Southland

The Watts Rebellion, also known as the Watts Uprising and the Watts riots, began in response to police violence against Black stepbrothers Marquette and Ronald Frye, who were pulled over by a white California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer while driving in the predominantly Black Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Marquette failed a sobriety test and, frightened and angry at the thought of going to jail, began to struggle against the arresting officer. Ronald tried to intervene to protect his brother, and the officer assaulted both brothers with his riot baton before handcuffing Marquette and placing him in the police cruiser. Soon a crowd arrived to protest the arrest, including the brothers’ mother, Rena, who was also arrested and placed in the cruiser along with both Marquette and Ronald. More CHP officers arrived, and the scene became a brawl between protestors and police. The violence that began in that moment spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood and far beyond, in a demonstration of collective outrage that lasted three days, destroyed homes and businesses throughout more than 50 square miles of Los Angeles, and claimed the lives of 34 people, most of them Black demonstrators killed by police.

Though the arrest of the Frye brothers was the inciting incident that touched off the rebellion, it was not the root cause. The anger that broke out in the Watts Rebellion had been simmering through decades of systemic racism, constant police violence, and economic isolation. Racially restrictive covenants prevented Black Angelenos from buying or renting homes in most sections of Los Angeles. The communities of South Los Angeles, including Watts, Compton, Crenshaw, and the Angeles Mesa neighborhood referred to in Southland, were among the only places where Black people could live. As large businesses and industries left South Los Angeles, these neighborhoods became economically cut off from the rest of the city. Train service on the Long Beach Line was cut off in 1961, stranding many residents who depended on the train for access to jobs and resources in other parts of Los Angeles. In the two years before the Rebellion, there had been more than 250 public demonstrations in South Los Angeles against the lack of adequate schools and hospitals and the constant threat of police violence. Destructive as it was, the Rebellion represented a community’s collective refusal to be ignored any longer.