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Watts riots informative prompt essay
Watts riots outline
Racial issues in the united states
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The Watts riots is one of the most important riots in the many important riots that have occurred in the United States. Thousands of African-Americans, fed up with the horrible police brutality at the time, reacted by battling the police in the streets along with the looting and burning of White-owned stores. The riot was unprecedented, but not unexpected, during a time of great racial tension, with the Civil Rights Movement having become an ever-increasing strain on the country. Police brutality was not the only factor in causing the riot, as there were economic problems in the Black community at the time that also contributed to the unrest. The Watts riot, also known as the Watts Rebellion, influenced riots to come in the decades following …show more content…
The phenomenon of ‘White flight’ became ever more drastic after the Watts riots were spread over every newspaper and television broadcast. Data shows a definite increase in the amount of Whites moving out of cities with a relatively high Black population, as well as declining property values in those same cities afterwards. While the Civil Right Movement gained even more traction after the Watts riots, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Black population had still any direct results other than years later when a Black workforce started to come into being. Strain theory seems to be relevant when analyzing any Black riots, as many consist of Blacks looting and burning community stores and, in some cases, destroying their own homes and neighborhoods as well, and applying strain theory would seem to imply that Blacks having nothing to lose by doing so. Opinion polls since the era show sudden change in White opinion on Blacks, especially when looking at the approval ratings of interracial marriage. In 1958, only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage, which seems to support that the Watts riots, while accelerating some aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, seems to have created an image in the back of the mind of American citizens of an unruly Black …show more content…
While the L.A. riots were far larger, and the effects are still being felt, I still feel that the Watts riots had more of an impact. I had known about the riots previously, as I had been interested and looked into it on my own, but I had not looked into the economic at the time. Seeing that there were not any real economic effects from the riot, and in-fact some things may have gotten even worse, changes how I think of riots reported on in the media. Although there has been little in empirical studies done on the impact of the Watts riots, which is odd due to their importance in recent American history, especially now, it is clear that the riots started a trend of misguided racial tension that continues to this day, one that has prolonged the suffering and disenfranchisement of Blacks in the United States. While I do not believe another riot is the answer, researching this riot has shown me that while the riots can be considered important, the reality is that their effects on society are quite minimal, and only the political discussion of the riots is what has lasted to today. The failure of any real reform since then of the treatment of Blacks in general, let alone in the criminal justice world, shows to me a real lack of justice in the United
To accomplish this, the Kerner Commission visited riot cities, spoke with witnesses and sought out help from other professionals. According to this documentary, 126 cities were hit and broken by these major race riots. The two main cities were Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey. 82% of the deaths and over half of the injuries occurred in these two cities. Towards the end, as the tension and conflict really thicken, the president even had to send in the army to put a halt to this violence that was corrupting our cities and nation. Yet, this riots were not your “typical” riots, they were described as unusual, unpredictable, irregular and complex. According to a study, most rioters were young black men, between the ages of 15-24 and about 74% were brought up from the south. In context to the documentary and the report, these riots were brought on by actions and responses of police force, local officials and the National Guard. This idea was brought about because some black people thought of the police as just a sign of white privilege and power. However, according to citizens in Milwaukee, Wisconsin they were “protests because of the loss of jobs.” But the youngest commission chair, who was featured in the documentary, Fred Harris, disagrees and says that they were not protests, there was no planning with a clear goal in
The author skirts around the central issue of racism by calling it a “class struggle” within the white population of Boston during the 1960s and 1970s. Formisano discuses the phenomenon known as “white flight”, where great numbers of white families left the cities for the suburbs. This was not only for a better lifestyle, but a way to distance themselves from the African Americans, who settled in northern urban areas following the second Great Migration.
The first acts of violence occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, which led to the death and injuries of a few men, all of whom were black. The United States continued on with these race riots as desperation for the whites to keep their title as the dominant race. The most violent of these race riots occurred in Chicago, Illinois, Washington, D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas.
Rothstein (2014) states “long before the shooting of Michael Brown, official racial-isolation policies primed Ferguson for this summer’s events” (p. 1). Rothstein writes how African-Americans were denied access to better jobs, housing, education, and were placed into areas that eventually became slums. Blacks were relocated several times, which eventually “converted towns like Ferguson into new segregated enclaves” (Rothstein, 2014, p. 9). Government policies were a catalyst that caused what is known as white flight, or the movement of white residents to more private residential, upscale areas, in which blacks could not afford or were not permitted to reside. Some neighborhoods used eminent domain laws to keep blacks from moving into white developments. Blacks were targeted with unethical lending rates by banks. Deceptive real estate practices were the norm when it came to selling houses to African American families. Before 1980, laws allowed boundary and redevelopment policies to keep blacks from white neighborhoods. However, in 1980, the federal courts ordered all forms of government to create plans on school and housing integration. Rothstein (2014) adds “public officials ignored the order” and only “devised a busing plan to integrate schools” (p. 4). The housing market collapse, along with exploding interest rates, left the black neighborhoods devastated, as stated by Rosenbaum (2014, p. 9). Ferguson was less that 1% black in 1970, however by the time Michael Brown was killed in 2014, the community was nearly 70% black, with its schools nearly 90% black. In review, Hannah-Jones (2014) relays how the white flight from St. Louis caused businesses and jobs to leave along with the residents. With their departure, the schools also suffered. Schools
To stifle the spread of the ‘contagion,’ the article, “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive,”sites how the “good performance of the Southern police” is what “prevented chaos.” [v] By using a favorable term to describe the white institutions, the article works to label police as an admirable unit who selflessly suppressed anarchy. This is contrasted with the ‘chaos’ utilized to describe the sit-in protestors. In making this comment, the article implies that the protests harm society rather than help it. Moreover, words like “contagion” and “chaos” are also utilized to condemn the black’s entitlement to protests; once again, the media plays on white fears that whites might stand to lose their sense of entitlements if they allow minorities to have the same rights as they do. The diction used by the Chicago Defender’s article parallels the word choice of Harold L. Keith’s article, “Are White Supremacists Killing Labor?”, which is about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the NAACP organized the Boycott to change segregation laws regarding bus seats and driver courtesy toward people of color. Emerging Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was primarily responsible for coordinating the Bus boycott movement.[vii]. Keith’s article
The Newark riots of 1967 were very extreme and terrible time in Newark, New Jersey, one of the worst in U.S. history. The riots were between African-Americans and white residents, police officers and the National Guard. The riots were not unexpected. The tension between the city grew tremendously during the 1960's, due to lack of employment for Blacks, inadequate housing, police brutality and political exclusion of blacks from government.
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
The important little factors that led up to becoming huge and having great effects on Chicago race riots. For blacks and whites both the riot was just a built up increase of hostility that has been going on for quite some time. One thing that can be said about Chicago incidents seem to be the more ruthless and aggressive when compared to others. It may have been because of the black’s resist not to lie down and fight back. Most of the time it causes even more anger when compared to a nonviolent approach. In addition, the Chicago riots and the incidents that led up to it were huge in status. A young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an unseen line of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
The Watts Riots was a race riot that took place in Los Angeles in August 11th through the 17th in 1965. The Watts Riot, which screamed and acted violently for six days which ended with about forty million dollars worth of damage, resulting to be the largest and most expensive city-based fighting against authority of the Civil Rights time in history. The riot helped from the event on August 11, 1965 when Marquette Frye, a black traveler, was pulled over and arrested by Lee W. Minikus. Strained forces between police officers and the crowd erupted in a violent exchange. The outbreak of brutal rebellion that followed Frye's arrest immediately touched off a large riot centered in the commercial section of the riot, a deeply extremely poor African American neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. For many days, rioters burned everything in sight and robbed and damaged department stores, grocery stores, and anything they could damage. Over the course of the six days, over 14,000 California National Guard troops were made ready for action in South Los Angeles and a curfew zone including ...
Harlem Race Riot of 1964 was one of the most violent riot of American history. The riots started on July 16, 1964 when an African American student James Powell was shot and killed by a white, off-duty Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan (Samuel). The riot lasted six days from July 16 to the night of July 22. The race riots “highlighted the racial injustice and growing civil unrest” in the country (Civil rights digital library).
The Watts Riots are a second example of the abuse of Jefferson’s ideals. “…the riot was a result of the Watt’s community’s longstanding grievances and growing discontentment with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Despite the reported findings of the gubernatorial commission, following the riot, city leaders and state officials failed to implement measures to improve the social and economic conditions of African Americans living in the Watts neighborhood.” During the six-day riot thirty-four people were killed and over one thousand were injured. In spite of many being conscious of the fact that this riot was started because of the subpar living conditions of African Americans in the area, people still failed in trying to improve the standard of the
On June 28, 1969, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn led to multiple days of rioting that
Malcolm raised awareness for the mistreatment and oppression of the African Americans in the USA ghettos and influenced the New York Race riots or Harlem riots in 1964 as well as the Watts riots that raged for six days in 1965. In a street meeting in Harlem, Malcolm responded to criticism in a speech for not adopting nonviolence, instead offering militancy, “If we react to white racism with a violent reaction, to me that’s not Black racism. If you come to put a rope around my neck, and I hang you for it, to me that’s not racism. Yours is racism….My reaction is the reaction of a human being reacting to defend and protect himself.” He then confronts the public with the reality that, “They want you to be nonviolent here, but they want you to be very violent in South Vietnam.” Malcolm’s speeches played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement for it effectively brought attention to the mistreatment of African Americans, encouraging them to stand up for freedom and human rights. He revealed and demonstrated that African Americans were just as worthy and equal, even superior to the Anglo-Saxons. This influence inspired African Americans to be more courageous and fight back, assisting them in achieving civil