On Wednesday, August 11th, 1965 the Watts Riots began. In Los Angeles a black man, Marquette Frye was accussed of driving while drunk. A white California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer named Lee Minikus pulled him over. Marquette Frye was given sobriety tests. He couldn't walk in a straight line while touching his nose and was arrested. Officer Minikus wasn't going to let Marquette's brother drive his care home. Instead he had it impounded. This upset Marquette and a crowd of hundreds became violent. The crowd threw things and yelled at the officers. The brothers were arrested, so was their mother.
On Thursday, August 12th black leaders like preachers, teachers, and buisnessmen were trying to get things back in order after a night of rampage. They told people to stay indoors. At about two in the afternoon there was a community meeting and members of different communities talked about how to fix the problems. This meeting failed and on Friday, August 13th, the riots got worse.
On Saturday, August 14th, there were almost 100 fire brgades in the areas started by rioters by 1 am. There were over 3,000 national gaurdsmen trying to maintain the streets and by midnight there were around 13,900. An 8 p.m curfew was set so that people would stay inside.
On Sunday, August 15th the riots stared to die down. There was over $40 million left in property damage. Churches, community groups and government againces were giving aid to try and help repair the areas. The curfew was gone a week later and about 300 national guardsmen stayed to help out the area. There were 32 people dead and 27 were black men. There were also more than 800 people wounded and 3000 arrested.
Source 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Riots
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