Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection

On Aug. 11, 1965, rioting broke out in the primarily black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles. The violence was sparked by false rumors of police brutality during a traffic stop, though the root causes were long simmering racial tension and anger over poor living conditions.

In the Aug. 12 New York Times, Peter Bart reported: “In one instance a Molotov cocktail was tossed at a car driven by a white man, who was then dragged out and beaten. ‘This is no place for white men,’ a Negro youth was heard to warn him. … Most of the damage has been to Negro stores and automobiles. ‘It’s a race riot and yet it isn’t,’ one weary young officer commented after one foray. ‘I saw them stone a Negro’s car and then beat him up.’”

The riots continued for six days, leaving 34 people dead, more than 1,000 injured and more than 600 buildings destroyed.

The state’s investigation in California into the riots put attention on the conditions in Watts and other black ghettos in Los Angeles. The report recommended many measures to improve conditions, but most were not acted on.

The Watts riots were one of the largest urban race riots of the 1960s, and marked a shift from the nonviolence of the civil rights movement. Many people view the riots as a positive development; for them, the Watts riots represent “a revolt, a rebellion, an uprising — a violent but justified leap into a future of black self-empowerment,” according to Valerie Reitman and Mitchell Landsberg of The Los Angeles Times.

Others believe that the shift toward violence held back the advancement of blacks in America. “The new mood that the Watts riots inaugurated was a tragedy for black America,” says John McWhorter, “dragging poor blacks into depths of malaise they might never have known otherwise.”

Connect to Today:

Do you think rioting can be an effective means to advocate change? What protests, riots or other political uprisings around the globe have been in the news this year? What do you think they have in common with the Watts riots of 1965?

In a post on the Economix blog during the protests in Egypt this past February, Edward L. Glaeser lists examples of political uprisings throughout history, including the Watts riots, and concludes that one thing they have in common is that they all originated in urban areas. Cities, he writes, “aren’t just places of economic productivity and cultural innovation. For millennia, they have also been the epicenters of dramatic political upheaval.”

These uprisings aren’t just accidentally urban; they would be unthinkable at low densities. Cities connect agitators, like Sam Adams and John Hancock. Riots require a certain kind of urban congestion; police power must be overwhelmed by a sea of humanity.

Do you think this is true? How do the riots in Britain this week fit this description? How do they compare with the Watts riots?

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