L.A. Riots: 1965 & 1992 Mrs. Gregovich History through Film To Accompany “Uprising: Hip Hop and The L.A. Riots”

Vocabulary Residential Segregation Civil Rights Legislation Riot The physical separation of two groups based on residence and housing; sorts populations into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level. Laws and policies past at the state and federal level to protect the civil rights of groups; predominately for racial equality in the U.S. for the last 150 years. A social occasion involving relatively spontaneous collective violence directed at property, persons, or authority.” Different from protests or demonstrations, riots are relatively spontaneous, arising largely from the cumulative effect of many negative prior events and circumstances

The Past: Watts Riot 1965 Event Precipitating Factor Damage The events known as the “Watts riots” began in the inner-city Watts neighborhood of L.A. on August 11, 1965 Precipitating Factor An incident of alleged police brutality involved Lee Minikus, a white highway patrol officer who pulled over Marquette Frye, an African American man, on suspicion of drunk driving. As Frye failed sobriety tests, he became angry and started to resist arrest. A rumor circulated that police had assaulted Frye, his mother and maybe his pregnant girlfriend. Damage Fighting broke out, and the violence soon spread. Over the next six days, the riots left 34 dead, more than 1,000 injured and more than 600 buildings damaged. Rioters looted stores, set fires, beat up white passersby, shot at police, and stoned and shot at firefighters. Aside from the immediate cause of the Marquette Frye incident, the larger, more cumulative causes of the 1965 L.A. riots were believed to be poor conditions in the predominately African American inner city, including: Lack of jobs Lack of job preparedness (lack of access to the few available jobs) Educational inequities Resentment and hatred of police Cumulative Causes

History Repeats Itself: 1992 L.A. Riots Event The 1992 Los Angeles Race Riots began on April 29, 1992, after a group of L.A. police officers were acquitted for the March 3, 1991 beating of Rodney King, an African American man.  The officers had arrested King for drunk driving and claimed his resistance to arrest justified their use of force. A nearby resident videotaped the officers beating King; the tape would play a large role in the events that unfolded. At the officers’ trial, the mostly white jurors saw the full, unedited video of King’s arrest, which included footage of King resisting arrest that was cut out of most news reports. In addition to suspected racism on the part of jurors, the fact that King didn't testify—and that the defense had better witnesses than the prosecution—resulted in the jury acquitting the officers. Precipitating Factor Damage The riots started in South Central L.A. after the not-guilty verdicts were read. By the time the riots ended on May 3, 55 people (mostly Asians and Latinos) were dead, 10,000 businesses had been destroyed by fire, and there was over $1 billion in damages. White truck driver Reginald Denny became a symbol of the violence when he was pulled from his truck and beaten by rioters. Cumulative Causes Police brutality and racial profiling were key issues in the events that immediately precipitated the riots of both 1965 and 1992. In fact, the precipitating events were remarkably similar in both cases (African American man gets pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving, followed by excessive police response to the man’s perceived resistance to arrest).

What do you think? What was similar about the 1965 and 1992 L.A. race riots? What was different? 2. What has been the legacy of the 1965 and 1992 L.A. riots? Did they make effective statements? If so, what were the statements? Did Americans, as a whole, listen to these statements? 3. In terms of race relations, are things different today than they were in 1965? In 1992? Regardless of what may be different, are we better off as a country today than we were at those points in history?