Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s.

FandangObon: Amplification, counter‐publics, and fugitive spaces of belonging in Los Angeles

“…Brutal attacks and fabricated criminal charges by police officers, military personnel, and citizen vigilantes against Mexican American youths wearing zoot suits and/or alleged to be gang members enacted a reign of terror in the barrio (Alvarez, 2008). The relentless frequency of police brutality against African Americans in the years after World War II led to massive insurrections in 1965 and 1992, conflagrations in which rioters dismantled, burned, and looted buildings, while police officers, state troopers, and National Guard troops responded by firing their weapons (often indiscriminately) against people in the streets in order to regain control of the territory (Horne, 1997).…”

“…The toxic blend of intolerable conditions and overt repression gave rise to social movement mobilizations for rights, recognition, and resources. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Japanese American–led struggle seeking reparations for the internment, school walkouts by Chicano students demanding culturally relevant and respectful treatment in schools, the emergence of militant Black organizations championing self‐defense and self‐determination, and a wide range of other mobilizations for justice brought to the surface the cumulative consequences of racist domination and exploitation (Garcia and Castro, 2011; Hatamiya, 1993; Horne, 1997). These movements mounted campaigns against immigrant detention and deportation, in favor of better wages and working conditions, in opposition to residential and school segregation, and on behalf of cultural respect and recognition for communities of color.…”

Unarmed Violence, Police Perspectives, Community Struggle: Black- and White-centric news accounts of Black Protests about Policing in the U.S. 1994-2010

“…The 1991 videorecorded beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers was widely televised and led to extensive public discussions about police brutality. The four days of multiracial arson and looting and deaths (generally of looters shot by police or shop owners) in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the officers who had beat Rodney King led to a wave of public discussion and academic writing across all disciplines, including sociology, about riots, segregation, and police violence (e.g., Abu-Lughod 2007, Horne 1995, Murty, Roebuck and Armstrong 1994.…”

“…Incidents in which protesters are the victims of violent assaults by police or counterprotesters are often described as violent protests even when the protesters themselves are not violent. When protester violence or disorder erupts around a protest, it usually arises from interactions between police and protesters (Abu-Lughod 2007, Horne 1995, Ives and Lewis 2019, Kerner, Lindsay and Harris 1968, Nassauer 2019. The crowd that gathered in the first few hours of protest in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 after the police killing of Michael Brown was angry but nonviolent.…”

50 Years of Static

“…There were thousands of arrests, at least 34 deaths, and an estimated $40 million in property damage. [1] 16,000 members of the National Guard were sent in to help the Los Angeles Police Department oppose this rebellion. [2] This rebellion lasted six days until August 17, 1965.…”