L.A. African American Oral History Project

Tim Watkins

Tim Watkins grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. His father was sent to Los Angeles from Mississippi at the age of thirteen to escape being lynched. He met Tim’s mother, a white woman from San Francisco, after his first wife passed away from tuberculosis. Tim’s parents were married in Mexico because it […]

Richard Benbow

Richard Benbow grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri where his mother was a house cleaner and his step-father was a butler in the executive branch of Monsanto Chemical Company. Richard experienced the integration of his schools and neighborhood in St. Louis, as well as the resulting white flight that resulted from […]