Watts Riots (August 1965)
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, race relations
seemed to be headed in the right direction. However, states acted
to circumvent the new federal law, including California that created
Proposition 14, which moved to block the fair housing section of
the Act. This created anger and a feeling of injustice within the
inner cities.
On August 11, 1965, Los Angeles's South Central neighborhood of
Watts became a scene of the greatest example of racial tension
America had seen.
A Los Angeles police officer pulled over motorist Marquette Frye
[who was with his brother Ronald]; he suspected Marquette of
driving drunk. While officers questioned them, a crowd of
onlookers had begun to
form. When Rena Frye, the
boys mother showed up, a
struggle ensued which led to
the arrest of all 3 members
of the Frye family. More
officers had arrived on the
scene and had hit the
brothers with their batons.
The crowd had grown and
by this point had become
angry at what appeared to
be yet another incident of
racially motivated abuse by
the police. After the police left
the scene, the crowd & tension escalated and sparked the riots, spurred on by residents of Watts who were
embittered after years of economic and political isolation. The riots lasted 6 days. The riots eventually
spread over a 50-square mile area of South Central Los Angeles, looting stores, torching buildings, and
beating whites as snipers fired at police and firefighters. Finally, with the assistance of thousands of
National Guardsmen, order was restored on August 16th. The 5 days of violence left 34 people dead, 1032
wounded, and an estimated $50 - $100 million in property damage. The Watts riot was the worst urban
riot in 20 years and foreshadowed the many rebellions to occur in
ensuing years in Detroit, Newark, and other American cities.
After the Watts Riots, then Governor Pat Brown named John
McCone to head a commission to study the riots. The report issued by
the Commission concluded that the riots weren't the act of thugs, but
rather symptomatic of much deeper problems: the high jobless rate in
the inner city, poor housing, and bad schools. Although the problems
were clearly pointed out in the report, no great effort was made to
address them, or to rebuild what had been destroyed in the riots. Source: http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/times/times_watts.html