Watts Riots: what happened?

Today is the 55^th anniversary of the start of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, California. At the time, it was the largest and most destructive riot in California. By the end of the five-day riot, 31-35,000 have said to have participated with 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests and approximately $40 million in damages. Growing up I had heard about the riots but never heard about what led to the riots. When I realized that the anniversary was coming up, I felt the need to read about it further. To understand the causes, the event as well as the aftermath. Understand that the information I present here is just an overview. As with any important event, there is so much more information that I couldn’t possibly cover it here in a simple blog post.

To understand the riots, we need to go back in history. The Great Migration (1915-1940) saw large populations of African Americans moving to Northeastern and Midwest cities, i.e. New York City, Chicago, and Detroit, to pursue jobs in manufacturing industries, better educational and social opportunities and to flee racial segregation. Jim Crow laws, violent and racial bigotry in the Southern states were at a fever pitch. Los Angeles saw little of this migration until the Second Great Migration in the 1940s. As black workers and families moved to the West Coast in great numbers, largely due to the defense industry recruitment efforts as WWII created the need for more workers. President Franklin D Roosevelt signed an Executive Order No. 8802 which prohibiting defense contractors from discrimination in hiring or promotions. However, restrictive laws prevented specific minorities from renting and owning property in certain areas, even after the courts ruled it illegal (Shelley v Kraemer, 1948) and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Approximately, 95% of LA was off-limits and minorities found themselves restricted to the East and South LA areas (Bernstein, 2010). Tensions ran even higher when California voters passed Proposition 14 in 1964 which overturned the Rumford Fair Housing Act. The Rumford Act was designed to remedy residential segregation. Civil Rights Activist Alvin Poussaint considered Proposition 14 as one of the root causes of the riots (Theoharis, 2006).

To say that police discrimination was prevalent in LA would be a vast understatement. On August 11, 1965, a minor roadside argument broke out and escalated into a fight with the police. That night, Marquette Frye was pulled over by CHP Officer Lee Minikus for reckless driving. After failing a series of sobriety tests, Frye was placed under arrest for drunk driving. Ronald Frye, his brother, was in the car with him and ran home to tell their mother, Rena Price. According to Minikus, it was a normal, routine traffic stop and everything was going well until Rena Price showed up to scold her son, Frye then turned surly and began resisting arrest (Dawsey, 1990). Eventually, Frye, his brother and his mother were arrested. The mounting tensions in the community finally exploded as community members reported police brutally including injuring a pregnant woman. Six days of unrest followed and resembled an all-out war zone. Nearly 14,000 members of the California National Guard were called in for suppression by LA Chief of Police William Parker. Rioting had spread throughout other areas and into other cities, including Long Beach, and even as far as San Diego, although, compared to Watts, they were very minor. According to essayist Bayard, “The whole point of the outbreak in Watts was that it marked the first major rebellion of Negroes against their own masochism and was carried on with the express purpose of asserting that they would no longer quietly submit to the deprivation of slum life” (1966).

In the aftermath, debates quickly began about the events in Watts, its origins and what do after. The California Supreme Court reinstated the Rumford Fair Housing Act in Reitman v Mulkey (1966). Governor Edmund Brown ordered an investigation into the riots, headed by John McCone. The McCone Commission released a 101-page report, Violence in the City- An End or a Beginning? on December 2, 1965. In in, the commission identified high unemployment, poor schools, and related inferior living conditions as roots to the rising tensions and eventual riots in Watts. Recommendations were made to address these issues, however, none of them implemented (Dawsey, 1990). For instance, the commission recommended job creation; however, it did nothing to suggest how jobs would be created or obtained (Rustin, 1966). The commission stated the untrained black man had a harder time holding on to jobs as industries improved machines to take over for even the skilled worker (McCone Report, 1965). Chief Parker was the focal point of grievances within the Watts community and despite statements from the community, the commission deemed that Parker was not a racist man (McCone Report, 1965). What happened to the man whose arrest was the final spark? Marquette Frye admitted he was drunk that night and had been shunned by some in his community and elevated to folk hero by others (Dawsey, 1990). Sadly, Frye died December 24, 1986 from pneumonia.

In conclusion, when I set out to learn about the Watts riots, I thought I was just going read about a historical event. However, I could not shake that the unrest of the riots is still the unrest of today. In his essay, Bayard Rustin finishes with a simple but profound statement, “And what is most impractical and incredible of all is that we may very well continue to teach impoverished, segregated, and ignored Negroes that the only way they can get the ear of America is to rise up in violence” (1966). Have the people learned that the only way to get the attention of those in charge is to be violent? Recent events with rising violence certainly make it seem so. While I have no answers or solutions to stop such a cycle, I find it interesting that the lesson learned was violence as the only answer.

References

Bernstein, Shana (2010). Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth Century Los Angeles. Oxford University Press. Retrieved August 9, 2020.

Dawsey, Darrell (July 8, 1990). 25 Years After the Watts Riots: McCone Commission's Recommendations Have Gone Unheeded. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-08-me-455-story.html. Retrieved August 9, 2020.

Dawsey, Darrell (August 19, 1990). To CHP Officer Who Sparked Riots, It Was Just Another Arrest. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-19-me-2790-story.html. Retrieved August 9, 2020.

McCone Report (December 2, 1965). Violence in the City- An End or a Beginning? Archive.org. https://ia801602.us.archive.org/34/items/ViolenceInCity/violence%20in%20city_text.pdf. Retrieved August 10, 2020.

Rustin, Bayard (March 1966). The Watts. Commentary Magazine. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/bayard-rustin-2/the-watts/. Retrieved August 10, 2020.

Theoharis, Jeanne (2006). The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. (New York: Routledge). Retrieved August 9, 2020.