Austin Archer
Montgomery
U.S. History, Period 2
24 October 2014
Riots Our nation used to be corrupt. Ever since our nation has founded, we have dealt with slavery and colored humans had no rights and were treated as if they weren’t humans at all. This was a problem all the way up to the mid-1900s. The black community was still being harassed and treated poorly and that caused tension which started many, many riots.
Some of the worst riots in history have changed America for the better. Such riots over the period of time have dealt with many deaths and damage. One of the most horrific riots in Los Angeles history, The Watts Riots, is one of the riots that had a plenty of deaths and damage. Watts Riots was a large scale riot that lasted six days in Los Angeles, California in 1965. It all started in Watts, which is a neighborhood in Los Angeles (which was one of the few…show more content… “Environmental and not racial. The economic deprivation, social isolation, inadequate housing, and general despair of thousands of Negroes teeming in Northern and Western ghettos are the ready seed which give birth to tragic expressions of violence” (King, 17 August 1965). King also told some reporters that the Watts Riots were “the beginning of a stirring of those people in our society who have been by passed by the progress of the past decade” (King, 20 August 1965). Struggles in the North, king believed, were really about “dignity and work,” rather than rights, which had been the main goal of black activism in the South (King, 20 August 1965). The Watts Riots was a horrific riot that showed the tension between the African American citizens and White citizens at the time. Although the riots were horrible, they were needed. Without the riots, the world would be a different place. The riots are a very violent way to change a problem, but it works. Now going across the country, to New York City, where The Stonewall Riots