The Greater Los Angeles Association was a 1920s civic-booster group of California, United States that promoted business interests in the area under the slogan "keep the white spot white".[1][2] The slogan referenced monthly maps published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce magazine Nation's Business that used different colors to indicate different levels of commercial activity—spots with good levels were colored white.
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Organized with a great burst of energy in 1924, the group proper fizzled within a couple of years.[3][1] However, over time, their phrase the white spot of America became a general descriptor for the Los Angeles area, with its attendant racial and political insinuations.[4][5] Originally intended to market the city's (and Harry Chandler's) aggressively "open shop" approach to labor relations,[6]: 82 it came to be applied by both proponents and detractors to policies like racial covenants restricting housing.[7]
Apparently, when questioned about police vice-protection rackets in the city, Mayor Frank L. Shaw replied that such a notion was ridiculous, as Los Angeles was the "white spot of the nation". (There was absolutely a police vice-protection racket in the city, with Mayor Shaw playing a central role.)[8]
In the 1950s, LAPD Chief of Police William H. Parker used the term when boasting about low crime rates.[9]
References
edit- ^ a b "Chapter XCVIII - Chapter 98 - Greater Los Angeles Association". Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. May 1, 1935. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
- ^ homesteadmuseum (May 6, 2021). "The White Spot and a Black Stain: The "Greater Los Angeles Association Weekly Bulletin," 5 May 1924". The Homestead Blog. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
- ^ "Associated Chambers to Meet at Girard". The Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet. February 24, 1925. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
- ^ Mcdougal, Dennis (August 5, 2009). Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall Of The L.a. Times Dynasty. Hachette Books. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-7867-5113-6.
- ^ Hurewitz, Daniel (2008). Bohemian Los Angeles: And the Making of Modern Politics. University of California Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-520-25623-1.
- ^ Meulen, Jacob Vander (1997). "West Coast Labor and the Military Aircraft Industry, 1935-1941". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 88 (2): 82–92. ISSN 0030-8803. JSTOR 40492294.
- ^ Deverell, William; Hise, Greg (January 28, 2014). A Companion to Los Angeles. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 57–59. ISBN 978-1-118-79805-8.
- ^ Liberty Magazine (November 11, 1939). The Lid Off Los Angeles.
- ^ Felker-Kantor, Max (2018). Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD. UNC Press Books. pp. n.p. ISBN 978-1-4696-4684-8.
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