Summary: The 1960s Riots

Through the past centuries many acts of rebellion have occurred. However not many have had such an impact compared to the L.A. riots of May of 1992. After the events that occurred on May of 1992 in Los Angeles, many things changed. The L.A. riots changed race relations between police and the people of Los Angeles for the coming years.

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.

Numerous times, protests start off as untroubling. In fact, they are beneficial to a certain extent, for they “provide a vent to society and also allow governments to understand better the issues their citizens are facing” (UN News Centre 2012). However, often these protests cross this blurry line and are rendered violent, causing danger to the American people. A recent example of a protest transforming into a riot was the Anti- Trump protest in Portland. These protests started off as being peaceful and allowed the protesters to express their opinions on the issue. However, the protesters eventually became so invested in the matter that it quickly mutated into a riot with people smashing windows, kicking cars, and vandalizing buildings (USA TODAY 2016) .This rapid change from peace to violence is a result of the blurry line between what is considered peaceful and what is considered violent. Due to the few restrictions on both the right to petition and assemble, what is perceived as violent is open to interpretation. More specifically, the protesters may not have deemed that kicking cars and smashing windows was violent; thus, they proceeded with these clearly dangerous activities anyways. Since the unlimited nature of both of these rights leaves a massive gray area in regards to what is

In the United States, the protest has always been an important tool of democracy, a way for the minority to let itself be heard. Take the Civil Rights movement. Today's race relations are better than they were fifty years ago because a relatively small group of people convinced enough of the country that racism was a disease that would kill everything that made America special.

In 1965 riots in L.A. occurred after a routine stop by the police involving drunk driving. This stop occurred very close the driver’s residence where massive crowd began to build. When it was all said and done

Protests riots in the United States has proven to an issue for both the country’s financial strength and the unity of the nation. With the presence of social injustices, combined with the increased impact of social media propaganda, protests riots are beginning to reach an all time high. Protest riots destroy individual communities and businesses, jeopardizes the safety of others and taints the protest’s cause by resorting to civil disobedience. Action must be done in order to prevent these random acts of violence from continuing after every social hot topic. The goal is not to prevent citizens from protesting; in fact, this should be encouraged. The goal is to change the way the protests are handled from both the citizens and authority perspectives, in order to prevent these protests from escalating into something dangerous.

Violence also proved to be unproductive because it only caused more resistance and chaos in time of confrontation. Violent protests such as riots ended up damaging the Black Community. African Americans resulted being the victims of these riots, and as a result the most affected by the violent confrontations. Moreover, the use of violence created stiff race relations between the African Americans and White. Demonstrating that the violence method was ineffective for the civil rights movement is the fact that the “Black power movement faded almost as quickly as it appeared” (Ware 161).

The procedures of a riot is simple to see but hard to explain why. For example in 1898 in North Carolina racist white men sought to get black men out of politics by accusing them of raping white women. Alex Manly, a newspaper editor decided to write a suggestion that maybe the relationships between the black men and white women were consensual. At this time interracial relationships between black and white were tabooed. Outraged by this five hundred white men attacked and burned down manly’s office, killing fourteen African American men, this event was apart of the riot known as Wilmington insurrection of 1898 . (“Infoplease.” Infoplease, Infoplease, www.infoplease.com/us/history/race-riots.html). This can be considered an act of racism which led to a riot. The cause of race riots is obviously racism but what act of racism or what do people actually do to start race riots, simply speaking out or standing up for yourself, is that what causes

The 60s were a very action packed time. There were a lot of different events going on including political changes, war, and rioting and protest. Most of the rioting was taking place by the youth of not only America, but in fact people from all across the world. With such a large number of protesting, there is a certain level of contrast between the how the youth organized and was able to protest. For example in “Takin it to the streets” the students would learn different protesting method from one another, “When Italian students occupied of the University of Rome, a group of young Germans rushed to Italy to see how the Italians did it”. Compared to in “Voices”, they looked to the vietnam war for their inspiration. According to Tariq Ali, a

Social protest happen on an almost daily basis. Many of these social protest go unnoticed because they do not make the news. Some would argue that is why violence is needed when protesting. Violence may make the headlines but it will never make positive strides to reach the goals one hope to reach by protesting. Violence should not be an option when it comes to protesting.

Violent protest is divisive - it turns citizens away from seeing reason in your stance, costs taxpayers money for police protection and control and drives people strongly to one side or the other of the issues protested. The reason that protests are often seen as dangerous is because they can turn sour as the result of people using this power and ability to demonstrate as a reason to injure and destroy, often without any connection to the original protested topic. Protesters have been known to break shop windows, throw bricks at cars and even injure or kill one another in extreme situations. Peacekeepers attempting to protect the citizens and prevent escalation are often vilified and presented as brutalizing peaceful protesters.

First, in years past and in the year of 2016, riots have been a major distinction throughout the history of existence in America. Because of these riots, resistance has promoted a negative impact in America. Knowing that we American's live in a free society, riots are assumed in time of depression and opinion, but at the same time, riots don't make the situation any better. In the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. talks a little bit about riots and how they have effected the world. More or less the situation that he is in. Riots didn't help him in his situation, and they will never help our society now. To add on, riots are in no such way peaceful resistance towards laws. It takes away from the idea of a safe community and it scares a lot of people into thinking that America is falling away from the idea of peace. In the article Civil Disobedience: A Threat to Our Society, it states topics that many consider

Tariq Ali’s Street Fighting Years depicts the 1960s British student protests regarding the struggles in Vietnam and was one-sided when it comes to violence during the protests (that one side being the police). However, historians and scholars have different perceptions of what was happening in regards to both violence and the real take-away from the 60s British protests..

Rioting has never solved a problem during the 21st century in the U.S. of A. Riots have affected just about everybody in some way, big or small. They have changed the economy, the world, and even me as an individual. The act of rioting does not provide any solutions to anything and only hurts people who have done nothing to deserve it.

The state of California has a rich history of events, that on a social level, have played major parts in change and perception among the populations as a whole, and in individual communities. History has shown, and will continue to do so in the future, that changes within communities, towns, cities, states, and countries is generally motivated by civil injustice. In researching “defining moments”, I have chosen the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The riots of 1992 mark a pivotal point in time for California in regard to social issues and injustices in matters of race and socioeconomics. Following, I will describe the “defining event”, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and why I believe what was important that was learned, and how it has impacted California 25 years later.