For Black Business Month, EBONY is highlighting the Black-owned businesses creating, preserving and investing in their communities. For Janae D. Green, that work happens through A Great Day in South LA, a cultural immersion tour celebrating the history, art and culture of Los Angeles’ Black communities. Founded in December 2023, the business is an extension of Green’s work as a historian, filmmaker, writer and artist, giving visitors an opportunity to experience South LA beyond the narratives often portrayed on screen. Through her tours, Green not only highlights the people and places that have shaped the community, but also encourages visitors to support the Black-owned businesses and organizations helping carry its culture forward, including Daisy’s Black Food Tour, 27th Street Bakery, Sole Folks, Destination Crenshaw and Black Art and Philosophy. Through immersive experiences and community-centered storytelling, Green is challenging misconceptions about South LA while reminding visitors that its Black history is also an essential part of Los Angeles history.
EBONY: If you had to describe in a sentence what A Great Day in South LA is and what its mission is, what would you say?
Green: A Great Day in LA is dedicated to uplifting the culture, art and Black history of Los Angeles.
What inspired you to create A Great Day in South LA, and what did you feel was missing from the way South LA’s history was being told?
I’m a historian. I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist, photographer, writer. I’m all the things. I wear many hats. So one thing that is the through line is I love Black people. I’m curious about the world and how we operate and how we show up in that world.
Before the tour even existed, I was a South LA resident. I had gone to the Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and did a Black walking tour of Knoxville. That tour was so good. We were eating good, supporting all these Black businesses and learning everything Black about Knoxville, and it was so good. When I got home, months later, I walked out my front door and I was like, wait a minute. What’s going on around me?
I found out I live just down the street from Florence and Normandie, and that is the epicenter of where the 1992 unrest started. The Rodney King verdict came down and people took to the streets to rightfully protest injustice. And I live right down the street from it. And there’s no historical marker. There’s nothing to tell that story. I spent about a year doing deep research, going to the library, checking out books, and interviewing people.
The thing that is so sad about LA is it really just treats South LA or South Central as the “it” — when it tells you, like, oh, when you’re visiting LA, here are the things to do, you know, you see nothing when it pertains to the beauty of Leimert Park Village. I think it’s my duty to scream from the mountaintops to be like, ‘hey, come here to this part of the city’. If you want to see LA, it doesn’t just exist on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It doesn’t just exist on Rodeo Drive. Please come to Crenshaw. We’ll have a good meal, we can learn, we’ll see the murals, we’ll learn about culture, we’ll learn about history, because there is a lot of history and a lot of ways that Black people have made a global impact in Los Angeles.
What do you want people to understand about the Black communities that helped shape Los Angeles?
That Black people have been here since the very founding of LA. We always pull one out for the First Nations people of this land. So they are the first peoples of this land. We’re never going to take that shine away. That’s their story to tell. However, when it comes to the formal founding of the city, Black people have been there since the first non-native person walked foot and settled in that land. Period. So when it was actually building the town, Black people were there.
What are some of the misconceptions about South LA that you hope your tours challenge?
People come in with an understanding. They come in with what they’ve seen on TV, what they’ve seen in the movies. For some people, that’s a deterrent. And other people, it’s like, let me see for myself. The majority of the people, they come in with maybe what they saw in Insecure, maybe what they saw in Boyz n the Hood, maybe what they saw in Snowfall. And then I’m like, well, did you get shot at once on this tour? No. Did you see middle-class people in middle-class homes? Did you see these families walking their dog and their baby in the stroller? It’s regular people just like you and I.
I think that is also a bonus. It’s like, oh, I can humanize the people in this area now because they’re just like me and you, and I would like to live in that house. The beauty of my tour is we see the hood. We see some areas that are the swap meet, where the people shop. We go from areas like the swap meet all the way to the Black Beverly Hills and see those mansions. So you see it all on the same tour. South LA is not one thing. If you just think it’s Boyz n the Hood, you are sorely misguided and misinformed. Because we are living in mansions in South LA as well.
I’m not trying to sugarcoat anything. I’m not trying to say, oh, it’s the safest place on earth. This is still LA. This is the second biggest city in America. You gotta keep your head on a swivel. Even when you are in Hollywood. We’re driving around, we’re cruising, we’re getting in and out, we’re taking pictures. We go to Leimert Park Village so that they can see the vendors and buy from them. On certain tours, we go to the 27th Street Bakery, which is known for their sweet potato pies…This business supports Black businesses…I’m just taking you to the places and showing you, and the places actually tell you their own story.
Your tours focus heavily on immersive experiences. What can physically standing in a place teach us about history that reading about it in a book sometimes can’t?
We all do this where we’ll drive by a place. We could drive by every day and think we know. But somebody has to tell us. I’m the docent. I’m the storyteller. This stuff really excites me, so I guess you get a little bit of extra commentary. It’s important that the stuff is still standing because we’re fighting developers, gentrification as a whole, the erasure of our history and just historical places and venues and whatnot. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
We have to talk up the importance of these areas and make sure that we’re interpreting them to future audiences so that we can make sure we’re instilling that sense of ownership and pride in the neighborhood. Because the sad news is, yes, gentrification is hitting hard. We’re not in a good economy. People are moving out of LA County. Black people are moving out. And so when Black people are moving out, there’s now available housing stock. And now the fabric of the neighborhood changes.
Your mission extends beyond tourism into community engagement and supporting local businesses. Why was that an important part of building A Great Day in South LA?
Because my business would be nothing without them. They are the torch carriers. I am a fan…I’m a historian. So I’m sitting back and recording all this. They are the ones that are doing the heavy lifting.
They are the descendants of everything that I’m talking about. I talk about Central Avenue and how wonderful it was…That was where our jazz clubs, all of our Etta James, Langston Hughes was doing plays on that street, all that stuff. So these are the direct descendants.
And so I feel like it is my job to hype y’all up and continue to be that voice on a big stage because I know this business is going to blow up. This is just the early stages. We’re just taking the training wheels off.
When it does, we’re gonna be in the top 10 places to go in LA, and then right when you read my description, you’re gonna see all those businesses right underneath it. This is just my opportunity to shout them out because, again, they are the ones that create culture in Leimert and Leimert Park Village. They are the ones that are fighting in Sacramento for us to get representation and get the money we need to invest in the neighborhood. That is a lot of work, and I just want to make sure that I’m hyping up their work.