Title supplied by cataloger. Rolland Joseph 'Speedy' Curtis was born in Louisiana in 1922. After serving three years in the Marines during World War II, he and his wife, Gloria, relocated from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1946. Curtis served four years with the Los Angeles Police Department, but resigned from the force in order to pursue both a Bachelor's and Master's degree from USC. He later became involved in city politics, as an associate of Sam Yorty, and later a field deputy to City Council members Billy Mills and Tom Bradley. He was briefly director of the Model Cities program in 1973. Rolland J. Curtis died in his home in 1979, the victim of a homicide. An affordable housing complex on Exposition Blvd. near Vermont Ave. was named in his honor in 1981, along with a nearby street and park.; Douglas Dollarhide was the first black City Councilman elected in Compton in 1963. By 1969, he was the Mayor of Compton, a city that had been predominantly white, but by 1969 had become 65% black. Compton became the largest city west of the Mississippi to elect a black Mayor when they elected Dollarhide, who began his career as a mail carrier.; The Biltmore Hotel, now named Millennium Biltmore, was designed in 1923 in a modified Italian Renaissance architecture by architects Schultze & Weaver. It has 1,500 rooms and is 14 stories high. The legendary Biltmore Bowl, originally called 'Sala de Oro,' was located inside the Biltmore Hotel. The ballroom was host to eight Oscar ceremonies in the 30s and 40s, but in the 1950s, it suffered a devastating fire and was not rebuilt. The main address for the Millennium Biltmore is listed as 506 S. Grand Avenue, but the eastern entrance address is 515 S. Olive Street. Pictured from left to right are: an unidentified woman, Judge Sherman W. Smith, Compton Councilmember Douglas Dollarhide, Ethel Bradley (wife of Tom Bradley), State Assembly member William Byron Rumford, Gloria Curtis (wife of Rolland Curtis), Charles Curtis (brother of Rolland Curtis), Irene Yopp Curtis (wife of Charles Curtis), Councilmember Tom Bradley, and Mathilda Curtis (mother of Rolland Curtis). The group attended a testimonial dinner that was held at the Biltmore Bowl in honor of Leon H. Washington Jr, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel (not pictured). Mathilda Curtis can be seen holding a newspaper copy of the Los Angeles Sentinel, with the headline, "Don't spend where you can't work" - a campaign that urged its readers to boycott establishments that refused to employ African Americans. The event was held on April 16, 1964. See images 00125502; 00125551; 00134155; 00134218, and 00139978 through 00139980 for additional photos in this series.
Type
image
Format
1 negative : safety ; 10 x 13 cm. Photographic safety negatives
Smith, Sherman W Dollarhide, Douglas Bradley, Tom,--1917-1998 Bradley, Ethel Curtis, Rolland J.--Family Curtis, Gloria Curtis, Charles,--Jr Curtis, Irene Yopp Curtis, Mathilda Millennium Biltmore Hotel (Los Angeles, Calif.) Biltmore Bowl (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Sentinel African American men Men African American women Women African American politicians Politicians African American legislators Legislators African American judges Judges City council members Husband and wife Couples Wives Brothers Mothers Dinner parties Hotels Floral arrangements Newspapers Fur garments Fur Smiling Posing Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.)
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