It was a sweltering hot night the 11th of August 1965. At about 7:45 California Highway Patrolman Lee W. Minicas pulled over Market Frye at the corner of 116 in Avalon in the Watts area of Los Angeles on the suspicion of drunk driving. When Frye’s mother Winnie Price and her step-son Ronald try to intervened, they were also arrested.
A crowd gathered and before long there were a full scale riot on the way. Many of those who are involved though were describe differently however. And the subsequent investigation the McCone commission found deeper causes for the wide spread burning of buildings, looting and deaths.
Despite the progress forged by the civil rights movement, many black Americans faced terrible poverty, inequality and racial discrimination. In Los Angeles, there was particularly resentment about the passage of proposition 14 on the California Ballot in November 1964. This would overturn the earlier Rumford Fair Housing Act a law passed to give black people equal opportunity when it came to buying homes.
During the 6 days of rioting, 34 people most of them African American were killed. And more than a thousand we injured. 4,000 were arrested, more than 600 buildings were destroyed with white owned businesses specifically targeted. The damage build is estimated to be in the region of 35 million dollars.
Eventually marshal law was declared and the national guard moved in to the area. Initially 2,00 troops form the 168th infantry and a squadron of the 18th armored cavalry we mobilized. They were followed 2 days later by the rest of the 48th armor division and the next day by more troops form Northern California. In all the national guards presents numbered 15,000 men.
They put a cordon around a large area, south of Los Angeles and the rioting was all but over by the Sunday night. After the riots; the government response was minimal and little effort was made to address the problems or repair the damage. And it is probably no coincidence with the radical organization the Black Panther party of self defense formed in the state the following year.
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