The Brief

Graffiti writing as a common form of street art makes a lot of sense in a place like Los Angeles.

Long, frequent commutes make boulevards and freeways the ideal canvas for artists to get eyes on a statement they're trying to make or a conversation they're trying to start.

Like many forms of art, graffiti writing is not without controversy — it is often used in acts of vandalism and has been associated with gang activity because of its use by those groups to mark territory. But graffiti writers will tell you their art form is not only about communicating with each other as artists, it's about starting conversations about things like identity, politics or movements the artist feels aren't being had.

LAist talked with local experts on street art and graffiti writing, as well as graffiti writers and artists themselves, about the earliest iterations of this type of street art in Los Angeles, how it morphed into the graffiti writing we see today and its significance as a form of artistic expression in the Southern California art scene.

'Hobo graffiti' and early examples

Some of the earliest graffiti you'll still find in Los Angeles today dates back to the 1870s, from a Civil War-era building in the neighborhood of Wilmington.

Graffiti from around this era was part of so-called "hobo times" according to Susan Phillips, a professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College and author of The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti.

A wall along the Arroyo Seco with hobo graffiti referred to as "Kid Bill," it contains old writing and markings that date back to roughly some time between 1914-1921.

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Courtesy of Susan Phillips

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"As the country transferred from an agrarian society to more of an industrialized society post-Civil War, you just get massive numbers of people who are displaced and travel all over the country," said Phillips. "And then [they] eventually create these incredible written traditions with their own history."

So for the decades following, you'd see the "hobo graffiti" era take shape in these small-scale hieroglyphs made for writers as a means of communicating with one another.

L.A. graffiti writing as a form of protest

As graffiti writing evolved over the years, it also became a way for artists to tell a political message, or call attention to an issue they feel isn't being represented in other forms of media.

"The wall is almost both a first and last resort for telling an alternative story and history ... and it's meant to get people maybe a bit angry, maybe a bit annoyed," said Stefano Bloch, professor of cultural geography at the University of Arizona and the author of Going All City: Struggle And Survival in LA’s Graffiti Subculture.

"It's meant to bring information to people who have a different form of literacy. So, wall art or murals or graffiti or whatever you want to call it ... gets people riled and it does that on purpose," said Bloch, who was himself a noted graffiti writer who went by the name "Cisco" in Los Angeles in the 1990s.

One of the most notable political murals still around today can be found on Olvera Street — Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros's América Tropical: Oprimida y Destrozada por los Imperialismos, one of three pieces done in the artist's time in political exile in Los Angeles.

América Tropical and his other public project, Street Meeting, were seen as controversial and ultimately whitewashed (literally painted over with white paint), although the former was found to still be intact in the 1960s.

Projects like these helped fuel parts of El Movimiento in Los Angeles. One group that is well known for its political art in L.A. was Asco, a collective of Chicano artists whose work includes performance art like Stations of the Cross and graffiti writing like Spray Paint LACMA.

"I do remember is their uses of public space, photography, and street theater in a sense ... pushing the boundaries of all that [and] was a great celebratory moment [for] the Chicano movement," said Phillips.

But even within the Chicano movement, graffiti artists had to fight for recognition. Chaz Bojórquez, who is seen as the "godfather of West Coast graffiti," has noted that some Chicano artists viewed graffiti as anti-Chicano that undermined the larger goal of the movement.

Increase name recognition

Dating back to some of the earliest known graffiti writers in L.A. like Bojórquez, graffiti was a creative outlet that was meant to be a political statement and also a means for artists to get their name out there.

Two graffiti writers, including one who goes by "Cisco," writing on a wall.

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Courtesy of Stefano Bloch

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Not every artist who grew up in Los Angeles could get their art seen through traditional means. It's why Professor Bloch considers graffiti writing as a means for "other people [to] see their name and think about them."

"They're doing it in an aesthetically pleasing way sometimes, sometimes they're doing it [cryptically] … but it's always about a conversation with surfaces," Bloch said. "The legality of surfaces, the appropriate placement of surfaces, and subcultural hierarchy."

How graffiti writers are making money

When graffiti writer Man One began his career in 1980s, the first thing he tagged was a bus.

"When I first started, I started talking about transit ... because the bus is what moves us around as kids. I was 16, 17 years old and taking the bus all over the, all over the place."

He has since spun that desire to start conversations into exhibitions across Southern California, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the Parco Museum in Japan, and more.

Man One said when he was starting out, magazines were one of the only ways that graffiti writers like him could get exposure, at least beyond people happening upon their work in public.

"The first magazines that I saw were probably coming out of L.A. [like] Can Control Magazine ... but the book Spray Can Art, that came from New York, that was one of our Bibles," Man One said. "Subway Art was another book, but Spray Can Art spoke to the world ... artwork that was being painted on walls [and] not just on subway trains."

Not only did these magazines serve as inspiration, but getting any of your work published could mean getting into an art exhibition and eventually making a living from your work.

A mural titled "Faces of Pomona" by Man One, commissioned by the city of Pomona.

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Courtesy of Man One

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Growing through every new piece of graffiti writing, or other artistic projects writers did, is what helped create word-of-mouth that eventually translated to commissions.

"I remember the first time I got paid $50 to paint a garage door. I was like, 'This is it. Someone paid me $50, that means I can make $100, that means I can make $200, and it just snowballed from there," Man One said.

Since then, social media has become more of a platform for folks to find your work. Graffiti writers of all generations across the country have found similar artistic mediums that help grow their portfolios.

"Graffiti writers in the East Coast go into graphic design, tattooing, many different types of artistic endeavors that pay," Bloch said. "Here on the West Coast, a lot of graffiti writers go into the film industry as set designers or set dressers, background dressers, or any kind of artistic endeavor, even into fashion and television writing."

Los Angeles Unified reached a labor deal with its teachers union on Sunday, but educators are expected to honor possible picket lines on Tuesday.

That's because the district is still in negotiations with SEIU Local 99 — which represents bus drivers, classroom aides and other staffers.

“Despite [United Teachers Los Angeles] having reached a tentative agreement with the school district, teachers have pledged to stand in solidarity with SEIU Local 99 and join in a sympathy strike," SEIU Local 99 said in a news statement on Sunday.

The district is also negotiating with the union that represents principals and other administrators.

The three unions gave the district an April 14 deadline to reach agreements or else face a walkout. A strike including teachers would shut down district schools and disrupt the education of about 400,000 students and the lives of families scrambling for child care.

What are the terms of the UTLA deal?

LAUSD and UTLA announced a tentative two-year agreement.

Terms of the new contract include an increase in salary scales by 11.65%, a new-teacher salary of $77,000 per year, four weeks of district-paid parental leave, expanded student mental health supports and a first-ever 20:1 ratio for special education specialist teachers.

“These wins reflect the progress we’ve fought for, enabling educators to stay fully focused on supporting students’ learning and well-being,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the union’s president, in a statement.

A district spokesperson told LAist the ongoing cost of the agreement with UTLA is $650 million and also includes “a comprehensive agreement on inclusive practices and staffing,” reduced secondary counseling ratios and smaller ratios for 11th- and 12th-grade academic class sizes.

The union’s members and the LAUSD Board of Education must vote to approve the deal. UTLA said in an Instagram post that its bargaining team "enthusiastically recommends" that union members ratify the new contract.

What was UTLA bargaining for?

UTLA’s bargaining team had met with the district more than a dozen times since negotiations began in February 2025.

The union’s proposals included: 

• A 17% raise over two years.
• A minimum starting teacher salary of nearly $78,000 — a 13% increase.
• Changes to the salary schedule so that newer teachers who complete professional development can earn increases more quickly.
• Reducing class sizes and adding more mental health support for students. 
• Learn more. 

What are the other unions negotiating for?

SEIU Local 99

30,000 members include: bus drivers, cafeteria workers, classroom and campus aides
Contract expired: June 30, 2024
Most recent meeting with LAUSD: Thurs., April 9, 2026

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 30% wage increase over three years. 
• More hours for workers who don’t have enough to qualify for benefits.

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 13% wage increase over three years.
• A task force that includes SEIU Local 99 members to advise the district on artificial intelligence use.
• Learn more.

SEIU Local 99 declared an impasse in December. The state has appointed a mediator to try to help the two sides reach an agreement.

The basis for SEIU’s strike vote is what the union says are more than a dozen unfair labor practice charges, where members have been disciplined or lost hours as a result of participating in union activities.

SEIU Local 99 reports its members make an average of $35,000 a year.

Maria Avalos is a supervision aide at Fernangeles Elementary School in Sun Valley. Avalos said she’s only assigned four hours of work a day and also cleans houses and sells tamales to support her daughter.

“We need more hours,” Avalos said. “I live in an apartment that has one bedroom for 10 of us.”

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles

3,000 members include: principals, directors and other administrators
Contract expired: June 30, 2025
Most recent meeting with LAUSD: Monday, April 6, 2026

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 12% raise over two years.
• The ability to use flex time more easily.

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 10% wage increase over three years.
• Additional stipends for administrators in specific positions.
• Learn more.

If AALA members still walk out April 14, it would be a first for the union, which affiliated with the Teamsters in 2024.

The union declared an impasse in February, an assessment the district disagreed with, but it agreed to continue negotiating.

“We don't have the necessary resources to really say we have safe schools, to really say that we're servicing students,” said Maria Nichols, president of AALA, during a pre-strike rally.

What happens if schools close?

The district plans to distribute food, tech support and refer families to community organizations for child care. Updates about resources and labor negotiations will be posted to a dedicated website in English and Spanish.

However, during a three-day 2023 strike, families struggled to find care and access their child’s education.

Senior editor for education Ross Brenneman contributed to this story.

In 2022, the city of Inglewood agreed to a contract with developers to build apartments in place of the boarded-up building at 100 E. Nutwood St.

The company, 317 La Brea, LLC, had big plans for the parcel and a neighboring piece of land that included more than 140 apartments and 21,000 square feet of restaurants and stores, according to city documents. The developers were set to purchase the plot for $4.6 million, according to a development agreement with the city.

But nearly four years and one shredded contract later, no apartments are in sight.

“[The buildings] have just been sitting there,” said Yisel Pat, the manager of a clothing store around the corner.

Community members told The LA Local they’d like to see some use come out of the Nutwood parcel, whether for housing or a shopping center. The vacant parcel is just two blocks away from Inglewood’s beleaguered Market Street commercial corridor — with both sites serving as focal points of city efforts to spread the rapid growth of Inglewood’s sports and entertainment district more broadly across the city.

Those efforts hit a recent roadblock as Inglewood City Council voted on March 24 to re-list the city-owned property on Nutwood as surplus, five months after the city and 317 La Brea, LLC, terminated their development agreement.

The city will reopen the land for new proposals, Inglewood Mayor James Butts told The LA Local.

Bernard McCrumby, the city’s development services director, said the city hopes to see the vacant land developed with some mix of housing, commercial and hospitality projects.

“We’ll see what comes out in the wash. I’m excited to see the growth and the movement,” McCrumby said.

No contact information was listed, specifically, for 317 La Brea, LLC. The company shares officers and an address with the Chatsworth firm Uncommon Developers, whose representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

City staff wrote in meeting documents that the developer made “reasonable efforts” to start construction but was blocked by factors including the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting real estate markets.

McCrumby told The LA Local the city was excited about the project, but developers were not able to make the project finances pencil out.

The Nutwood Street parcel shares a block with Grevillea Art Park and another husk of a building at 317 La Brea Ave. The area around the parcel is in the middle of big changes. To the north sits the Jordan Brand basketball facility that replaced a former public adult school in January. To the west, heavy machines were busy Wednesday demolishing part of the Inglewood High School campus for reconstruction.

Pat, the clothing store manager , said she’d be happy to see housing go up on the land if it included low-income apartments. She said she understands if the city goes in a different direction.

“They’re trying to make (the city) look more high class,” she said.

Inglewood resident Cheryle Matlock said much of the city’s recent years of development have seemed to center around sports and entertainment venues.

Matlock said that if the city goes ahead with plans to close down a mall on nearby Market Street, she’d like to see the Nutwood Street parcel and neighboring buildings turn into some sort of shopping center.

One of America’s most iconic roads is turning 100 this year: Route 66.

Affectionately known as the Mother Road, the historic route idealized ‘getting your kicks’ on a road trip and driving West with the top down. The aspirational ideal of Southern California probably wouldn’t be the same without it, with Route 66 ending at the ultimate sunny destination: the Pacific Ocean.

But beyond the nostalgia, the Main Street of America has another history: a path for migration to the West. Black Americans used it to escape the South during the Jim Crow era, but for them, it was far from a dreamy getaway drive. It’s part of the dark underbelly of Route 66.

Route 66 history 

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the famed Hollyhock House, once described Route 66 as a “giant chute, down which everything loose in this country is sliding into Southern California.” He was right. Route 66 was, in some ways, a perfect road.

Built in 1926, just before the Great Depression, the path was southern enough to avoid the snow and open all-year round. Crossing eight states and over 2,000 miles, it was designed to link rural communities as far away as Illinois to Southern California.

It was the first highway in the country to be fully-paved in 1938 — a luxury at the time — making it vital to trucking companies and commercial trade. And soon after it also took on a military role. After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the U.S. government decided the Pacific Coast needed more protection, so it invested billions of dollars and moved thousands of military members to California. A desert training facility was also established along the road.

Migration on the Mother Road

The road was also useful for people going on vacations or visiting family. However, its role in migration might be the most influential. Route 66 became an escape route during urgent moments of need, for both Black and white families. Author and cultural documentarian Candacy Taylor has studied Black travel and Route 66 extensively. She said white families used it as a means to get away.

“It became this route for mostly white Americans escaping poverty… [or] the stock market crash in Chicago,” Taylor said. “These men were just saying, ‘well, we’ll just leave and we’ll go to California where it’s better.’ So, the route became this really important method to find salvation for white folks.”

A section of Route 66 near Prewitt, New Mexico in 2003. Rita Powdrell and her sister ended up taking Route 66 a second time to migrate to New Mexico for college.

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Robyn Beck

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AFP via Getty Images

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For Black Americans, it was about fleeing the crushing prejudice of Jim Crow laws in the South. Taylor said depending where you lived, there were three main paths to take. If you were around the East Coast, you’d likely follow the coast up to New York. If you were in the Mid-South, like Alabama, you’d take the railway up to Chicago.

If you were closer to the West coast, such as Texas, you’d head to Los Angeles, making Route 66 one of the best ways to get out. But it was also highly dangerous.

Racism on Route 66

Rita Powdrell is the 79-year-old director of the African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico. But when she was 16, in 1963, Powdrell got her first taste of the West — and Route 66. Her family traveled to California so her father could attend a National Medical Association conference in L.A.

“We took a week to get to L.A. and we camped all the way to Arizona because my father didn’t want to encounter the segregated hotels and motels that you find along the way,” she said. “He wanted to make sure we’d have a safe space to spend the night when we stopped.”

She remembered they camped on national parkland, and that it was her sister’s job to check all the parks to make sure they had toilets instead of outhouses. Powdrell recalled how cold it was camping, seeing beautiful forests, taking in the smells of the outdoors and her mother cooking over a charcoal fire.

She didn’t realize why the family was camping at the time — which felt like a vacation — but Powdrell said she learned about it later on.

It wasn’t just the segregated hotels that needed to be avoided. Route 66 went through a lot of sundown towns, white communities which prohibited Black people from staying after sunset. If you found yourself in one of these towns after dark, Taylor said it wouldn’t be good.

“There was usually either some kind of sign that said ‘N-word don’t let the sun set on you here’, or they would ring a bell at 6 p.m. because,” she said, “Black people who were working in the towns, that was their cue… to leave, because you shouldn’t be there.”

At best you’d be harassed for staying and escorted to the border, according to Taylor. At worst, your life would be at risk. Sundown towns were known for bigoted people who would carry out beatings, lynchings and other serious threats.

“ Given that 44 of the 89 counties on Route 66 were sundown towns, traveling Route 66 was like a minefield,” Taylor said.

The Green Book

Black travelers had to plan ahead, just like Powdrell’s father. You’d have to bring your own supplies on long drives, like cans to urinate in, extra lunch boxes for meals and bedding to sleep in. It was fairly common for Black drivers to crash on Route 66 as well. According to Taylor, the NAACP told a local newspaper that the crashes were happening because sleep-deprived drivers couldn’t find a place to sleep.

This is where the Green Book came in. It was essentially a national Black Yellow Pages, a key for survival. The travel guide was written by postal carrier Victor Hugo Green for Black folks to find safe places to visit. You could find welcoming communities and things like rest stops, restaurants, gas stations and even real estate offices. While there were multiple Black travel guides, the Green Book was the longest-running and most well-known, published between 1936 and 1967.

“As far as movement, the freedom to move comfortably from one space to another,” Powdrell said, “I think that’s what the Green Book gives African Americans.” She doesn’t know if her father used it on their trip, but Powdrell said it helped people avoid discrimination — like she experienced traveling.

As her family got closer to California, they stopped camping and began to look for motels. Her father thought they’d be fine the closer they got to the coast.

“I remember us going from motel to motel and they would have the vacancy sign out and as soon as my dad would walk in, they would say, ‘oh, we just rented the last room. We’re so sorry.’” she said. “That happened a few times and I could feel the anxiety of my parents because it’s night, they hadn’t planned on camping anywhere.”

Once they reached Barstow in California, it became crystal clear the progressive state in the 1960s wasn’t immune to racism. It was a hot day, so Powdrell and her sister wanted to swim in the hotel pool.

“ We run down to the pool, we get in and all the other guests get out of the pool as soon as we get in,” she recalled.

Since Powdrell was a teenager, she was old enough to know of racism but still hadn’t yet experienced it like she did on this trip. Growing up, her father was the first African American doctor in the Pennsylvania state hospital system. They were the only Black children in an all-white environment. She said because of that her perception of prejudice and segregation was a little skewed.

“When I’m traveling, I’m really thinking that the country is a more accepting place than it is,” she said. “So the type of treatment we start to get as we travel Route 66 — I don’t know how to explain it, but it floods you with an immense sense of shaming. That there’s something wrong with you. That you’re not allowed into these spaces.”

Today, Powdrell admires her father for coming up with an enjoyable camping experience, despite the circumstances. She said it’s another sign of the “sovereign resilience” of Black Americans to resist restrictions on movement, a cornerstone of segregation.

The end of Route 66

Route 66’s demise came with the creation of the Interstate Highway system, through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.

The interstate was designed to be straight and fast, a superior alternative to Route 66, which intentionally wound through remote towns. Because it was straight, the speed limit was higher, so people could even drive faster.

In L.A. County, the 10 Freeway took the place of Route 66, opening in Santa Monica in the 1960s. The route was ultimately decommissioned in 1985 and removed from the U.S. highway system.

The 10 Freeway west of the East Los Angeles Interchange on March 20, 2026.

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David McNew/Getty Images

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Getty Images

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The building of the freeway system often cut through Black neighborhoods, said D’Artagnan Scorza, executive director of racial equity for L.A. County.

“The thing about Route 66 in particular is that while it opened the door for western migration, the freeways built in L.A. undermined a lot of the gains that Black communities made,” Scorza said.

He pointed to Sugar Hill in West Adams, a once wealthy Black neighborhood in L.A. County that was split in half by the 10 Freeway’s construction. That, along with redlining and urban renewal, meant Black and brown communities did not have the political power to fight back, he said.

And now, Black communities are leaving the metropolitan areas where they initially gathered, like South L.A. According to Michael Stoll, a professor of public policy and urban planning at UCLA, families are increasingly moving to places like the Inland Empire and Antelope Valley largely because of housing costs and gentrification.

While transit is just one part of systemic issues facing Southern California, Route 66 is an example of how roads are never just roads. Over 100 years, it’s redefined the West and influenced what happens to communities.