Planting a Seed: The Brockman Gallery and the Village

The media are awash in tales of young entrepreneurs recounting their stories of how social media helped them develop and grow their businesses. This is a different type of story void of those tools, the entrepreneur classes, and self-help articles. This essay considers the effects that a strong black community and family had on two artist brothers, Alonzo and Dale Davis, enabling them to open the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles in 1967. It contextualizes their young lives in Tuskegee, Alabama, where they were steeped in black history and culture and exposed to faculty and college students from African and Caribbean nations who were in residence on the campus. Historical events that led to the opening of the gallery are woven into the text. Founded during the growth of the Black Arts movement, the Brockman Gallery provided early exposure to a number of artists who are today widely acclaimed, including Betye Saar, David Hammons, and John Outterbridge. As the text continues to unfold, a picture also emerges of the Leimert Park Village and the neighboring “Hills” communities of black wealth, the patrons of art whom the gallery hoped to serve.