"I didn't know that the Watts Rebellion had taken place in my neighborhood," Angel Tovar, a tenth grader from Fremont High, told listeners in a recent appearance on Uprising, a popular morning radio show on KPFK 90.7, as he went on to explain how the rebellion had impacted the make-up of the Vermont Corridor neighborhood.

Angel is one of forty South L.A. youth from ten different high schools who participated in the Southern California Library's V-Map project, funded by the California State Library through the Library Services and Technology Act.

Through the project, students worked together to research the political and economic history of the Vermont Corridor neighborhood near the Library, how it came to be the way it is now, and to develop their own analysis of conditions and solutions. Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, the students gathered at the Library in circles and study groups as they pored through the Library's materials: the Charlotta Bass and California Eagle collection; collections on the Integration Project that worked to integrate L.A. schools; materials on the Watts Rebellion and the 1992 Uprising; and subject files on education, immigration, transportation, housing, labor, and more. The students also conducted oral histories of their families and local residents and did other community-based research, such as surveys.

Students told us in focus groups that their relationships with their parents are beginning to change as they are talking together and learning about the history of their family's struggles, that they are participating more in their history classes, that they are better able to work with others and deal with conflict, and that they think differently about where they live. "You know where you come from now, you know the struggles and obstacles, and it makes you prouder," said one student.

At the project's end, the youth shared their learnings through walking tours, open to the public, of the Vermont corridor neighborhood, focusing on local economic health and transportation issues.

Read an article on the tours that ran in the California section of the L.A. Times on Sunday, June 10.

The students earned high school and college credit through L.A. Trade Tech College, as part of a program administered by CDTech, a nonprofit organization that works to transform low-income, historically neglected communities of Los Angeles into communities that work. Other community partners on the project included the Bus Riders Union, SCOPE, UCLA Library's Center for Oral History, and USC. The project was funded by the California State Library through the Library Services and Technology Act.