Watts riots in South-Central Los Angeles (that took place from August 11-17 in 1965) cost approximately $40 million in property damage and caused 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. This paper puts that horrendous event in perspective, from causes that led up to the riots, to the actual damage, and the government's response afterwards.
What were the long-term causes of the social upheaval in Watts in 1965?
The social and economic conditions in South-Central Los Angeles well before the disturbances should be understood in terms of explaining why the tension had built up and why Watts was a tinder box ready to explode. Writer Josh Sules wrote a thorough background essay on the history of South-Central Los Angeles (in the book, Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: A Reference Guide to the Nation's Most Catastrophic Events), pointing out that the " ... underlying causes" can be traced back to World War II.
Because so many men and women were involved overseas in the war effort, it opened up many jobs in Southern California. Hence, there was a period of "intense labor demand," and the management of numerous businesses " ... temporarily abandoned their decades-old practice" of racial discrimination against African-American employees (Sules, 2008). Blacks were welcomed into the Southern California workforce, and were needed to fill those positions left when the war broke out.
Prior to the war, African-American workers were given " ... low-paying jobs" that were demeaning, but once the war was on, the Black workers enjoyed " ... full employment in relatively well-paying and often unionized jobs" (Sules, 328). Meanwhile the images put forth by Hollywood, that the climate was splendid and there were few instances of race-related violence, along with word of good-paying jobs in Los Angeles, " ... triggered an unprecedented wave of migration" during and after WWII (Sules, 328). In fact, between the years 1940 and 1970, Los Angeles' population of Blacks grew from 63,744 to 763,000. Those that came west from oppressive social conditions in Texas and Louisiana enjoyed an improved lifestyle, but when they tried to buy homes soon realized that there was racial discrimination -- and they discovered the reality that there was...
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