She got a job as a ”girl Friday” to John Neimore, founder of the weekly black newspaper The Owl.Ĭharlotta Bass, left, in front of the California Eagle’s printing plant at 1607 East 103rd Street in Watts. In 1910, she moved to Los Angeles to improve her health, lured to Southern California by tales of sunshine and more freedom for African Americans. After relocating to Rhode Island, she sold subscriptions for a local paper. She fought for fair housing in her newspaper, through social activism, and finally, through politics.Ĭharlotta Amanda Spears was born in Sumter, South Carolina in 1879. But the Lawses refused to be intimidated and turned to activists and leaders in the community for support: the NAACP, church groups, and Charlotta Bass, the fearless owner of the California Eagle.ĭuring her 40 years as the publisher of one of the premier black newspapers in the West, Bass would advocate tirelessly for the rights of all Angelenos to live wherever they chose. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sided with the realtors and ordered that the family must move out of their home by December 1. Only one month later, two local real estate developers, furious that Laws family had moved in, filed suit, pointing to an old restrictive covenant barring people of color from living in the neighborhood. In October, when they moved in, “there wasn’t a black face around,” one family member later told the Los Angeles Times. ![]() ![]() They had purchased the land over a decade before and had scrimped and saved in order to construct the house. In 1944, Anna and Henry Laws built their dream home, a two bedroom house with a red-tiled roof on 92nd Street in the semi-rural neighborhood of Watts.
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