In 1964, an Urban League survey ranked Los Angeles as the most desirable city for African Americans to live in. In 1965, the city burst into flames during one of the worst race riots in the nation's history. How the city came to such a pass — embodying both the best and worst of what urban America offered black migrants from the South — is the story told by Dr. Josh Sides, the Whitsett Professor of California History at California State University, Northridge. Sides offers a clear-eyed and compelling look at black struggles for equality in L.A.'s neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces from the Great Depression to the present.