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Watts Riots

The Watts Riots, also known as the Watts Rebellion, began on the evening of Wednesday,

August 11, 1965, and lasted for six days in and around the town of Watts near south central Los

Angeles, California. An estimated 30,000 African Americans surged through the streets, setting

fires, looting stores, shouting epithets, and attacking motorists, firefighters and the police who

got in the way. Over 1,000 people were injured, 34 fatally. Close to 4,000 people were arrested,

including women and about 500 youth under 18, mostly for burglary and theft. Nearly 1,000

businesses and private buildings were damaged, burned, or looted; of these, 207 were destroyed.

Property damage was estimated at $35-$40 million. The riot signified decades of economic

disadvantage and institutional discrimination prevalent in American cities of that era. The

rioters, while rebelling against the white establishment, also believed that such a public revolt

would draw attention to the community’s needs and attract assistance.

The Arrest of the Fryes

Though accounts of how the riot started vary, stories tend to converge on some basic

observations. The incident on August 11 that sparked the uprising occurred about 7:00 P.M. when

a motorist hailed a white California Highway Patrolman, Lee W. Minikus, on a motorcycle to let

him know of an automobile being driven recklessly. Officer Minikus then sped after the car and

overtook the alleged offender and motioned the driver to the curb. Residents seeking relief from

the heat on their porches and lawns watched the commotion with interest. The driver of the car

was an African American, Marquette Frye, 21. His stepbrother Ronald Frye, 22, was a passenger.

Marquette Frye was issued a sobriety test by Minikus, and after failing it, was told by the

officer that he was being arrested for drunk driving. Having just completed two years of

successful probation, Frye panicked at the thought of going to jail, and demonstrably pleaded his
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innocence to the officer. Because Minikus was patrolling on a motorcycle and had no way to

transport his arrestee, he called for a police vehicle to carry Frye to the station and a tow truck to

remove Frye’s car away from the arrest site at Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street, one block

away from his home in Watts.

When Ronald Frye learned that Minikus would not allow him to drive the car to his home

nearby, Frye intended to walk home to alert his mother, hoping that she could retrieve the car and

keep it from being impounded. Mrs. Frye, apparently already tipped off to what was happening,

arrived about the same time as the patrol vehicle, the tow truck and Officer Minikus’s motorcycle

partner. A crowd of residents and passers-by gathered to watch Marquette’s arrest. Minikus

radioed for reinforcements, noticing that the number of onlookers was swelling rapidly, growing

from dozens to several hundred in a matter of minutes, the crowd clamoring for vantage points to

see what was happening, and amplifying tensions between the officers and the Frye family.

Minutes later these tensions erupted into violence when Mrs. Frye became enraged over the

forcible arrest of Marquette, who began to show signs of resistance. The crowd of witnesses

grew angry as the Fryes fought with officers, resulting in the arrest of all three family members

by approximately 7:25 P.M. As the scene began to clear, someone in the crowd of onlookers spat

upon one of the officers. Police plunged into the crowd to arrest two other African Americans: a

young female college student suspected of having spat upon the officer, and the student’s friend,

a man who police believed was inflaming the crowd as they took the woman into custody. The

decision to pursue these arrests delayed the departure of the officers until 7:40 P.M. By this time

the crowd was agitated, throwing rocks and bottles at the police vehicles as they left the scene of

the arrests.
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In the Watts community, rumors began to circulate regarding the incidents of that

evening. There were reports that Marquette Frye was beaten inside the patrol car after being

arrested, and that those white officers had severely mistreated his stepbrother and mother at the

scene of his arrest. There were reports that the young woman arrested was pregnant and that she

had been handled roughly by the police. Whether true or not, these rumors were the basis for the

subsequent early violence that occurred later that evening. The crowd that witnessed the arrest of

the Fryes refused to go home quietly, and clustered in small groups walking along the street but

not venturing far from where the Fryes were arrested. Starting about 8:15 P.M., people began

throwing rocks and chunks of concrete at police cruisers. Motorists passing by were pulled out of

cars and beaten up. Store windows were broken. The rioting continued throughout the evening

and into the early morning, resulting in the arrest of 29 people.

The uprising that first night was small in scale, but it led county officials to call a meeting

in Athens Park the next day, 11 blocks from where the Fryes were arrested. The Human Relations

Commission of Los Angeles County brought together black leaders and representatives of

neighborhood groups to discuss the violence and work toward establishing calm and preventing

further outbreaks of destructive behavior. Radio, TV and newspaper correspondents covered the

meeting. Elected officials participated as well as law enforcement, represented by the Sherriff’s

Office, the District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Police Department. Even though

attendees urged calm, feelings grew restive as discussion began to turn toward the grievances of

minorities that fueled the riot. Television and radio outlets widely broadcasted one participant’s

claim that rioters planned to attack white neighborhoods. Lost in the media coverage was the

contribution of constructive ideas at the second meeting at Athens Park later in the afternoon of

August 12th. That meeting produced some innovative ideas that, if implemented, might have
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prevented more violence. However, these ideas were presented to the Los Angeles Police

Department’s Deputy Chief who rejected them at 7:00 P.M. on August 12, claiming there was not

enough time to put the ideas - some of which violated usual police procedures - into practice.

The Riots

In the streets, meanwhile, August 12th was a day in which pockets of disturbances erupted

throughout Watts, with police failing to gain complete control over the rioting. Crowds began to

form on Avalon Boulevard before dawn, an ominous sign of things to come, and violence broke

out later that day. About twenty-four hours after the arrest of the Fryes, people assembled near

Avalon Boulevard close to the scene of the Fryes’ arrest, with the crowd growing to about 1,000.

Firefighters soon responded to calls to put out fires in three overturned automobiles, and were

pelted by rocks and shot at while trying to do their work. A fire in a nearby business, only one

block from the scene of the Fryes’ arrest, was responded to by the Fire Department, but police

had to fight off rioters while fire crews worked to extinguish the blaze. Around midnight, looting,

rock throwing crowds moved outside the defensive perimeter set up by law enforcement. Five

hundred officers on the scene employed a variety of policing tactics, including fender to fender

sweeps by police cars, to disperse the crowd. Thirteen police officers and about 62 other people

were injured during this stage of the riot. The total number of people rioting was estimated at this

time to have been approximately 7,000 to 8,000 people.

Friday evening, August 13 was the peak of the rioting as crowds moved from Watts into

Southeast Los Angeles. One hundred engine companies were fighting fires in the area. Snipers

shot at firefighters as they fought new fires. That evening the first death occurred when a stray

gunshot accidently killed a bystander. Later that night there were two more fatalities: a Deputy

Sherriff died by friendly fire, and a fireman was crushed on the fire line by a crumbling wall.
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Friday night, law enforcement tried out new strategies to control the rioting. Police swept

areas on foot in large groups to show strength and to give firemen some time to fight fires. At

midnight, 1,000 National Guard troops arrived, marching shoulder to shoulder to clear the

roadways. Over 3,300 guardsmen entered the riot zone by 3:00 A.M. Saturday, patrolling the

streets. In spite of the added personnel and new tactics, the riot area was not controlled Friday

evening. Police received reports of looting, shooting and burning every few minutes. Early

Saturday morning and all that day, crowds of arsonists and looters expanded still further, with

many buildings burning on Central Avenue. Making a renewed effort at sweeping the riot zone,

police and guardsmen by 3:30 P.M. cleared this area. Guardsmen rode along on fire engines,

stopping firefighters from being fired upon by snipers. Saturday evening, August 14, roads were

blocked in preparation for a curfew that was anticipated for later that Saturday night. The show

of force was working; however, there was still sporadic reports of rioting and rumors about

possible violence in South Central. The National Guard maximum presence of 13,900 men was

reached at midnight Saturday night. Also on Saturday, LAPD and the Sherriff’s Office were

working toward their maximum presence of 934 and 719 officers, respectively.

Saturday evening California Lieutenant Governor Glenn Anderson appeared on TV

announcing a curfew in the 46.5 square mile area where the most intense rioting was taking

place. He explained the terms of the curfew, which made it a crime for any unauthorized persons

to be on the streets in the designated area after 8:00 P.M.

As the curfew began at 8:00 P.M., guardsmen, and police were finally able to exert some

control over the riot zone, which became quieter. The display of force was now working. People

risked arrest by even appearing on the street, a strong deterrent. Many of the targeted businesses

had already burned. All this did not mean that the rioting was over. There were some buildings
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burned along Broadway between 46th and 48th Streets, and also some gun battles between snipers

and the combined presence of law enforcement and guardsmen. All day Sunday, the curfew area

remained relatively quiet compared with Friday. Food markets had been destroyed, making it

necessary for food distribution to begin by governmental agencies, churches and community

organizations.

Governor Pat Brown, arriving in California after an out of town trip Saturday night,

spoke to residents as he toured the curfew zone. The most massive fires were contained, but old

fires rekindled, and there were reports of a few new arsons. On Tuesday, August 17 Governor

Brown lifted the curfew. As of the following Sunday, August 22, only 252 guardsmen remained

in the city.

The response to the riot by public officials in California and specifically in Los Angeles

was the focus of much criticism. As the first full day of the uprising unfolded amid reports of

intensifying violence, city and state administrators were caught off guard, and the event

resembled a political hot potato that no one wanted to touch. Governor Pat Brown was out of the

country, in Greece, as the violence erupted. After being notified of the trouble taking place in

South Central, Lieutenant Governor Glenn Anderson, acting Governor in Brown’s absence,

chose to attend meetings out of town, as did Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty. Longtime Los

Angeles Police Department Chief William Parker also was out of his office, opting to attend an

out of town speaking engagement. When Parker reached Glenn Anderson at 1:00 A.M. on Friday,

August 13, he acknowledged that about 8,000 people had rioted but stated that the situation was

nearly under control by LAPD. With minimal direction from leadership, the police withdrew to a

defensive perimeter, which allowed the disorder to spread for six days. In Midwestern and

Eastern cities, officials had some leverage over rioters by closing key avenues of public
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transportations such as bus lines or subways, limiting the number of people coming into the riot

zone or those escaping it. In Los Angeles, the absence of a public transportation system meant

that no such leverage could be applied to limit the rioting. The riot could not be stopped until a

massive show of force by the National Guard finally ended it. A brigade of 856 guardsmen in

nearby Long Beach, fitted with weapons, might have been helpful in tamping down some of the

early violence and could have served to prevent the riot from spreading from Watts into

Southeast Los Angeles. However, the unit was not called up until later. After much discussion,

Lieutenant Governor Anderson, as acting Governor, finally signed the proclamation calling up

the National Guard at 5 P.M. on August 13; by this time the riot had turned into a massive

rebellion.

Post Mortem Analyses

The official body designated to document and explain what happened during the riot was

the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot, a blue ribbon commission of respected

citizens of Los Angeles headed by John McCone, an industrialist and former Director of Central

Intelligence under President John F. Kennedy. The commission – often referred to as the McCone

Commission - produced a report called Violence in the City: An End or a Beginning? that was

submitted to Governor Brown on December 2, 1965. It was a brief, just over 100 pages long, but

the narrative was based upon records and testimonies that filled 18 volumes of transcript.

McCone’s commission concluded that underemployment, unemployment, poor schooling, and

tensions between African Americans and the LAPD contributed to the outbreak of the Watts

Riots. Commissioners also suggested that unlawful activities by petty criminals and African

American gangs were mitigating circumstances in the six-day rebellion.

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The report absolved the police of wrongdoing in the arrest of the Fryes, even though this

was the event that spurred the riot. The arrest of Marquette and his family was handled

efficiently, according to the report. The decision to call for a car and a tow truck was appropriate

according to standard practices of most police agencies. The decision to pursue two additional

arrests at the scene – controversial because violence by the angry crowd of onlookers erupted

within minutes of these later arrests – was not criticized at all in the report by McCone’s

Commission.

The McCone Report commended the work of black leaders, businesspeople, social

workers, teachers, clergy, and probation officials in their attempts to dissuade people from

violence. They advised the community to quit any unlawful actions and to stay at home. These

efforts, however, failed to achieve peace.

The McCone Report deflected blame for the riot away from the local community,

focusing instead on influences outside Los Angeles. First of all, the report stated that rioters in

Los Angeles had been negatively influenced by outbreaks of violence that occurred in several

other cities in 1964 which served as a warning shot about the racial unrest festering within

America. A federal antipoverty program that was recently initiated by the Johnson

Administration was slow to produce positive results on the ground in Los Angeles. Complex and

unwieldy bureaucratic processes slowed the journey of funds from federal coffers to the local

level of implementation. The third event that stirred up discontent was the November 1964 repeal

of California’s Rumford Fair Housing Act, a law that prohibited landlords from denying housing

due to ethnicity, religion, gender, or disability status.

The report singled out three recommendations that commissioners considered as the

highest priorities: (1) expanded employment opportunities and job training; (2) enhanced
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education including remedial courses, intensive teaching in small classes; and preschool

education; and (3) improvements in law enforcement to prevent crime, to handle citizen

complaints, and to develop positive police-community relationships.

Discontent with the findings of the McCone Commission surfaced almost immediately.

The Bureau of the Census conducted a special census in November 1965 to reveal the underlying

poverty and joblessness that was thought to be the preconditions of the riot. After that, detailed

investigations by sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists in universities and civic

organizations in the Los Angeles area explored the attitudes and behaviors of whites and

minorities during and after the riot. The largest and most ambitious research project of this type

was undertaken by the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of California

at Los Angeles (UCLA), under a contract with the Office of Economic Opportunity. Numerous

departments within the Institute participated in several combined projects that gathered

background information and reported on extensive interviews via multiple protocols and

questionnaires, and their loosely coordinated studies became known as the Los Angeles Riot

Study, perhaps the most extensive post-mortem ever conducted on an American riot.

The Riot Study discovered that almost three-quarters of minority respondents reported

numerous grievances. Respondents noted the poor conditions of housing and streets in their

neighborhoods, mistreatment by whites (including discrimination and police malpractice),

economic conditions (low pay, high prices and rents, lack of jobs), and lack of adequate public

facilities (transportation, schools, shopping, parks, and others). The more numerous their

grievances, the more likely they were to have approved of the disturbance and to believe that the

rioting would call attention to their complaints and would yield improvements. About three-

quarters of the respondents claimed not to have been active in the riot. However, 20 percent of
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the females and 23 percent of males stated that they had been very or somewhat active in the

rebellion. Higher percentages said that they held very or somewhat favorable opinions about the

riot; 23 percent of the females and 36 percent of the males so responded.

In contrast, a sample of 600 white residents in the Los Angeles region was interviewed

about their reactions to the disturbance. When asked if the riot had helped the black cause, 19

percent said yes, and 74 percent answered no. About 71 percent thought that the uprising had

done more to divide the races, though 79 percent agreed that whites had become generally more

aware of black problems since the riot. Two-thirds expressed approval of how authorities

managed the uprising, and 79 percent said that Police Chief Parker performed well in handling

the disturbance. By comparison, 64 percent of blacks felt the situation was mishandled.

Researchers discovered that the riot was mainly initiated by African Americans targeting

Jewish-owned commercial establishments that did not employ locals and whose owners did not

live in the Watts Community. Residents complained of high prices and low-quality goods and

services provided by these establishments. Food was a critical issue; markets sold rotting food at

exorbitant prices, causing people to drive for miles to find suitable food to eat. These businesses

were the primary targets of the riot as private homes, and locally owned businesses escaped most

of the carnage.

Scholars also contributed to historical studies that explored the social and historical

circumstances that served as a prelude to the outbreak in 1965. Historians and social scientists

discovered that Watts was a former suburb of Los Angeles which experienced an increase in

African American migrants during World War II. The city changed from a mixed area of whites,

Mexicans, and blacks to an almost exclusively black community, most of them relatively recent

arrivals. In the nearby industrial district along the railroad tracks and the port area employers
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were seeking laborers, leading to an influx of African Americans during and after the war,

seeking opportunities. In the 25 years after 1940, the African American population of Los

Angeles County increased from some 75,000 to 650,000. This growing population became

increasingly concentrated in the only two areas open to it. One was in an already degraded Watts,

which by 1965 was 87 percent black, and the other was in the South Central Avenue district to its

west. Many of the most impoverished newcomers congregated in Watts. Watts and the entire

South Central area appealed to the immigrants due to low-cost public housing in the area and

because social and job discrimination, as well as deed restrictions, made it difficult for blacks to

settle elsewhere in the city. As blacks moved in, whites exited, and Mexican-Americans

gradually resettled, mostly, in East Los Angeles.

By 1965 Watts lost two historically vital economic advantages – its proximity to

convenient transportation access to downtown, and its proximity to industrial jobs. After the war,

black workers were fired, and several nearby industrial plants closed. The factories moved

farther out to zones that were reachable by car but not mass transit. By the early 1950s, changes

to the transportation systems left Watts isolated. The elevated north-south Harbor Freeway was

constructed, replacing the street-level rail lines and forming a barrier between a deteriorated

Watts to the east and the somewhat better areas to the west, including South Central proper. By

1961, the existing mass transit system of disappeared, replaced by freeways bypassing Watts.

Despite a great need for affordable housing, Los Angeles had done little to take advantage

of federal aid for construction of subsidized housing projects. The city housing authority did

eventually construct some public housing for minorities in the black areas of town. But by the

early 1950s, the County Board of Supervisors rejected a federal offer of $300,000 for public

housing. Experts cited the power of California’s real estate lobby, which feared that public
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housing would lead to integration. The powerful lobby played a role in the defeat of state-aided

housing in a state-wide referendum. Los Angeles was therefore in denial about it slums, not

recognizing that they existed or that any new low-income housing was needed.

Conclusion

The aftermath of the Watts Riots left white people in Los Angeles and beyond confused

and bewildered. They did not understand why residents of Watts would want to destroy their

town by burning it down. They had little understanding of and did not care about, the social and

historical factors that preceded the riot. They did not understand that the violence targeted a

white establishment that had not served the community well for decades. Years of neglect and

decades of economic disadvantage and discrimination had taken its toll on the city. Residents

were no long willing to quietly submit to the indignities of daily life, a life more reminiscent of

the Old South than California. It was very telling that the early activity in the riot occurred near

the site of the arrest of the Frye family, a place that for blacks had become a potent symbol of

injustice, a significant social space which typified police-community relations of that era. Many

in the Watts community had a sad tale of a relative or friend that had been racially profiled before

an arrest and harshly treated by the police during or afterward. These kinds of injustices, together

with a lack of facilities to achieve the American Dream or a sustainable middle-class existence,

created frustrations that exploded into aggression in Watts in August 1965. Most whites chose to

travel the most straightforward mental route to make sense of the riot, namely, the portion of the

McCone Report that highlighted the role of gangs and petty criminals in the uprising. Plus,

whites blamed black leaders for stirring up trouble. As black leaders called for changes to the

social conditions that produced the riots, the white community interpreted these calls, incorrectly,

as a blanket acceptance of the violence and an encouragement to riot in Los Angeles and other
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cities. White fears of further black rebellions helped draw voters to the law and order candidacies

of Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968.

The establishment, for its part, had little intention of solving the social problems that

underlay the rioting. Implementing the recommendations of the McCone Commission would

have required a substantial investment in the lives of young blacks in Watts and South Central

Los Angeles, an investment that was not made because the money was channeled elsewhere – to

weighty commitments to the war in Vietnam and the race to place an American on the moon by

1970. The report, authored by establishment leaders, was somewhat dismissive of the social

problems festering beneath the riot and appeared to some observers to blame the black

community and its leaders for not having the resources to raise themselves up toward prosperity.

Blue ribbon commissions made up of distinguished citizens were in fashion during the

1960s and continued even to the present day to provide a platform for dealing with complex

problems or events for which there appeared to be no apparent answers or solutions. The

President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – known as the

Warren Commission - was created in late 1963 and submitted its report about the assassination in

September 1964 along with 26 volumes of supporting documents. John McCone, who served on

this committee, appeared to model his Commission after the one chaired by Earl Warren. Just

100 days after the riot ended, McCone submitted a report to Governor Brown, a report based

upon 18 volumes of supporting evidence. Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, after riots consumed

America during the summer of 1967, also formed a blue ribbon commission and submitted a

report, one that was memorable for a single statement that appeared to forecast the future of race

relations in America. However, the two riot commissions were broadly criticized for not taking

the underlying causes of the riots seriously, and for the highly unrealistic, improbable
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recommendations offered. The funds needed to bolster black communities in Watts and

elsewhere in America were cut due to budget austerity. Such commissions became viewed, in

retrospect, as a way to handle a problem without solving it. A report was issued, which means

that something was done to control the problem. With the release of the report, the issue is off the

desks of leaders, and the hard work to solve the social issues become the responsibility of the

communities themselves. Cynics suggested that social problems submitted to commissions die a

quiet death under reams of paperwork as there is little chance of following up on any of the

recommendations.

After the Watts Riots, the problems identified as structural antecedents to the uprising

were not addressed. Unemployment, underemployment and substandard schools continued to

exist in the riot zone. Programs suggested by the McCone Commission were unlikely to be

funded given higher priority federal programs, and locally, taxpayers were feeling overtaxed, not

willing to invest in a community, Watts, which they (i.e., the white majority) believed had

destroyed itself in the riot. Some businesses in Watts did not rebuild, becoming an ugly reminder

of the rebellion and how little real action was taken to solve social problems in the town. In

1973, Angelinos elected an African American mayor, a gesture that bought ethnic peace for a

while. But with the underlying preconditions unaddressed, it was just a matter of time, 27 years

to be exact before the next Los Angeles riot exploded into massive, widespread violence.

For Further Reading

Abu-Lughod, Janet. Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
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Cohen, Nathan (Ed.). The Los Angeles Riots: A Socio-Psychological Study. New York: Praeger,
1970.

Crump, Spencer. Black Riot in Los Angeles; The Story of the Watts Tragedy. Los Angeles:
Trans-Anglo Books, 1966.

Fogelson, Robert M. The Los Angeles Riots. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

Sears, David O. and John McConahay. The Politics of Violence: The New Urban Blacks and the
Watts Riot. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.

Stan C. Weeber

Sidebar: Marquette Frye (1944-1986)

The arrest of Marquette Frye by a white California Highway Patrol officer on August 11,

1965, was the event that precipitated the Watts Riots. Frye was born in Oklahoma but spent his

childhood in Hanna, Wyoming. After moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1957, Marquette

struggled to adjust to the urban environment, dropping out of high school by age 16. About this

time had difficulty in remaining employed and was arrested for gang involvement.

Then on August 11, 1965, Marquette was driving his brother Ronald home after spending

some time drinking with friends. Just outside of Watts they were pulled over by CHP officer Lee

Minikus. As a crowd of onlookers watched, Marquette failed a field sobriety test and was placed

under arrest. The growing crowd witnessing Marquette’s arrest grew into the hundreds. When

Marquette’s mother arrived at the arrest scene and berated Marquette for being arrested,

Marquette became very emotional and expressed anger toward the arresting officer and also his

mother. Showing signs of resistance, an officer at the scene used a baton to subdue him. After his

entire family and two bystanders in the crowd were arrested, the first violence broke out in the

Watts Riots.
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Marquette was haunted by the civil unrest in Watts following his arrest. He never sought

public notoriety. Despite this, he was invited to speak at civil rights rallies. Life proved difficult,

and to escape from his ties to the riots he attempted to use his stepfather’s name, Price. He was

under police and Federal authorities’ surveillance and was arrested for a variety of crimes. He

had two children, and he suffered from depression after his 18-month-old son died in 1970 from

kidney and heart problems. Marquette remained in South Los Angeles, warning children of the

dangers of drugs, drinking and gangs. He passed away from pneumonia on December 24, 1986,

at the age of 42 at his home on West 102nd Street. Because the body was first identified as that of

Marquette Price, Frye's true identity was not realized for several days after his death.