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40th Anniversary of Watts

HeadlineAug 11, 2005

And finally, today marks the 40th anniversary of the Watts uprising in Los Angeles. A white California Highway Patrol officer named Lee Minikus pulled over 21(twenty-one) year-old Marquette Frye, who was black, on suspicion of drunk driving. Frye had been driving in the car with his brother and additional officers were soon called to the scene. Rena Frye, the mother of the two boys showed up as well and eventually all three members of the Frye family were arrested. As the officers questioned them, the police hit the brothers with their baton. The crowd grew increasingly angry and a confrontation began that led to six days of rioting leaving 34 people dead, 1000 wounded and 4000 people arrested. The Watts uprising sheparded in a new more militant era of the civil rights movement as African-Americans took to the streets in a mass protest against white economic exploitation and police brutality. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was formed in Oakland, California less then a year after the rebellion. Yesterday, a report was presented to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police chief William Brattion by the Los Angeles Urban League and the United Way titled “The State of Black Los Angeles.” The report found that, 40 years after Watts, African-Americans continue to face many of the same conditions they faced in LA forty years ago. They point to the fact that in L.A, African Americans still have the lowest household income in the city, are far more likely to go prison and are searched by the Los Angeles Police Department at four times the rate of whites.

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