Prometheus 6

The LA Times has been remembering the Watts riots of forty years ago.

A truth buried in the ruins of Watts
What we forget about Watts
We only burned ourselves, baby
The yelp that burned L.A.
Watts Riots Remembered

Quote of note:

The deeper causes, as documented by the McCone Commission, which investigated the riots, were poverty, inequality, racial discrimination and the passage, in November 1964, of Proposition 14 on the California ballot. That initiative had overturned the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which established equality of opportunity for black home buyers.

Watts Riots, 40 Years Later
Nine people who were in the midst of the turmoil recall how six days of violence changed lives -- and L.A. itself.
By Valerie Reitman and Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writers
August 11, 2005

The divisions are still there, 40 years later.

To many, the events that began in Watts on Aug. 11, 1965, remain a riot, pure and simple   a social breakdown into mob rule and criminality. To others, they were a revolt, a rebellion, an uprising   a violent but justified leap into a future of black self-empowerment.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the riots, The Times asked nine people, all of whom witnessed the events firsthand, to recount their memories of six days that changed their lives and the course of the city. They include a rioter, a business owner, a Highway Patrol officer, a National Guardsman, ordinary residents and a newspaper reporter.