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Los Angeles has emerged from a small pueblo in the Spanish colonial backwater to become one of the most recognizable and populous cities in the United States. Los Angeles is an idea, the butt of many jokes, and a topic of serious academic inquiry. Historians have studied Los Angeles for over a century. In terms of historical scholarship, Los Angeles sits at an interesting spot. It's history can be explored from Indigenous, Spanish, and American points of view, it can be on a colonial or modern reading list, regionally it is the Spanish north, American West, and Pacific Rim. When looking at race relations in Los Angeles, we see a diversity that is characteristic of the American west, and contrary to the racial dichotomy in the American South.

Douglas Flamming, ''Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). One of the most enduring myths about California is that African Americans did not experience as much racism or hostility there as in the South. In ''Bound for Freedom'' Flamming provides one of the most comprehensive studies of African American Los Angeles from the late 19th century to World War II. He illustrates that for most African Americans, when they came to Los Angeles, they came to a city that was half-free. Not as violent as the Jim Crow South, but just as racist. Ultimately, Flamming argues that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s would have been unfeasible were it not for the work of African American activists in his study. This book is well-researched and quite thorough. If you're interested in African American history or the history of the Civil Rights Movement, you will likely enjoy this book.