Councilmember Joe Buscaino reports that the week of April 16, 2021 the Cultural Heritage Commission voted to the Watts Happening Cultural Center/Mafundi Institute! Next the nomination will go to the Planning and Land Use Management Committee for approval and then proceed to the full City Council for approval.
My News LA reports:
Watts residents — including Rita Cofield, who prepared the center’s Historic-Cultural Monument application — are trying to get monument status for the building that once housed the Mafundi Institute, a hub for Black artists and writers, in an effort to protect it from demolition after the city, which owns the building, sought development proposals between July and October 2020.
Watts Happening currently houses the Los Angeles Education Corps and the Black-owned Watts Coffee House restaurant that has been in operation in different locations since 1965.
The building was built in 1969, but the Mafundi Institute dissolved in 1975.