When John Singleton said, "that's a wrap" on the streets of South Central LA, no one could have predicted the film they were making would become a modern classic.
Boyz n the Hood, a gritty, growing up drama that focused on the struggles of race, violence, and love in Crenshaw, LA.
The film told a specifically black and urban experience and brought it to the mainstream where it was not only well received but lauded. It earned him an Oscar nod for best director at the young age of 24. Singleton would
go on to tell more of the black experience. From Poetic Justice to Higher Learning and everything in between. The films reflected stories that were rarely told, and viewed even less. I remember watching that higher learning time after time. I was just a few years from going to college myself, and I remember being excited at the independence Ice Cube and other students enjoyed at Columbia University. I was also horrified and empowered by what I saw unfold on screen.
Higher Learning may have been released in 1995 but its story that entwines race, sexual assault, gun violence, and class into a violent conclusion is still relevant today, perhaps even more so. As America
mourns the death of this great man and applauds him for the stories he told with his films, we should make sure that the city where he got his start also does its part to tell Singleton's story by naming a street in his honor. Nowhere would that be more appropriate that Cimarron Street, Los Angeles where two of the main characters Brandi ( Nia Long) and Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr)
Sign the petition and ask Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council to rename Cimarron Street after John Singleton.