Urban unrest (riots versus uprising), Watts anniversary

A couple weeks ago, PBS World Channel repeated an episode, "The Riot Report," from the PBS American Experience documentary series, about the Watts riots in 1965 (I learned about them when I was 12ish, reading the fiction book, The New Centurions), urban unrest in other cities, how it led to the creation of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders––informally known as the Kerner Commission, after the chair Otto Kerner, Governor of Illinois, but that politicians, including President Johnson, weren't prepared to act on the recommendations, which were published in book form (I think I have a copy somewhere).

In this Aug. 12, 1965 file photo, demonstrators push against a police car after rioting erupted in the Watts district of Los Angeles. It began with a routine traffic stop 50 years ago this month, blossomed into a protest with the help of a rumor and escalated into the deadliest and most destructive riot Los Angeles had seen. The Watts riot broke out Aug. 11, 1965 and raged for most of a week. When the smoke cleared, 34 people were dead, more than a 1,000 were injured and some 600 buildings were damaged.(AP Photo)

I hadn't realized that their rebroadcast inadvertently presaged the 60th anniversary of the Watts riots, the first major urban riot after WW2 (if you don't count other civil rights battles as riots, which were often started by those opposed to civil rights).  Riots in Newark and Detroit followed, and many many more in 1968.

A number of buildings are left gutted and smoldering after being set afire during Los Angeles' six day riot in August 1965. Damages from looting and fires were estimated at $100 million, with hardly a store in the Watts area left untouched and whole blocks of buildings gutted to their foundations.

Ironically, the report was issued in late 1967, about five months before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which sparked rioting all over the country.  It's also ironic that Trump federalized the DC police department this week.

-- pdf version of the Kerner Commission Report

Late last year a book was published, positioned as an update of the Kerner Report, Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy New Will for Evidence-Based Policies That Work.  

It's all the more relevant given how the Christian/White National policy of the Trump Administration ("White Christian nationalists are poised to remake America in their image during Trump’s second term, author says," CNN) sweeps aside policies and funding for programs to alleviate poverty and to address the inequity that derives from racism ("With anti-DEI and ESG battles, Trump is waging war against freedom," The Hill).

There's been press coverage of the anniversary (""Watts Rebellion" 60th anniversary renews call for Kerner Report plan to fight poverty," Axios, "Watts riots, 60 years later: See National Guard’s response to LA chaos," USA Today, "Watts: 60 years after riots, challenges persist, but this South LA community marches on," Los Angeles Daily News).

Note that in talking about this issue, with people who participated in the 1968 riots, which destroyed thriving retail corridors like H Street NE, where I ended up living when I first moved to Washington in 1987, they didn't see them so much as what are referred to criminally as "riots," but as an "uprising" or "rebellion," still attacking and challenging the state, but with legitimate grievances.  From the LA Times:

For a moment there was even the temptation to make my own dash into one of the burning stores. But that quickly passed. One of my friends kept repeating with his face contorted with anger: “Maybe now they’ll see how rotten they treat us.” In that bitter moment, he said what countless other Black people felt as the flames and the smoke swirled.

The Watts article in the LADN is a retrospective, and identifies needs today that have existed for a long time.

800 block of H Street NE burning during the 1968 riots'. Joe Silberman, Washington Star.

Note that in talking about this issue, with people who participated in the 1968 riots, which destroyed thriving retail corridors like H Street NE, where I ended up living when I first moved to Washington in 1987, they didn't see them so much as what are referred to criminally as "riots," but as an "uprising," still attacking the state, but with legitimate grievances.

The Watts article in the LADN is a retrospective, and identifies needs today that have existed for a long time.

My lesson is that few places have the financial capital to be able to recover from a riot, it's like a natural disaster.  That was based on the forlorn nature of H Street, in 1987, roughly 20 years after, and in 2001, more than 30 years after it was still grim--despite being in the National Capital. 

In Watts too redevelopment languishes, " L.A. bought land in Watts and promised jobs. Now, it’s weeds and shanties' here,"  "Six decades after the Watts riots, too little has changed," LA Times, "Researchers, nonprofits working in Watts, South Central reflect on the region 60 years after riots," LADN).  From the second LA Times article:

... [the burning streets are] impossible to forget for another reason. Exactly six decades later, some of those streets look as if time has stood still. They are dotted with the same fast-food restaurants, beauty shops, liquor stores and mom-and-pop grocery stores. The main street near the block I lived on then is just as unkempt, pothole-ridden and trash littered now as it ever was. All the homes and stores in the area are hermetically sealed with iron bars, security gates and burglar alarms.

A special officer looks over the damage to a surplus store in the Watts area on Aug. 13, 1965, following the second night of rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles. At dawn 900 officers armed with automatic weapons scattered the crowds. Bettmann Archive Via Getty Images 

In taking a hard look at what has changed in Watts — and all of America’s neighborhoods like Watts — since the riots, the picture is not flattering. According to Data USA, Watts still has the runaway highest poverty rate in L.A. County. Nearly one-third of the households are far below the official poverty level. It has the highest jobless rate. It is still plagued by the same paucity of retail stores, healthcare services, chronically low educational test scores and high dropout rates.

The only reason H Street NE finally did is the post-2000 recovery of interest in urban living, and its proximity to Downtown, Capitol Hill, and transportation assets.  We capitalized on that, when a group of us--good timing--organized a commercial district revitalization initiative.  

There have been ups and downs, and I'd say it's down somewhat now ("Progress, remembrance in Washington’s H Street Corridor," Washington Post), because of competition from other commercial districts elsewhere in the city, covid, and not as great subway access--which was addressed through venture capital subsidized trips on ride hailing vehicles--Uber and Lyft ("H Street NE nightlife district, failing?," "A follow up on the H Street article: Learning from Philadelphia | More sophisticated daypart, retail, cultural, and experience planning"), which has since dried up.

OTOH, since the 2000s, Greater H Street has experienced more than $1 billion in new development, which I see as an overall win ("DC makes yet another bad decision about streetcars: will replace the one line with a so called "fancy" bus | The Vision Thing" [2025]).

Brenda Hackett-Hall, 75, has lived in Watts since about age 2. She recalls the store her mother worked at got looted during the 1965 Watts Riots. Although she trusts the police, many in her community still do not, she says. (Photo by Linh Tat/Southern California Newspapers Group)

WRT crime, a somewhat different issue, in Uneasy Peace, Patrick Sharkey attributes a good deal of the 2000s era crime drop to community organizing and the creation of community organizations.  I think that's a part of it.  But it's not enough to have community organizations to turn around a riot corridor ("Watts after 50 years: ‘Still here. Not done’," LADN, from 2015).

You need capital + people's willingness to live there.

A Minneapolis liquor store going up in flames on May 28, three days after George Floyd’s death in police custody. Kerem Yucel/AFP.  The lot, at a major intersection, is still vacant 5 years later.

I think the destruction of Lake Street in Minneapolis after the George Floyd unrest, will be hard to recover from ("Red tape, rising costs slow efforts to rebuild businesses burned after Floyd’s murder," Minnesota Public Radio).

I think H Street and 14th Street NW in DC are rare examples of substantive post-riot revitalization.