11 August
1965 · politics
The Watts riots begin in Los Angeles
On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles erupted into six days of unrest. The arrest of Marquette Frye by a California Highway Patrol officer drew a crowd, and what followed was one of the most devastating urban uprisings in American history.
By the time the National Guard restored order on August 17, thirty-four people were dead, over a thousand injured, and more than six hundred buildings had been damaged or destroyed. The Watts riots forced the country to confront the reality of racial inequality, poverty, and police brutality in American cities — issues that had been simmering for decades beneath a surface of apparent prosperity.
“Were you in California in the 1960s? What do you remember about how your community talked about Watts?”