accidents increase at a strong level. There was this case of Laura long, who had been voted Miss
Bronzeville in 1943, captured headlines in November 1945when she stabbed Vivian smith with a
butcher knife in front of longs husband. She was absolved in a jury trial.
Nakawa Martha, Little Tokyo/Bronzeville, Los Angeles January 9, 2014
Bronzeville is an interesting era that show us what happened in little Tokyo during
WWII. The Japanese were evacuated from Little Tokyo and sent to a concentration
camp. During that time little Tokyo became a ghost town until Africans Americans
and a few Latinos started to move to Little Tokyo. However the situation of that era
was horrible. There were around about 80,000 people living there. 16 people have to
Bronzeville4
share a room or 40 sharing a bathroom. It was unhealthy and dirty just imagine that
amount of people living in one room and sharing the same bathroom. The article
states that in 1943 after various meetings and protests, federal officials proposed
building temporary war housing in the unincorporated City of Willowbrook, a thenwhite neighborhood next to Watts and Compton, which prompted predictable
protests from residents of that area.
Nakagawa Martha, Little Tokyo, Bronzeville, Los Angeles
The defense industry demanding workers 24 hours a day, Bronzeville was a shelter
of activity with the mingling of the day and graveyard shift workers, who found a
way to actually spend their money. This fostered a rise to a thriving nightlife in
Bronzeville that competed with African American clubs around 42nd and Central
Avenue. Many of these clubs open nearly 24 hours, giving rise to the term Breakfast
Clubs. The Los Angeles City Council unsuccessfully passed several rules in an effort
to control breakfast club businesses. Bronzeville's best known breakfast club was
Shepp's Playhouse, which was on the corner of First and Los Angeles streets, the
prewar site of the Kawafuku restaurant. Gordon Shepphard, which was black who
worked as a Hollywood cameraman, opened Shepp's in Sept. 12, 1944. In 1946,
Billy Berg, a well-known Hollywood club owner, purchased a half-interest in
Shepp's. Many notable musicians performed at Shepp's including Coleman Hawkins,
Herb Jeffries from the Duke Ellington band, and T-Bone Walker, to name a few.
Gerald Wilson made his debut with his own orchestra at Shepp's in 1944 after he had
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left the Jimmie Lunceford band. Shepp's customers included the likes of Count
Basie, Helen Humes, Judy Garland, and Gene Kelly, among others.
Nakagawa Martha, Little Tokyo/Bronzeville, L.A. Californian
Bronzeville was a short lived African American enclave in downtown L.A.
that replaced Little Tokyo during WWII after the U.S. government forcibly removed
Japanese Americans from the west coast into concentration camps. Which was
officially called relocation centers- in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming,
Colorado and Arkansas. Once the U.S. government excluded Japanese Americans
from the West Coast in early 1942, the Japantowns up and down the West Coast
became ghost towns. Since Japanese immigrants, by law, could not own property,
the large majority of building owners in these vacant Japantowns were Caucasians
who had to find new tenants.
Popular fronts: Negro Story Magazine and the African American literary response to WWII,
Bullen, Bill
Public summary: Focuses on accounts of Afro-Americans literary history and
American radicalism of the 1940s.Critical accounts of African American literary history
and U.S. radicalism of the 1940s have often viewed the decade as a turning point in the
formation of a radical black politics Formation of radical black politics; Titles;
Ideological tension between wartime patriotism and black social reformism. Wartime
restriction on black editorial militancy back.
Reyes, Mario G, Churches in Bronzeville
Bronzeville6
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120,000 Japanese Americans were under lock and key. Businesses, houses, and the
town became a ghost town.
The Many Facets of Brown: Integration in a Multiracial Society, Kurashige, Scott, June 2004
Highlights efforts to build solidarity between African Americans and Japanese
Americans in the overlapping spaces the two groups occupied in the post World War
II Los Angeles, California In the era of Brown, discourse about race relations
centered on whites and blacks, but the bold demographic changes of the past fifty
years compel scholars to make sense of a multiracial social order. The ongoing
struggle for integration and social justice increasingly depends on the construction of
multiracial coalitions
The race war that flopped Little Tokyo and Bronzeville upset predictions of Negro-Nisei battle
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