Hundreds of people danced and cheered as the R&B group Dru Hill performed their throwback “Beauty” on a balmy Saturday afternoon at the Taste of Soul street festival. Food vendors lined up along Crenshaw Boulevard in South LA, selling everything from alligator to Jamaican patties to grilled oysters.
Taste of Soul is one of the largest street festivals in the country, attracting more than 350,000 visitors annually. Founder Danny J. Bakewell Sr., publisher of the LA Sentinel, has said “the evolution of Taste of Soul has simply been about the care for black people and wanting the best for our community.”
A celebration of food, art, and black culture in Los Angeles, the festival presented the perfect opportunity for Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson to tell residents about a project coming to the neighborhood: Destination Crenshaw.
South LA resident Andrea Wilson, 28, learned about the project—an open-air museum that will bring trees, small parks, and public art to a 1.3-mile stretch of Crenshaw, from 48th and 60th streets—for the first time on Saturday.
“I’m happy that they’re trying to change the face of this area,” says Wilson. “The streets weren’t always walkable ... [and] I don’t have anything nice to see.”
The project, she predicts, will allow community members to feel like they can safely walk in the neighborhood.
Among the hundreds of tents lined up on Crenshaw Boulevard on Saturday, Harris-Dawson’s tent was one of the largest, and it included a VR set-up for visitors to experience what Destination Crenshaw will look like.
“[Taste of Soul] is where you engage a conversation with the black community in Southern California,” says Harris-Dawson. “Because even if you live in Altadena, San Bernardino, Long Beach or Calabasas, Crenshaw is still important to you, if you’ve got history as an African American in this community.”
Considered the main street of black Los Angeles, Crenshaw Boulevard runs through historic neighborhoods, including Leimert Park, and is lined by some of the region’s essential businesses, including Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall and the Los Angeles Sentinel.
Cassandra Withers, 59, visits Taste of Soul every year from Long Beach. Having grown up in South LA, she says she enjoys stopping by the festival every year to learn what’s new in the community.
As for Destination Crenshaw, Withers says she’s old school and everything is moving a little too fast for her, but says she likes the project and is happy that the younger generation will get to enjoy it.
The idea was created in response to Metro building the Crenshaw/LAX Line on ground level instead of underground. Community members feared that it would harm businesses along the Crenshaw corridor.
Destination Crenshaw will have community gathering spaces—including an outdoor gallery amphitheater with an overlook of city views—parks, and hundreds of new trees. Designed by Perkins + Will and Studio-MLA, it will also feature art by local and renowned artists.
The Wall of Crenshaw, a roughly 800-foot-long mural featuring black activists and performers along Crenshaw Boulevard, will be folded into the project too, which is slated to get underway next year.
Harris-Dawson says community members are excited about the project, and some feel like it’s long overdue.
“It’s something that is absolutely necessary during this time when there’s so much change in our city and so many concerns about gentrification,” he says.
But some South LA residents are worried that Destination Crenshaw isn’t enough when it comes to concerns of housing and small businesses staying open.
“There isn’t so much people feeling like Destination Crenshaw shouldn’t happen,” says Harris-Dawson. “They feel like it should be the companion of many other important things.”
Comments
Google, Facebook, Netflix, Disney always talk about diversity, but for some reason they don’t want to open offices along Crenshaw paying $150,000 salaries to the locals.
By Ivan III on 10.22.19 11:33am
"Amid so many concerns about non-black people moving in we need a space that is by and for black people." (paraphrasing from the description of Destination Crenshaw) Let’s consider it the other way around. Amid so many concerns about black people moving into our area we need a space that is by and for white people. See how obviously racist that is? Yet, when it is the other way around, it’s just fine. Except it isn’t. And people notice. Increasingly so.
By Ty1990 on 10.22.19 1:26pm
You’d have a point if whites were also historically oppressed and discriminated against, but they weren’t, so you don’t.
By LosFeliz$ean on 10.22.19 1:43pm
Well said. Truth hurts and today’s white America seems to have forgotten who they have been historically..
By Leedart1 on 10.29.19 1:41am
Apples and oranges given historical facts. Even so, this sort of racially exclusive language has a self-perpetuating quality in the wider culture.
By MyrnaMinkoff on 10.22.19 2:56pm
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Bravo
By Papadiche on 10.23.19 12:54pm
i‘ll laugh hysterically when the usa enters a period of prolonged economic hardship, watch how fast the kid gloves come off, and everyone drops the phoney pc act.
the pendulum will swing HARD in the opposite direction, lmfao!
By Prepare Your Angus on 10.24.19 9:19am
Minorities should be welcomed, not excluded. This project, Destination Crenshaw that is "by and for black people" is inherently racist and discriminatory against the many non-black minorities that reside in the area.
It’s simple either excluding people based on their race is ok, or it isn’t. Not sure why that is so hard to understand. And no, "historically oppressed and discriminated" against does not mean that the right thing to do is to continue on oppressing and discriminating but in reverse. Get it?
By Ty1990 on 10.22.19 1:48pm
Then what is the right thing to do? Declare everything "fair" from this moment on? I’m game as soon as the substandard educational opportunities, school-to-jail pipeline, unequal access to capital, mass incarceration, food deserts, drug scourge, employment and housing discrimination, etc., are all things of the past.
By LosFeliz$ean on 10.22.19 1:57pm
Funny that the many of the things you are complaining about are actually things that would be improved with "gentrification" ( a propaganda term for a neglected area being invested in and improved). The way to keep things a dump is to try to block this influx of capital and those wishing to start businesses, restore dilapidated homes, take pride in their community, etc.
By Ty1990 on 10.22.19 3:04pm
And with this gentrification after four or five years look around you and what do you have?!??? A white community….look at DC, Atlanta’s newly "discovered" intown neighborhoods, etc…..
Over and over when doors have been opened for fair play, the person inviting the change gets burned. It’s the American Consumerism Capitalistic way…. promise one thing and deliver something completly different.
By Leedart1 on 10.29.19 1:47am
Just stop Sean.
By LAwastheplace on 10.22.19 4:05pm
No.
Now what?
By LosFeliz$ean on 10.22.19 4:36pm
Are they actually excluding anyone though? I think their language is questionable at best, but I don’t see evidence they are putting up "whites need not apply" signs.
By MyrnaMinkoff on 10.22.19 3:00pm
Of course they aren’t going to physically block people, but the language could not be much more explicit. The message is loud and clear. Blacks only. Hispanics, asians, whites, others – NOT welcome.
By Ty1990 on 10.22.19 3:19pm
No one is saying that a welcoming space created to celebrate black culture for this community is exclusionary to others. I think you are projecting your own discomfort for visiting this type of space. Feel free to visit; you will be welcome. On a similar note, have you ever visited the Japanese American National Museum? It is located in Little Tokyo, created by that community for that community. Does that feel exclusionary to you as well?
By Snakeperson on 10.23.19 11:26am
A space created by and for black people implies that it is NOT for non-blacks. Again, this becomes obviously unacceptable if you switch the races. "Headline- a publicly funded city project has just been announced- the creation of a multi-million dollar public space that is for and by white people. The project aims to reclaim the area for white L.A."
Now don’t get upset, no one is saying this welcoming space created to celebrate white culture for our white community is exclusionary to others. It’s for us white people to unapologetically celebrate our whiteness and our historic and contemporary contributions.
By Ty1990 on 10.23.19 4:22pm
"A space created by and for black people"
Is that your language or theirs?
By MyrnaMinkoff on 10.23.19 4:31pm
Theirs – read it. destination crenshaw
By Ty1990 on 10.23.19 4:50pm
If it walks like a duck…
I see you Ty1990.
By LosFeliz$ean on 10.23.19 5:11pm
Black people have moving out of South LA for generations now. It’s been majority Hispanic for at least 20 years.
By LAwastheplace on 10.22.19 4:04pm
In all seriousness this should be the obama library instead of ruining so many lives in chi town.
By Penile_Mouse_Mousse on 10.24.19 6:48am
what‘s with the 1984 newspeak?
uprisings in south la? you mean riots in the ghetto / south central?
is a burglar an "uninvited house guest"? a rapist an "unwelcome sexual partner"?
By Prepare Your Angus on 10.24.19 9:21am
Living in the south as well LA, it’s funny how alike they really are just covered in self promotion in the west. People in Cali can see how economic racism destroys but will turn a head and act as if it does not exist. In the south you know what kind of players you have stacked against you if your black, not just minority.
By Leedart1 on 10.29.19 1:57am