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| Excerpt from INNER CITY BLUES |
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Kind of down-at-the heels now, Crenshaw Boulevard had
been my generation's street of dreams, a paler version of
what Central Avenue had been for my parents. The original
Baldwin Hills Shopping Center at Crenshaw and what was then
called Santa Barbara Avenue was the place to go for school
clothes, while Maverick's Flat and The Total Experience
night clubs farther south on Crenshaw played host to everyone
from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes to Gladys Knight & the
Pips. A dream world in the sixties and early seventies,
the way Crenshaw declined afterward was part of the black
middle class nightmare. The Black Freedom Militia setting
up shop in an abandoned storefront on the boulevard was
only the icing on a very ugly cake that included the demise
or relocation of too many small businesses, the exodus of
white-owned car dealerships to the suburbs, and the black
musical acts to newly integrated clubs in Century City,
Hollywood, and the bigger venues like the Greek Theatre
or the Universal Amphitheatre.
But for every business lost, there was another to take its
place, including Coley's Café, a Jamaican restaurant just
down the street from the place where I got my first Afro
haircut. Just walking into the gaudily decorated space with
Aubrey and inhaling the melange of spices made me wish I
was in the islands.
If you would like to read more of INNER CITY BLUES check
it out in the Books
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