It was the end of the Great Migration when Danny J. Bakewell Sr. left New Orleans for Los Angeles in 1967. He was 21 years old; a college dropout with a wife and baby, in an era of bleak prospects for blacks.
I would have taken any job here that paid the bills. What Bakewell didn't imagine was that what he got (a community organizing job) would put him on the path. a path to poweras a civil rights leader, real estate developer, business magnate, and editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, the city's legendary black newspaper.
Discover the changemakers shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Civic Center, a collection featuring an innovative mayor, a housing advocate, a food donor, and others who are the backbone of Los Angeles. Come back every Sunday for another delivery.
After the segregation of the South, it didn't take Bakewell long to realize that the City of Los Angeles had its own racial hierarchy, one that stranded blacks in dilapidated enclaves with underfunded schools and brutal policing.
Bakewell's mantra was self-determination, and he began mobilizing residents around that ideal in the late 1960s. “We didn't want anyone to give us anything,” she said. “We were willing to work for it and we were willing to trust each other for our future.”
A few years later, he was hired to lead the Brotherhood Crusade, a grassroots organization that refused to accept government money and funded its self-help programs with voluntary payroll deductions of black wages.
“I'm sure I'm pro-black. I come to serve them at the table.
—Danny J. Bakewell Sr.
That high-profile role increased Bakewell's visibility throughout the city, giving him license to operate from the halls of power to the city's most troubled blocks.
He has the ear of politicians, including Mayor Karen Bass, and the respect of communities that he won't allow to be overlooked.
“Danny always asks, 'What can we do, brothers and sisters, to help?'” said Khalid Shah, director of the Stop Violence, Increase Peace Foundation.
Bakewell, 77, helped legitimize a movement that turned gang members into peacekeepers who helped curb violent crime. He brought commercial development to Compton's decaying downtown. And for 18 years, he has hosted the West Coast's largest family food and music festival, Crenshaw's “Taste of Soul.”
Still, Bakewell's rise up the civic ladder was not easy. His single-minded focus on black issues and his refusal to compromise made some people uncomfortable.
“I'm not against anyone,” Bakewell has always insisted. “But I am for The blacks for sure. That's why I come to the table to serve… because I see that we always leave ourselves out, we always stay behind.
“And if I'm going to play any leadership role, I want it to improve black lives.”
