Daniel WidenerBlack Arts West
Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Acts of Culture, or, Maybe the People Would Be the Times 1
Part I. Cultural Democracy in the Racial Metropolis
1. Hollywood Scuffle: The Second World War, Los Angeles, and the Politics
of Wartime Representation 21
2. The Negro as Human Being? Desegregation and the Black Arts Imperative 52
3. Writing Watts: The Rise and Fall of Cultural Liberalism 90
Part II. Message from the Grassroots
4. Notes from the Underground: Free Jazz and Black Power in South Los
Angeles 117
5. Studios in the Street: Creative Community and Visual Arts 153
6. The Arms of Criticism: The Cultural Politics of Urban Insurgency 187
Part III. Festivals and Funerals
7. An Intimate Enemy: Culture and the Contradictions of Bradleyism 221
8. How to Survive in South Central: Black Film as Class Critique 250
Epilogue 283
Notes 291
Works Cited 329
Index 353