Civil Rights Diary Essay examples

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

Once the police arrested Marquette Frye, angry Watts's residents began stoning passing cars and setting them on fire (Bradley 895).Two days later, on the morning of August 13th, massive amounts of people marched into the business district and started a free-for-all on the local stores. Firebombs and attacks against white owned businesses followed. Then they started dragging people from their cars and beating them. Watts had a storehouse of combustible materials located on the southeast side of Los Angeles. A minor clash between police and black residents resulted in an explosion that ripped through Watts (Magill 1924).

For decades racial discrimination has been a reoccurring issue that has shaped the relationships across the country. Riots, in the case of the L.A. riots, are a form of venting and a negative form of freedom of expression. Almost immediately after the jury`s decision to seize the officers of charges that included assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force towards King, riots broke out across Los

On April 29, 1992, the City of Los Angeles was surrounded in a riot in response to the "not guilty" verdicts in the trial of four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers accused of unlawfully beating Rodney King. Six days later, when the fires were finally extinguished and the smoke had cleared, "estimates of the material damage done vary between about $800 million and $1 billion, 54 people had been killed, more than 2000 injured, in excess of 800 structures were burned, and about 10,000 people were arrested."(Khalifah 89) The 1992 riots in the City of Los Angeles were arguably the most devastating civil disturbance in the history of the United States.

The 1960s was a time for change. It promoted on going expectations of equality for all races. This proved to be difficult for minorities. In August of 1965, civil unrest broke out, which lead to six-day revolt called the Watts Riot. Nearly thirty years later another riot broke out which caused even greater damage and left an even greater impact in our history, the Rodney King Riots. Both of these events share similar qualities and devastating damages, however, their meanings are much harder to decipher from one another. These impactful events in our society demonstrate how much there needs to change in our society, especially when dealing with minorities.

This is just an example of everyday living in Watts. One resident said living in Watts is like a "living hell." Homelessness, poverty, lack of resources and programs, gang violence and drugs is only part of the problem. While many feel African Americans have made huge strides, rising in professions and positions of leadership, there is still a crisis in the Black community. Radio host and activist in Baltimore, Farajii Muhammad draws a connection between the Black Lives Matter protest and Watts Riots. Muhammad feels present day Baltimore is reminiscent of Watts in 1965 due to the "same economic conditions, the same employment conditions, the lack of educational opportunities and just the overall culture of violence and hopelessness (Mozingo & Jennings,

Race riots are one of the major news items we hear about via the media when a social crisis occurs. The riots in Baltimore, however, were not so much about race, but more about economic and social class separations. The riots began as a peaceful protest amongst the citizens of Baltimore over the death of one of their own, Freddie Gray. Gray was a young, African-American, from a financially lower class area of Baltimore. Unfortunately, he died while in custody of the Baltimore Police. While this is a tragic loss, he was unlawfully detained by the police (Sarlin, 2015) during this ordeal. On the surface, the riots may appear as a cut-and-dry race provoked, once they are looked into further, that is not necessarily the case.

The Los Angeles Riots were the second riots to happen after the Watts Riots. The L.A Riots took place on April 9, 1992. The riots broke out in less than a day and lasted five days and killed more than 50 people and left more than 2,000 injured. On April 30, 1992, writers Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times newspaper saying "hours after the verdicts were announced, angry demonstrators torched buildings, looted stores and assaulted passersby as civic leaders pleaded for calm." The riots started after the verdict was given, people were filled with anger after they police officers were acquitted of all charges against them. Tensions also arose with Korean store owners.

In the weeks that followed the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of the Baltimore police, a group of protestors known as BlackLivesMatter, gathered with the intentions of demanding public awareness over the persistent discrimination and violence that African Americans are subjected to by Police Officers around the Country. Following Mr. Gray’s death, on April 25th of 2015, a small number of protestors attending the B.L.M. protest turned an otherwise non-violent protest into a violent bout of civil disorder which led to several dozen arrests, an estimated 15 officer injuries and mass rioting, looting and burning of the local businesses including a CVS pharmacy. Ultimately, a state of emergency was declared and the National Guard was brought in to resolve the conflicts.

The Los Angeles Riots developed as a way to show frustration at the injustice that occurred at the expense of Rodney King, with the acquittal of the four white police officers. The escalation that occurred as a result, could have been prevented, had police chief Darryl Gates mobilized troops into the affected areas immediately, instead of prolonging the deployment. As a member of law enforcement, with over 42 years of experience, there is no way that he could not have anticipated the backlash that ensued. The complete brutalization and dehumanization of black people in the United States is appalling and it has led to inhumane, atrocious fall out that has had impacts that have carried forward to the present.

In 1992 the city of Los Angeles was one of our nation’s largest cities. It had an estimated population of over 9 million.1 The city had been in a deteriorating state for several years. There also had been tension growing between the citizens and the police for nearly the last 30 years. This had a lot to do with riots that occurred in Los Angeles back in the 1960’s.2

The beginnings of the riots came on March 3, 1991, when Rodney King was stopped and brutally assaulted by police. King was stopped after a high speed chase police after police caught him intoxicated and was subsequently forced out of the car (History.com). From there, police began to unlawfully assault Rodney King, leaving him with a fractured skull, along with a broken cheekbone (History.com). A witness, George Holliday, filmed the officers beating Rodney King; a day after the tape was airing on CNN for the rest of the country to witness (Los Angeles Daily News). Four officers were later arrested and put to trial a year later, however all of them were not pleaded guilty. The verdict angered a massive amount of African

The 1960s brought about changes economically and socially. The Civil Rights Movement was alive and moving. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s goal was to hopefully put an end to racial discrimination and to restore voting rights in the South. Clearly the 60s was not the beginning of the fight for civil rights in America. The 18th century in the United State was plagued by hatred, racism and slavery. Slavery affected the entire nation. Slavery destroyed families by taking members of one’s captive to work as slaves. Abolitionists of all races began protesting against slavery. As slaves grew tired of intense abuse, slaves planned escape routes, signals and even songs. By 1843, slaves were escaping

Although the conclusion of the Civil War during the mid-1860s demolished the official practice of slavery, the oppression and exploitation of African Americans has continued. Although the rights and opportunities of African Americans were greatly improved during Reconstruction, cases such a 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson, which served as the legal basis for segregation, continue to diminish the recognized humanity of African Americans as equal people. Furthermore, the practice of the sharecropping system impoverished unemployed African Americans, recreating slavery. As economic and social conditions worsened, the civil rights movement began to emerge as the oppressed responded to their conditions, searching for equality and protected

The Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's was arguably one of the most formative and influential periods in American history. Hundreds of thousands of civil rights activists utilized non violent resistance and civil disobedience to revolt against racial segregation and discrimination. The Civil Rights Movement began in the southern states but quickly rose to national prominence. It is of popular belief that the civil rights movement was organized by small groups of people, with notable leaders like—Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and even John F. Kennedy—driving the ship. That is partly correct. The Civil Rights Movement, in its truest form, was hundreds of thousands of people organizing events and protests,