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Twenty years ago, South Los Angeles was shaken by riots that expressed the anger and frustration of African Americans living in poverty and held back by racism. Flash forward to today, The Los Angeles Timesis reporting that, economically, things haven’t gotten much better.

South Los Angeles was 50 percent black at the time of the riots. Many of those that have had a means to leave have done so, leaving the city only 30 percent African American with black-owned businesses in a steep decline. The median income, when adjusted for inflation, is lower.

A post-riots report observed that South Los Angeles needs about $6 billion in investments and the creation of 75,000-94,000 jobs to boost the situation of the people living in the 51 square mile area. But although job fair after job fair has landed in the area, there hasn’t been much job creation. In South Los Angeles’ Florence Graham and Westmont, the unemployment rate has almost reached 24 percent, worse than Florence Graham’s 21 percent unemployment rate during the riots in 1992, and Westmont’s 12 percent.

“Those folks are most likely to advance when there’s strong economic growth and a strong public-sector investment,” Chris Tilly, the director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment said to the LA Times. “I don’t want to say there’s no hope, but I will say that aspect of the national political environment makes me pessimistic at the moment.”

Both federal and state governments have invested heavily in the area to boost economic growth since 1994, but the main goal was to bring private companies to the area.

“There are many things the private sector does well, but investment in depressed areas is not often one of them,” Tilly said. “The nature of private-sector investors is to look where the payoff is. If you’ve got large swaths of the city where there are bad schools, poor people and crime, that’s not where private investment will go.”

Most of the middle class manufacturing and aerospace jobs that were available in the 1970s and 1980s have since vanished leaving many unemployed. Although Toyota’s training center was successful after the riots and produced about 1000 graduates, it has since closed.  Even when jobs do become available, they often don’t offer a secure living wage for workers.

It’s a bleak picture and as Rev. Richard Byrd of Krst Unity Center of Afrakan Spiritual Science says, the problem is worse today. “From the standpoint of where we ought to be today, we’ve failed to make any progress.”

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Magic Johnson announced today that his Magic Johnson theatre on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles will be shut down. What’s more interesting, however,  is the fact that Mr. Johnson no longer owns the theater, having sold it to AMC a few years back. The closing will certainly be bad news for teen employment in the area but I’m not so sure that many residents will be so sad to see it go. In a city where state-of-the-art theaters are popping up consistently, I think it’s fair to say that many neighbors venture out of the area for their movie experiences. Still, the theater has become a landmark in the  South Los Angeles landscape and it will be interesting to see what replaces it.

Here are Magic’s words on the matter:

“I am deeply saddened to learn of AMC’s decision to close the Magic Johnson Theatre at Crenshaw Baldwin Hills Mall. AMC purchased the Magic Johnson Theatres several years ago. This was my first theatre, so a piece of me will definitely close with it. I want to thank the community for their support and loyalty over the years. The theatre has truly been the heartbeat of that community. Magic Johnson Enterprises will continue to bring high quality entertainment, products and services to those communities we serve every day.”