In the Belly of the Beast

Beginning with a $ 15,000 mortgage on his home, Walter Bremond provided the leadership for establishing the Los Angeles Brotherhood Crusade as the first, independent Black fundraising organization in Los Angeles. Bremond's vision of a "Black Congress" was merged with Dr. John Buggs' vision of a "Black United Way". to overcome the fierce opposition of the United Way of Los Angeles County and ultimately become a multimillion dollar non-profit organization serving the community After the "Watts Rebellion" and the urban reaction by Black people of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many inner city organizations and businesses were in dire need of funding to rebuild after they were burned out or suffered other losses. Traditional mainstream funding organizations at the local, State and national levels were slow to respond or were, in many cases non-responsive to the needs of Black communities in Los Angeles. Pleadings to the mainstream charity in Los Angeles, The United Way, fell on deaf ears and an offer of $ 100 thousand to not compete in the fundraising community, which was summarily rejected by the leadership of the Crusade. United Way, as a backlash, established its own organization, The Urban Coalition, to respond to the needs of the community. However that effort failed due to a lack of credibility of the Coalition's leadership. The author, who had used the Crusade as the subject of his dissertation, and who was in touch with both, the members of the Black community who were attempting to organize around Dr. Bugg's concept and those who were attempting to organize around Bremond's concept, facilitated a meeting of the two factions. That meeting brought Dr. Herbert Carter, a protoge of Dr. Buggs and led to a merging of the two concepts, creating a leadership board that was broadly representative of the Black community. From those early meetings the Crusade endured the internal conflicts and the external opposition of United Way to become the standard for independent Black fundraising in Los Angeles County, under the leadership of Danny Bakewell, Sr., a businessman who brought a different sense of how the organization could reach its goals. Today, the organization will celebrate its 57th year of operation as a multi-million dollar organization serving the community.