Becky M. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965, with photographs by Robbert Flick. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2002, 1930
" . . . in 1930 . . . Many of the natural attractions-like the beaches and mountains-were free to all comers. As a result, outdoor recreation came to represent a sort of social leveler in Los Angeles, a place where people of different classes might mix. Although the upper classed tried to change this by establishing elite beach clubs, designed to keep away the "riffraff," most L.A. beaches remained open to a wide cross section of classes. The line, however, was drawn when it came to race. Nearly all Southern California beaches were off-limits to blacks, more by de facto practice than written law. Although no beaches explicitly prohibited blacks, public officials and public pressure encouraged blacks to use certain beaches set aside for them, such as a part of Santa Monica known as 'the Inkwell' and a section of Manhattan Beach." p. 90