What was watts riot

Throughout the crisis, public officials advanced the argument that the riot was the work outside agitators; however, an official investigation, prompted by Governor Pat Brown, found that the riot was a result of the Watts 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.

Expand all Collapse all Results view. Home About Help. The hours took a toll on her, but not so much as the work culture.

She would be put on disciplinary probation for letting her hair hang over one eye or wearing a sleeveless top, and co-workers would shut the door on her as she came through the entrance right behind them.

The episode she recalls most vividly involves a dog. There were only six Black employees out of , she recalled. Her job was to answer phones for the 77th Street Division, responsible for a predominantly Black neighborhood. As the evening progresses, it got busier. All of a sudden, I hear that this officer needs help. Then an officer comes in on the radio. Who are you? Where are you?

All the pains and knots of losing an officer who needs help. I guess he was regretting that he started with officer needs help vs. Help means BAM [by any means]. Assistance means to get another patrol car down there. But by then every officer in 12 [of the 77th Street division] had heard it and is going completely nuts trying to figure out what it is.

So it unfolded in a weird, strange way. So I knew the neighborhood. Regina tried to tell her superiors not to escalate the situation, but they did so anyway. After work, when Regina ran home , she saw that the grocery store around the corner had been burned down and sparks were still flying from the roof.

She made her children stay in the bedroom in the back of the house, thinking it too dangerous in the front. People were running down the street and looting stores and policemen were shooting. On the second night of the riots, there were military guards right off the Interstate freeway. These white male guards pointed guns in her face and searched her car.

Down on Imperial Highway, cars were ablaze, and people were screaming. She would dream of answering phone calls at her job and talk in her sleep, ordering officers to return to the scene to find a missing limb. When I asked her how she coped with it all, her eyes were unyielding and unblinking. I waited patiently for her to continue. He also hoped to bolster the frayed alliance between blacks and whites favoring civil rights reform. He offered to mediate between local people and government officials, and pushed for systematic solutions to the economic and social problems plaguing Watts and other black ghettos.

Johnson about what could be done to ease the situation. King recommended that Johnson roll out a federal anti-poverty program in Los Angeles immediately. What did it profit the Negro to burn down the stores and factories in which he sought employment? King, Statement on riots in Watts, Calif. Document Research Requests.

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