Positive Signs Seen in City Race Relations

While civil rights leaders report that race relations in Los Angeles have remained stagnant in recent years, they point to several community-based programs and dialogues as positive signs.

Joe Hicks, executive director of the city’s Human Relations Commission, and Angela E. Oh, a representative of a national commission on race, told a city panel Wednesday that small improvements in local communities are a good beginning toward better understanding among the races and a more unified society.

“The city has been stagnant, not very healthy [in terms of race relations],” Hicks said before the city’s Arts, Health and Humanities Committee. “But what I see taking place is a lot of healthy activity in neighborhoods. I think we have to take some heart in that and nurture and build those. . . . People are struggling to make it work.”

Oh, a Los Angeles native and an advisor on President Clinton’s Initiative on Race, said the city can be a model for others in the nation. It already has a diverse population, she said, and has faced all the problems and issues that come with that.

Hicks criticized city leaders for not taking a more proactive role in improving relations among the diverse cultures in Los Angeles.

In the past, he said, the only time race relations became an issue in City Hall was when there was a crisis, such as the 1992 riots.

But the situation is improving, he added.

Last year the city increased the commission’s budget to more than $940,000, allowing it to significantly increase staffing of existing programs and develop new ones.

A new program expected to debut this spring is one called Shoulder-to-Shoulder. Conceived by Councilman Mike Feuer, the program is intended to bring together middle school students from different backgrounds to work on a community service project.

To start, the commission expects to recruit students from six private and public school campuses throughout the city: Parkman Middle School in Woodland Hills, Northridge Middle School in Northridge, Milken Community School at the Stephen S. Wise Temple in the Sepulveda Pass, Marlborough School in Hancock Park, Markham Middle School in Watts and Irving Middle School in Atwater Village.