By Denise Guerra
Listen to an audio story by Annenberg Radio News
As some African Americans started to move out of South LA in the 1980s because of crime, violence and better economic opportunities, community advocates like Nola Carter and Alice Williams sounded the block club battle cry of “Don’t Move, Improve.”
Block Clubs are a coalition of homeowners who gather together to remove graffiti, provide local trash pick-up and keep their neighborhoods beautiful. Block Clubs are a precursor today’s neighborhood councils
William Allen from the Florence-Firestone Community Leaders and Antwerp Environmental Block Organization put together the event honoring the two women.
Carter is now 94 years old and Williams is 84.
“They helped to get the Sheriff’s station built here, they also were able to get Martin Luther King medical center research built here, and when there was gang violence, they made sure to get the deputy patrols over here,” said Allen.
“They are to be credited in every regard for working against the odds, to put the odds in favor of homeowners,” said Rev. Cecil B. Murray, former pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles
On Tuesday night, the community of Florence-Firestone, a South LA community just north of Watts will have a dinner reception in honor of the two activists at the Angeles County Community Services Center in Compton.
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