City of Segregation traces the central role racism has played in shaping modern Los Angeles-as it has shaped all US cities. Andrea Gibbons documents one hundred years of struggle against the enforced separation of racial groups through property markets, constructions of community and the growth of neoliberalism. This movement history covers the decades of work to end legal support for segregation in 1948; the 1960s Civil Rights movement and CORE’s efforts to integrate LA’s white suburbs; and the 2006 victory preserving 10, 000 downtown residential hotel units from gentrification enfolded within ongoing resistance to the criminalization and displacement of homelessness.
This is a story of state-supported segregation, violent grassroots defense of white neighborhoods, police oppression, and growing political and economic inequalities. In studying these conflicts-and their cycles of victory and retreat-
City of Segregation reveals the shape and nature of the racist ideology that must be fought if we hope to found just cities.
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Andrea Gibbons, a former tenant organizer in LA, is a researcher for the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU) at the University of Salford, Manchester. She is a writer, editor, and educator and serves on the editorial board of City.