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.; Photograph included in the Exhibit: Firsts, Seconds and Thirds: African American Leaders in Los Angeles During the 1960s and '70s from the Rolland J. Curtis Collection. Born in Trinidad, Mervyn Dymally (1926-2012) moved to the United States at the age of 19 and became a citizen in 1957. In 1962, he became the first foreign-born black lawmaker elected to the Assembly. In 1966, he was the first African American elected to the state Senate, and California's first African American Lieutenant Governor in 1974. Dymally had amazing staying power. In 2002, he found himself dissatisfied with the candidates for his original Assembly seat and chose to run again, winning back the seat he'd left, at the age of 76. Muhammad Ali, left, meets Mervyn Dymally at a Compton NAACP meeting on October 20, 1966.
Type
image
Format
1 negative :safety ;10 x 13 cm. Photographic safety negatives
Ali, Muhammad,--1942-2016 Dymally, Mervyn M.,--1926-2012 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Boxers (Sports)--United States Legislators--United States Men--California--Compton Handshaking--California--Compton Compton (Calif.)
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