Boys & Girls Club of Metro Los Angeles’s Watts-Willowbrook Clubhouse has developed a partnership with Support+Feed and Wild Elements that offers its young members training in hydroponic gardening and environmentalism.
It has been a tough week in social justice in America. On January 5, Kenosha County Wisconsin District Attorney Mike Graveley announced that he will not charge the officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting. The next day, a hoard of pro-Trump extremists broke into and raided the United States Capitol in Washington D.C.
The small businesses in L.A. are suffering the most, the damage from the looting and destruction impacts employees who were looking to start re-building a life with a consistent paycheck. They were counting on conditions improving, only to be met with property damage and uncertainty. The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety has been conducting safety assessments to property owners who request one at no cost.
Garcetti explained that the small percentage of people who are causing destruction, are hi-jacking a moment and movement and re-directing the focus away from the cause. Tactics and strategies are geared to maintain order, further measures have been taken to gain control over the violence happening across the city.
Saturday, May 30, thousands came together in protest, closing the L.A. streets from Fairfax all the way through 3rd street, as the aftermath from the current murder of George Floyd by police hand in Minneapolis. Garcetti reiterated what he said yesterday, acknowledging the injustice of police brutality within the Black Community and pleaded with all residents to keep a level head while fighting for peace.
Five days of violence would leave 33 blacks and 10 whites dead, and more than 1,400 buildings burned. More than 7,000 people were arrested.
A decline that had already begun would accelerate; Detroit was the nation’s fourth biggest city in 1960, but would rank 21st by 2016. The middle class fled, and a proud city fell into poverty, crime and hopelessness.