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40th Anniversary of the Watts Riots Forty years ago, a routine traffic stop of a black motorist by white police in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts sparked six days of riots that left 34 dead, hundreds more injured and 100 square blocks decimated by fire and looting. Follow NPR coverage:
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40th Anniversary of the Watts Riots

Forty years ago, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts erupted in pent-up racial frustration.

Opinion

Coming Out of Watts, Moving Ahead

Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the Watts riots that destroyed whole blocks of a Los Angeles neighborhood. Commentator Askia Muhammad grew up in Watts, and was in college in Los Angeles 40 years ago.

Coming Out of Watts, Moving Ahead

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Decades After L.A. Riots, Watts Still Suffers

On a red-hot August night in 1965, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles exploded with racial frustration. But 40 years after a traffic stop sparked the Watts riots, which claimed 34 lives, little has changed.

Decades After L.A. Riots, Watts Still Suffers

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Back to the 77th Street Station, 40 Years Later

The Watts Riots began in Los Angeles 40 years ago Thursday, a six-day eruption of racial frustration that left 34 people dead, hundreds more injured and scores of buildings damaged, looted or destroyed. Karen Grigsby Bates visits the 77th Street police station in the heart of Watts with writer Karl Fleming, who witnessed the riots as a reporter for Newsweek magazine.

Back to the 77th Street Station, 40 Years Later

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Decades Later, Effect of Watts Riots Still Linger

Tim Watkins, president of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, talks about the lingering effects of the 1965 unrest on the South-Central area of Los Angeles. Watkins' father founded the organization in the aftermath of the riots -- a six-day eruption of violence some still call an "uprising."

Decades Later, Effect of Watts Riots Still Linger

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The Watts Riots: A Look Back, and What's Next

Adolfo Guzman Lopez of member station KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., reports on what began 40 years ago in the Watts section of Los Angeles -- and what still needs to be done to help the area's residents, still mired in poverty, crime and drugs.

The Watts Riots: A Look Back, and What's Next

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Japanese and Blacks, Sharing the 'Shaw

Los Angeles is home to almost four million people of every ethnicity — and sometimes, they don't share that home very peacefully. Author Nina Revoyr takes a tour of the city's Crenshaw district, the setting of her novel about family secrets and the 1965 Watts riots.

Japanese and Blacks, Sharing the 'Shaw

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'Rough South': Chronicles of L.A.'s Violent Past

Karen Grigsby Bates tours the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts with journalist Karl Fleming, who was nearly beaten to death during a racial protest in the summer of 1966. Fleming's new book details his time reporting on the civil rights movement during the turbulent 1960s.

'Rough South': Chronicles of L.A.'s Violent Past

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'Little Scarlet': Easy Rawlins, Through the Flames

Walter Mosley talks about race, rage and redemption — all major themes of his latest Easy Rawlins mystery, Little Scarlet, set in Los Angeles during the 1965 Watts Riots. Hear the author read passages from the book, and read an excerpt.

'Little Scarlet': Easy Rawlins, Through the Flames

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