History of Compton Arts Interview Project

The History of Compton Arts Interview Project aims to record and learn from the important history of arts in Compton in the 1960s-1980s and the organizations and artists that were part of the larger Black arts movement in Los Angeles. The project particularly focuses on artists from Compton who were involved in the Compton Communicative Arts Academy, the Paul Robeson Players, and the Academy Orchestra, the Communicative Musicians, and a constellation of other organizations and groups active in the community and across college campuses at that time. This project creates an archive of over 20 interviews and artists who participated in these and various arts organizations and groups active at that time, capturing the stories of the artists and organizations who initiated and catalyzed Compton's artistic legacy.

Below is a video montage of the project’s first interviews, which features Paul Robeson Players Theater Company members, Robert Carmack, Naomi Pryor-Stinson, and Augustus Stone, and Compton Communicative Arts Academy musicians, Harvey ‘Anikalapo’ Estrada and Kenneth ‘Kologbo Kuti’ Daughtrey.

Interviewed Artists

Compton Communicative Arts Academy - Visual Arts

Cedric Adams

Charles Dickson

Compton Communicative Arts Academy - Music / Communicative Artists Band

Cheryl Cooley

Harvey ‘Anikalapo’ Estrada

Kenneth ‘Kologbo Kuti’ Daughtrey

Kenneth Meredith

Wynell Montgomery

Marston Riley

Christy ‘Balagon’ Smith

Gay West-Brown

Compton Communicative Arts Academy - Theater / Paul Robeson Players Theater Company

Robert Carmack

Tony Cox

Mildred Dumas

Ruth Emerson

Deborah Henderson

Hilman Moffett

Vel Omarr

Naomi Pryor-Stenson

Augustus Stone

Patricia Turner

Community Programs

Lena Cole Dennis (Rockwell Community Intervention Program, Watts Writers Workshop)

James Fugate (Compton College Bookstore, Eso Won Books)