The Great Black Way

Description:

"In 1997, R. J. Smith went hunting for a book about the 1940s jazz scene on Los Angeles's Central Avenue. What he found was a forgotten place and time in African American and California history, and a scene whose influence has lasted more than fifty years, though we no longer realize it. Like a major archaeological dig, The Great Black Way unearths that little known, now vanished civilization and changes how we understand history." "Based on original research and more than a hundred interviews, this book shows that the influence of Central Avenue has extended far beyond its place and time: in the politics of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, in blaxploitation cinema and on WB network comedies, in the novels of James Ellroy and Walter Mosley, in the humor of Richard Pryor and Chris Rock, in the raps of Jay-Z and Tupac Shakur, in the slang we use and the clothes we wear. All of this and more flowed from the 1940s scene along the Great Black Way."--BOOK JACKET.

subjects: Race relations,  African American neighborhoods,  Community life,  Interviews,  African American arts,  Intellectual life,  African Americans,  Biography,  History,  African americans, civil rights,  Los angeles (calif.), history,  African americans, california, los angeles,  Los angeles (calif.), social conditions,  Los angeles (calif.), biography,  Los angeles (calif.), race relations,  Noirs américains,  Vie intellectuelle,  Arts noirs américains,  Histoire,  Quartiers noirs américains,  Communauté,  Entretiens