The police have closed on South Central Farm, the largest community garden in the USA. The farms were planted after the Rodney King uprising, when the land was given to the neighborhood, and it has been reclaimed and cultivated by 350 families. The city reneged on its promise and sold the land to a developer, who has now moved on it with bulldozers and a riot squad.
The South Central Farm is currently under attack. An early morning raid began this 5-hour long eviction that is still in process. Trees are being cut down, bulldozers are leveling the families’ food, hundreds of protesters are on site rallying with tears in their eyes as the nation’s largest urban farm is destroyed before them. The L.A.P.D. is on tactical alert as fire ladders and cherry pickers are being brought in to remove the tree-sitters. The 350 families created this oasis 14 years ago in the wake of the 1992 uprising when this land was offered to the community by the then Mayor as a form of mitigation.
Link, Flickr’s southcentralfarm tag
(Thanks to everyone who wrote in with this link)
Update: Elan sez, “the land for the farm was originally taken from Ralph Horowitz through eminent domain with the intension of using it for a trash incinerator. When the incinerator fell through, the city was required to sell it back to the Horowitz (after a ten year period of first refusal).”