Leimert Park is the cultural and artistic heart of Black Los Angeles. Leimert Park was developed as a whites-only suburb in 1928, its deed restrictions explicitly barring sale to Black, Asian, or Mexican buyers. The Supreme Court's 1948 ruling in Shelley v.
Kraemer struck down racially restrictive covenants nationwide, and in the 1950s and 60s Black families began moving into the neighborhood. By the 1970s and 80s, Leimert Park had become the heart of a flourishing Black arts community that produced jazz musicians, visual artists, poets, and activists. The Vision Theatre on 43rd Place, the World Stage jazz venue, and the old Brockman Gallery, which launched many careers in the Black Arts Movement, are all within walking distance.
The neighborhood was home to artists like Charles Burnett, whose film Killer of Sheep was shot in these streets, and musicians including Billy Higgins and Horace Tapscott, who founded the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra here. Look at the shops and murals on 43rd Street and Degnan Boulevard; this block has been a creative community for half a century, holding on through gentrification pressure that surrounds it on all sides.