Still Down but Not Out

By Frank Trippett

Even in a turbulent era rocked by Birminghams and Little Rocks, the hellish rioting in Watts in the mid-1960s set a stunning new level for civil violence. Touched off improbably enough by a simple traffic arrest that brought police and blacks into conflict, the disturbance rumbled into rock-throwing disorder that soon exploded into almost a week of looting, arson and assault. With entire blocks reduced to ash and rubble, the name Watts came to signify not just a black ghetto in south-central Los Angeles but black unrest across the U.S. By the time troops and police brought peace to what had become a 46.5-sq.-mi. war zone, the toll was tragic: 34 dead, 1,032 injured, 3,952 arrested, some 600 buildings ravaged, property loss around $40 million.

In the wave of national concern that followed, Watts and environs were studied intensely. If no single cause of the rioting was found, the nation still got a picture of a community ripe to blow up: a place of acutely high joblessness, pervasive poverty, crowded housing and a sense of being abused by the police. Now 20 years have passed. What is Watts like today?

In bricks-and-mortar terms, the neighborhood is a far sight better off than it was when the cries of "Burn, baby, burn!" died down. Several hundred units of government-subsidized housing dot the neighborhood, replacing some of the vacant lots left after the rioting. The intersection of 103rd Street and Compton Avenue, ground zero in 1965, could be Anywhere U.S.A. The sprawling Watts Health Center dominates one corner and a new post office the other. Across the street is a shopping center with a supermarket, a savings and loan office and several apparel shops. There is no graffiti and little crime in the nine-month-old shopping center, and the reasons why tell a great deal about Watts: 17 security guards are on the payroll, and iron en trance gates, controlled from a rooftop command post, can be closed within seconds to keep prowlers out at night and robbers in during the day.

The social profile of Watts has hardly changed. Unemployment stands at better than 20%, almost three times the national average, and more than the U.S. rates for either blacks (15%) or Hispanics (11.2%). About one-third of Watts families exist below the poverty line. The city and county human relations commissions report that the south-central area containing Watts had "the highest infant mortality rate, the lowest rate of immunization, the highest incidence of communicable disease . . . and the fewest doctors per capita in the county."

Does all of that mean that Watts is still ripe for disorder? "All of the elements are still here," says Ted Watkins, founder-chairman of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee. "The only part [fortunately] missing is the ability of the disenfranchised and the disgusted to mobilize to do what was done in 1965." Watkins' WLCAC operates a dozen businesses and the food-stamp concession. He and other community leaders attribute the continuing troubles partly to federal budget cutbacks, which have eliminated job-training programs. They have also forced a staff cut (107 to 63) in the Westminster Neighborhood Association; the WNA, funded by a mix of public and church monies, helps young people prepare for and find jobs. At the same time, local economic conditions have deteriorated. Firms that previously provided jobs in the area--Goodyear, Firestone, Ford, GM, Sears--have moved away, while the predominantly black community has grown from 30,000 in the mid-1960s to 42,000 (Hispanics, few in number in 1965, now constitute 25% of the total). On "Mother's Day," so called because it marks the arrival of welfare checks, sales surge in cocaine, heroin and PCP. Riot? No, says Baptist Minister Charles Mims Jr., explaining, "The militants are all high. You can't be angry and high at the same time."

Crime has declined a bit, at least statistically, in the past five years. Yet, says area Police Commander Stephen Gates, it is "still horrible." Gangs regularly cut one another up. Three weeks ago, young thugs shot and killed a teenager in the cab of his pickup in a parking lot. So many cars were being attacked in "smash-and-run" incidents while passing the Nickerson Gardens housing project that authorities walled off the adjacent highway with a spiked metal fence. Fire Captain Tom Crowley says arson has become a spectator sport, with punks torching buildings "just to watch us work." Bobby Spears, 31, a janitor and father of four, knows who robbed him recently but will not press charges out of fear for his family's safety.

The sheer atmosphere of Watts takes a toll. Says Family Counselor Mary Taylor: "Children lose that good feeling about themselves." Ueemaee Russell, 11, who lives on Grape Street (just off "Charcoal Alley," as 103rd Street has been called since it burned), knows that "people are fighting now over dope and getting raped and kidnaped." When gunfire gets too bad near her house, Sixth-Grader Russell deals with it by crawling under her bed.

After a brisk, hour-long walking tour of Watts last week, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley proposed, in general terms, a program that would take Watts preschoolers out of their homes and put them in learning centers, in order to remove them from "this whole cycle of failure." The notion caused confusion in Watts, and Bradley quickly tried to make clear that he was thinking only of some voluntary plan that might resemble the federal Head Start program.

Some civic leaders think Watts' notoriety can be turned to advantage. "We don't hide the rebellion," says Watts Towers Art Center Director John Outterbridge. "We want to get tourists here to dispel the myths." If many of the myths still hold true, at least there are signs of hope and a heartening willingness in the community to face up to its problems. Says Charles Woods, operator of a mobile barbecue: "All the new construction, it's built pride. People are more together now." --By Frank Trippett. Reported by Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles

With reporting by Reported by Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles