No blacks had ever lived in Inglewood,” Gladys Waddingham wrote,:59 but by 1960, “they lived in great numbers along its eastern borders. This came to the great displeasure of the predominantly white residents already residing in Inglewood. In 1960, the census counted only 29 'Negroes' among Inglewood's 63,390 residents. Not a single black child attended the city's schools. Real estate agents refused to show homes to blacks. A rumored curfew kept blacks off the streets at night. Inglewood was a prime target because of its previous history of restrictions.” “Fair housing and school busing were the main problems of 1964. The schools were not prepared to handle racial incidents, even though any that occurred were very minor. Adults held many heated community meetings, since the Blacks objected to busing as much as did the Whites.”:61 In 1969, an organization called “Morningside Neighbors” changed its name to “Inglewood Neighbors" "in the hope of promoting more integration.”:63
On July 22, 1970, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Max F. Deutz ordered Inglewood schools to desegregate in response to a suit filed by 19 parents. At least since 1965, said Deutz, the Inglewood school board had been aware of a growing influx of black families into its eastern areas but had done nothing about the polarization of its pupils into an eastern black area and a western white one. On August 31, he rejected an appeal by four parents who said the school board was not responsible for the segregation but that the blacks "selected their places of residence by voluntary choice.
The first black principal among the 18 Inglewood schools was Peter Butler at La Tijera Elementary,:66 and in 1971, Waddingham wrote, “Stormy racial meetings in 1971” included a charge by “some real estate men in the overflowing Crozier Auditorium” that the Human Relations Commission was acting like “the Gestapo.”:67 In that year, Loyd Sterling Webb, president of Inglewood Neighbors, became the first black officeholder when voters elected him to the school board.
In 1972 Curtis Tucker Sr. was appointed as the first black City Council member.:69 That year composer LeRoy Hurte, an African-American, took the baton of the Inglewood Symphony Orchestra and continued to work with it for 20 years.:75 Edward Vincent became Inglewood’s first black mayor in 1980. In that decade Inglewood became the first city in California to declare the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a holiday.:76
Rise of Latino population
The 1990 census showed that Hispanics in Inglewood had increased by 134 percent since 1980, the largest jump in the South Bay. Economic factors apparently played a role in where new arrivals settled, said David Heer, a USC professor of sociology and associate director of the university's Population Research Laboratory. "Housing is generally less expensive here than elsewhere . . . and I would say that they receive a warmer welcome here," said Norm Cravens, assistant city manager in Inglewood, where the Anglo population dropped from nearly 21 percent in 1980 to 8.5 percent in 1990.
In the 2000 census, blacks made up 47 percent of the city's residents (53,060 people), and Hispanics made up 46 percent (51,829), but the Census Bureau estimated that in 2007 the percentage of blacks had declined to 41 percent (48,252) and that of Hispanics of any race were at 52.5 percent (61,847). The white population declined from 19 percent (21,505) to 17.7 percent (20,853).
But in that year, only one of the city's five City Council members was Latino, Jose Fernandez. There were no Latinos on the five-member Board of Education.
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