A Reporter Who Covered the Watts Riots Looks Back
I was one of the large number of white reporters who covered the
Watts riots a half century ago, unaware of the causes of the terrible
events unfolding before our eyes.
Newspaper editors and reporters—and newspapers were the dominant
media of the day—were almost all white. Our ignorance of
African-American life was profound. That was the case in Oakland, where I
started out, as well as in Los Angeles and the rest of the urban West
and the North—sections of the country that liked to congratulate
themselves for being more racially tolerant than the South.
I was with The Associated Press in Sacramento in August 1965 when the
riots broke out, and I was dispatched to Los Angeles to help with the
coverage. My first impression of South Los Angeles was superficial and
wrong. I saw block after block of single-family homes, California
bungalows, mostly well tended, that reminded me of neighborhoods in
Oakland. I wondered why there would be riots in Watts—violence that
ended up killing 34 and injuring more than 1,000.
Demonstrators push against a police car after rioting erupted in
a crowd of 1,500 in the Watts area of Los Angeles on Aug. 12, 1965. (AP)
a crowd of 1,500 in the Watts area of Los Angeles on Aug. 12, 1965. (AP)
