Since the late 1960’s, the city of Compton has faced rough challenges with poverty, homelessness, and gang violence. These three community issues derived from an incident from the 60’s, when real estate brokers began to scare White American citizens with low property values. The reason for these low property values was due to the new African American population moving into the city’s neighborhoods.
Black Americans started moving from south central Los Angeles to Compton, California in the late 1940’s and 1950’s due to higher income. Although, Blacks faced a plethora of discrimination, violence, and terror in Compton. As Blacks continued to stay in these neighborhoods, they were met with unfair treatment until the first Black American major was elected into office, Douglas Dollarhide.
Oddly, in the 1960’s, Black American unemployment rates increased drastically, leading to many Black families into poverty. As a result, many black males turned to street gangs and violence. This wasn’t just only in Compton, but also in south central LA. Leading to the two gangs, Bloods and Crips formation. The ghetto label became popular once the rap group, N.W.A promoted the gang violence between those two gangs.
Many African Americans left this city due to the violence in the late 1980’s.
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