Relative Freedom: African American Women and Community Formation in Los Angeles, 1850–1910

The history of Los Angeles is indicative of several shifting borders, geographically, economically, and racially. Founded in 1781, Los Angeles was part of Mexico and colonial Spain before becoming an American city in the middle of the 19th century. Known for its biracial heritage, several families were chosen to relocate from Sinaloa, Mexico to settle the region. The city’s founding families, consisted of forty-six people, twenty-six of whom were of African descent. Many of these people, and their descendants, rose to prominence within the local community and state, thereby contributing to the city’s complex racial hierarchy. Their experiences were in no way similar to those of southern black migrants who arrived between 1850 and 1910.

Historians of Los Angeles have argued that in its early years, the city provided more opportunity for African Americans than other parts of the country. They often underscore the accomplishments of the black middle class, emphasizing how conditions for black Angelenos, particularly in the area of land and property acquisition, diverged from those in the south, where African Americans suffered racial apartheid immediately following the demise of Reconstruction. This rosy narrative, however, privileges the experiences of black middle class men, thereby neglecting the conditions of two very important components of Los Angeles’s black community – the working class and women. This paper argues that black working class Angelenos faced many more obstacles to securing economic and social freedoms than their middle class counterparts. Nevertheless, largely through the efforts of women, the black working class in Los Angeles forged tenuous bonds of community with black elites and built close connections with immigrant laborers and other working class people of color.