Watts Riot Journal

Journal: Account of the Watts Riots

The summer of 1965 was an unusually hot summer. It’s only been a couple days but we are all still recovering from the aftermath. I have a shop. It’s a lil old thing and I sell some produce and milk. Me and another fella are the only black people on this street who own their own stores. Anyway, I was out front of my shop sweeping the sidewalks when I saw Marquette being pulled over. Marquette frye was a decent brother. Never really caused much trouble like the other jokers around here. Anyway, that white cop pulled him over and said he was drinking. I never knew Marquette to drive drunk. They were exchanging words and by this time most of the street gathered around to see what was going on. We all knew Marquette wasn’t drunk, but this cop wanted to harass us like they always do. I over heard people in the crowd making comments and threats, so I knew it was about to get crazy. More cops showed up and Marquette was taken away. They threw him in the car like a bag of laundry and kicked his feet in and slammed the door. His mother and brother got involved. His mother jumped on that cops back and they were arrested too. A few people tried to protest but the police broke it up. After that I’m not sure what happened all I saw was a couple bottles and bricks flying through the air.

At that point, it sort of like turned into a full-fledged confrontation with the police. A police car was left at Imperial and Avalon, and it was set on fire. The rest was history. I guess it's safe to say — you know, I'm not sure of the statute of limitations — but it's safe to say that I was throwing as many bricks, bottles and rocks as anybody. My focus was not on burning buildings and looting. My focus was on the police. Unfortunately, they didn’t come around at first, maybe they were scared. The Police Department was at that time supposedly considered one of the finest police departments in the world. I know it was one of the most...