Community and Commerce:

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“Community and Commerce: Oral Histories of African American Businesses in Los Angeles” is a collection of oral histories conducted by the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research that document long-term African American business ownership in the Los Angeles area Over the course of a year and a half, the project recorded the histories of nineteen business owners located mostly in South Los Angeles and Pasadena. Those owners were chosen on the basis of the longevity of their businesses--each business documented has been in existence for at least twenty-five years--and also with an eye to documenting a diverse group of business experiences. The businesses represent nine different industries and range from small, community-based businesses with only a couple of employees to enterprises that have a regional and national reach.

Collectively, these oral histories counter the commonly accepted myth that African Americans lack entrepreneurial traditions to pass down. As Juliet Walker argues in her book The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship, African American entrepreneurship can be traced back to the entrepreneurial tools developed in the commercial centers and marketplaces of precolonial Africa. Walker shows how African Americans' independent economic activity then continued during slavery and in for-profit and community-based activity after emancipation. Many of the narrators of this project grew up with and learned from family members who ran their own businesses, and a number of them continue to run family businesses that were founded by their parents or grandparents. In telling their stories and the stories of those who preceded them, these business owners highlight the transfer of human and social capital over time and reveal how long-standing businesses weather economic, political, and technological changes.

Oral history served as a uniquely personal and customizable tool to capture the nuance of these stories. As Donald Ritchie has argued in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, oral history can provide "the small but telling details that previously escaped notice and were overlooked in the historical narrative.” These interviews allow for a subtlety and specificity often missing from conventional business studies. They document the “interwovenness” of individual and business interests: how narrators build relationships with their communities, how they respond to and feel about change and challenge, and how nuanced family dynamics sustain business interests.

This website offers a curated selection of audio clips from the oral histories, archival images from UCLA Library Special Collections and Pasadena Museum of History, and personal photos from the business owners’ collections. The complete audio recordings of the interviews can be found on the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research’s website.