Public Access America

The Watts Riots-1965 The Watts riots took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. On August 11, 1965, 21-year-old Marquette Frye, an African American man behind the wheel of his mother's 1955 Buick, was arrested for drunk driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight. The community reacted in outrage, and six days of looting and arson followed. Los Angeles police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard to quell the riots, which resulted in 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on police racism. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992. In the Great Migration of the 1920s, major populations of African-American moved to Northern and Midwestern cities like Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City to pursue jobs in newly established manufacturing industries; to establish better educat