Erika D. Smith: They wanted to save Leimert Park from gentrification. Here's how they got one block
As it turns out, nothing about buying back the 'hood to build generational wealth and manage gentrification — as the late rapper Nipsey Hussle so famously encouraged his fans to do — is easy when you're Black.
Not even buying one small corner of it.
For about a year, I've been following the travails of Akil West, a Black business owner with dreams of purchasing, co-op-style, a small commercial building on Degnan Boulevard in the heart of rapidly gentrifying Leimert Park.
Though dilapidated, the building — home to West's clothing store, Sole Folks, and several other Black-owned businesses, including Eso Won Books — is clearly valuable, mostly because of where it sits: at the center of Black life in Los Angeles.
Now Metro is on the verge of
