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The term Watts Riots refers to a large-scale riot which lasted six days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965.

Contents 1 Background 2 Aftermath 3 Government intervention 4 Cultural references 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 Footnotes 8 References 9 External links

The riot began on August 11, 1965, in Watts, when Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled over Marquette Frye, who Minikus believed was intoxicated because of his observed erratic driving. However, in this part of town especially, traffic stops were not so routine. While police questioned Frye and his brother Ronald Frye, a group of people began to gather. The mob began to throw rocks and other objects and shout at the police officers. A struggle ensued shortly after Frye's mother, Rena, arrived on the scene, resulting in the arrest of all three family members.

This riot occurred in the midst of a period of rioting across the nation - having started in Rochester, Philadelphia and New York City^{[citation needed]} the previous year, and continuing throughout the remainder of the decade: San Francisco^{[citation needed]} and Cleveland in 1966; Detroit, Newark, and Baltimore^{[citation needed]} in 1967; and Baltimore, New York^{[citation needed]}, Washington, and Chicago^{[citation needed]} in 1968.

As a result of the riots, 34 people were officially reported killed (28 of those were African American), 1,072 people were injured, and 4,000 people were arrested. Among the dead were a fireman, an LA County deputy sheriff and a Long Beach police officer. The injured included 773 civilians, 90 Los Angeles police officers, 136 firefighters, 10 national guardsmen, and 23 persons from other governmental agencies. 118 of those injured were injured by firearms[1].

Almost 1000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and an estimated $40 million in damage was caused. Most of the physical damage was confined to businesses that were said to have caused resentment in the neighborhood due to perceived unfairness. Homes were not attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires.^{[citation needed]}

Eventually, the California National Guard was called to active duty to assist in controlling the rioting. On Friday night, a battalion of the 160th Infantry and the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron of the 18th Armored Cavalry were sent into the riot area (about 2,000 men). Two days later, the remainder of the 40th Armored Division was sent into the riot zone. A day after that, units from northern California arrived (a total of around 15,000 troops). These National Guardsmen put a cordon around a vast region of South Central Los Angeles, and for all intents and purposes the rioting was over by Sunday. Due to the seriousness of the riots, martial law had been declared. The initial commander of National Guard troops was Colonel Bud Taylor, then a motorcycle patrolman with the Los Angeles Police Department, who in effect became superior to Chief of Police Parker. A California gubernatorial commission investigated the riots, identifying the causes as high unemployment, poor schools, and other inferior living conditions. Subsequently, the government made little effort to address the problems or repair damages. The riots were also a response to Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment sponsored by the California Real Estate Association that had in effect repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act.^[1]

The Black Panther Party of Self-Defense formed in Oakland, California approximately one year after the riots.

• The film There Goes My Baby features the riots.
• Singer-songwriter Phil Ochs composed in "In the Heat of the Summer" about the riots, shortly after they took place. The song was most famously covered by Judy Collins, who included it on her Fifth Album in late 1965.
• The novel The New Centurions, by Joseph Wambaugh, not only culminates in the Watts Riot but examines the negative impact of police in minority communities in the years preceding it.
• In the film Dark Blue, Detective Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) talks to his partner about the beating of Rodney King. He tells his partner of being a teenager during the riots, in the wake of the Rodney King riots set in the actual film timeline. He talks of shooting several African Americans who were looting a Woolworth's store with his Daddy's hunting rifle.
• Frank Zappa wrote a lyrical commentary inspired by the Watts Riots, entitled "Trouble Every Day", containing such lines as "Wednesday I watched the riot / Seen the cops out on the street / Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff /And chokin' in the heat". The song was originally released on his debut album Freak Out! (with the original Mothers of Invention), and later slightly rewritten as "More Trouble Every Day", available on Roxy and Elsewhere and The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life, among other albums.
• The title article in Tom Wolfe's collection of essays, The Pump House Gang, is about a group of surfers from Windansea Beach in La Jolla, California who "attended the Watts riots as if it were the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena." (See [2] for an excerpt.)
• In the U.S. television series, Quantum Leap, an episode called "Black on White on Fire" features Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) put into the body of a black medical student who is in love with the white daughter of a police captain. This episode begins on the eve of the Watts riots.
• The rallying cry of "burn, baby, burn" came from KGFJ radio personality Magnificent Montague. Montague was not directly responsible; he was fond of yelling "Burn!" when he played a record that particularly interested him and his listeners followed suit when they called him on the air.
• "Burn, Baby, Burn" is also the title of an episode of the television series Dark Skies, which takes place in the midst of the Watts riots.
• A fictitious version of the Watts riots are depicted in the NBC miniseries The '60s.
• The 1990 film Heat Wave depicts the Watts Riots from the perspective of journalist Bob Richardson as a resident of Watts and a reporter of the riots for the LA Times.
• The Movie "Menace II Society" also made mentioning of the infamous riots in the beginning of the film as a precursor to the slowly emerging drug and gang culture in Los Angeles.
• Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air says he was at the Watts Riots.
• In the first chapter of the novel Blood on the Moon by James Ellroy, Lloyd Hopkins, the main character, participates in the pacification of the Watts neighbourhood as a member of the National Guard. He later becomes an L.A.P.D. officer.
• The riot is mentioned in the film American History X in which the Nazi skinhead main character Derek Vinyard argues with his mother and her date about how racial tensions build into riots.
• The riot may have been the inspiration for the song Down Rodeo by L.A. band Rage Against the Machine.
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the 4th film in the Planet of the Apes film series, reputedly drew inspiration from the Watts Riots.
• California punk rock band American Steel, in their song "Loaded Gun," reference the riots in the line "I didn't see Watts burn, but I felt the embers."
• The song 'One More Time' by The Clash from the album Sandinista! contains the verse "You don't need no silicone to calculate poverty/ watch when Watts Town burns again, the bus goes to Montgomery."
• The Jimi Hendrix song "House Burning Down" was inspired by the riots

• 1992 Los Angeles riots
• Watts Prophets
• Rodney King
• Zoot Suit Riots
• List of riots related to urban decay

• Cohen, Jerry and William S. Murphy, Burn, Baby, Burn! The Los Angeles Race Riot, August, 1965, New York: Dutton, 1966.
• Conot, Robert, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, New York: Bantam, 1967.
• Guy Debord, Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy, 1965. A situationist interpretation of the riots
• Horne, Gerald, "Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s," Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995.
• Thomas Pynchon, A Journey into the Mind of Watts, 1966. full text
• Violence in the City -- An End or a Beginning?, A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965, John McCone, Chairman, Warren M. Christopher, Vice Chairman. Official Report online\
• David O' Sears "The politics of violence;: The new urban Blacks and the Watts riot"
• Clayton D. Clingan "Watts Riots"
• Paul Bullock "Watts: The Aftermath" New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1969
• the book, "little scarlet", takes place during the race riots
• Johny Otis "Listen to the Lambs". New York: W.W. Norton and Co.. 1968

1. ^ Tracy Domingo, Miracle at Malibu Materialized, Graphic, November 14, 2002

• Division of Fair Employment Practices, California Department of Industrial Relations (1966). Negroes and Mexican Americans in South and East Los Angeles. San Francisco: State of California, Division of Fair Employment Practices, 2. 

• http://www.csusm.edu/Black_Excellence/documents/pg-c-disorders.html
• http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/watts.html
• http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/cityinstress/
• http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/times/times_watts.html
• http://www.wattsrenaissance.org
• http://www.lasell.edu/images/userImages/fweil/Page_495/watts_riot.pdf
• http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/cityinstress/mccone/part4.html