During a bus tour that showed a much-improved but still struggling South Los Angeles 20 years after riots destroyed many local businesses, community leaders focused on the positive Tuesday.
The HOPE Opportunity Bus Tour through neighborhoods that saw violence, looting and fires in 1992 sought to show off a different side of what was then called South Central.
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Riders said they were celebrating the rebirth of a community, not mourning the events two decades past. Success can be found up and down Crenshaw Boulevard, noted Peter Ueberroth, who was tasked by then-Mayor Tom Bradley with helping lead the post-riots Rebuild Los Angeles initiative.
“Los Angeles is a hugely better place 20 years later. The burned-out buildings have been rebuilt,” Ueberroth said.
Businesses on corner after corner had been burned to the ground, a tour guide pointed out. Now, in many cases, commerce continues in new structures.
Nonetheless, riders on the Thursday bus tour noted that empty lots remain – some never rebuilt since the 1965 Watts riots, some deserted after the 1992 violence.
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And there’s still a dearth of full-service grocery stores selling fresh produce and quality meat.
The tour was organized by Operation HOPE, a nonprofit group that educates underserved communities about financial literacy. The organization said it wanted to provide a more “balanced” view of South Los Angeles to balance heightened media coverage of the 20th anniversary of the riots.
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