Watts riots
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The term Watts Riots refers to a large-scale riot which lasted six days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in 1965. During the riots, 34 people were officially reported killed, 1,100 people were injured, 4,000 people were arrested, 600 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and an estimated $200 million in damage was caused.
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Background
The riots began on August 11, 1965, in Watts, when Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled over Marquette Frye, whom Minikus believed was driving erratically. While police questioned Frye and his brother Ronald Frye, a group of people began to gather. A struggle ensued shortly after Frye's mother Rena arrived on the scene, resulting in the arrest of all three family members. Someone threw a bottle which hit a police car fender. Shortly after the police left, tensions boiled over and the rioting began. Over five days, $200,000,000 dollars in destruction of property occurred. In the Watts area one out of eight adults lacked a high school education, drugs were rampant throughout the neighborhood, poverty and unemployment were higher in this section of Los Angeles than any other neighborhood. The neighborhood was 99% African American. The only other non-blacks in the neighborhood were a few people of Hispanic origin, and several Jewish store owners. In this neighborhood police brutality was also rampant and by some accounts racially motivated. The demographics of the police department did not help as only 5 of the 205 police officers assigned to this neighborhood were African American. Common police officer practice as stated by some involved the raping of African American women, heavy use of racial epithets, and the use of excessive force in the arrests made. This pattern of rioting continued all across the country in cities such as New York in 1964 and 1968, Detroit and Newark in 1967, San Francisco in 1966, Washington, DC in 1968, Baltimore in 1967 and 1968, and Chicago and Cleveland both in 1968.
Destruction
Most of the damage was confined to businesses that had caused resentment in the neighborhood due to the perception of unfairness. Homes were not attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires.
Government intervention
Eventually, the National Guard put a cordon around a vast region of South Los Angeles. A gubernatorial commission investigated the riots, identifying the causes as high unemployment, poor schools, and other inferior living conditions. The government made little effort to address the problems or repair damages. The riots were also a response to Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment sponsored by the California Real Estate Association that had in effect repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act.
The Black Panther Party of Self-Defense formed in Oakland, California, approximately one year after the riots.
Media coverage
Los Angeles TV station KTLA covered the riots live using its station's helicopter, on more than one occasion spotting rioters and arsonists in the act. KTLA was the only station with a helicopter and therefore the only station to show air coverage of the riot. The use of a helicopter in both news coverage and in tracking activities led to increased use of the vehicles by law enforcement and other media broadcasters.
Cultural references
- The Mothers of Invention released a song on their debut album, Freak Out!, called "Trouble Every Day" which was a lyrical commentary on the Watts Riots.
- The title article in Tom Wolfe's collection of essays, The Pump House Gang, is about a group of surfers from Windansea Beach in La Jolla, California who "attended the Watts riots as if it were the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena." (See [1] for an excerpt.)
- In the U.S. television series, Quantum Leap, an episode called "Black on White on Fire" features Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) put into the body of a black medical student who is in love with the white daughter of a police captain. This episode begins on the eve of the Watts riots.
- The rallying cry of "burn, baby, burn" came from KGFJ radio personality Magnificent Montague. Montague was not directly responsible; he was fond of yelling "Burn!" when he played a record that particularly interested him and his listeners followed suit when they called him on the air.
- "Burn, Baby, Burn" is also the title of an episode of the television series Dark Skies, which takes place in the midst of the Watts riots.
- A fictitious version of the Watts riots are depicted in the NBC miniseries the 60's.
- The movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes' riot scenes are based on the Watts Riots.
See also
Further reading
- Cohen, Jerry and William S. Murphy, Burn, Baby, Burn! The Los Angeles Race Riot, August, 1965, New York: Dutton, 1966.
- Conot, Robert, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, New York: Bantam, 1967.
- Guy Debord, Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy, 1965. A situationist interpretation of the riots
- Horne, Gerald, "Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s," Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995.
- Thomas Pynchon, A Journey into the Mind of Watts, 1966. full text
- Violence in the City -- An End or a Beginning?, A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965, John McCone, Chairman, Warren M. Christopher, Vice Chairman. Official Report online\
- David O' Sears "The politics of violence;: The new urban Blacks and the Watts riot"
- Clayton D. Clingan "Watts Riots"
- Paul Bullock "Watts: The Aftermath" New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1969