Prompt for research paper

In August 1965, the Watts area of Los Angeles exploded as Black Americans expressed pent-up rage for second-class status in America. The event that triggered the so-called Watts Riots was a simple traffic stop of young man by a Highway Patrol motorcycle officer for reckless driving. A crowd gathered, the driver’s mother was called to come witness the event and within 24 hours Police Chief William Parker called in the National Guard to patrol the streets of Los Angeles. A simple traffic stop had become a national stand-off about civil rights and a community-wide release of decades of anger. The Watts Riots changed Los Angeles - and America - for ever.

Your assignment is to write a 5-6 page paper describing the underlying causes that caused Black citizens of Los Angeles to explode. Examine the vicious treatment they faced at the hands of the police of L.A. But don’t dwell just on that, investigate the more subtle ways discrimination play a role in enforcing inequality. Investigate the restrictive covenants that prevented Black people from buying houses beyond certain boundaries. Examine the impact such “ghettoization” had on educational and health opportunities. Look into workers rights and access to good, union jobs. Find one or two aspects of this brutally enforced double standard and investigate carefully. Write a paper that uses what you find out to explain what caused people to explode into a few days of fury, risking their lives in the process.