"There Was Always This Perception that L.A. Was Kind of Like the Oddball"

"The book brings together the research interests of what Hunt describes as an 'all-star team' of contributors, most but not all of them academics with strong California connections. Comprising 17 short to medium-length essays, it pivots from data-rich analyses of how the black community's 20th century demographic center gradually has shifted from Central Avenue to Leimert Park, to interview-driven, anecdotal accounts of the rise and decline of Venice's Oakwood neighborhood and a revealing chronicle of the black-owned SOLAR (Sounds of Los Angeles Records), a late '70s-early '80s R&B hit-making machine for groups including the Whispers, Shalamar and Klymaxx."

In the Los Angeles Times, Reed Johnson interviews Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón, editors of Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities.