Fire This Time The Watts Uprising And The 1960s

by Horne, Gerald

• ISBN13: 9780306807923
• ISBN10: 0306807920
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-22
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

In August 1965 the predominantly black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles erupted in flames and violence following an incident of police brutality. The official death toll was thirty-four; property losses reached hundreds of millions of dollars; but the political results were even more profound. The civil rights movement was placed on the defensive as the image of rioting blacks in the West replaced the image of meek and angelic protestors in the South. A white backlash ensued that led directly to Ronald Reagan's election as governor of California in 1966.This is the first comprehensive treatment of the uprising, its causes, and its aftermath, and is based on hundreds of oral histories and unprecedented archival research. With a cast that includes Ronald Reagan, Tom Bradley, Martin Luther King, Jr., Edmund G. Brown, the NAACP, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, and thousands of blacks and whites,Fire This Timeis a compelling account of an event that changed the face of racial justice in America.

Author Biography

Gerald Horne has taught at the University of Zimbabwe and the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include Black Liberation/Red Scare, Race for the Planet, and Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	vii
PART ONE: CONTEXT
Introduction	3	(20)
Toward Understanding	23	(20)
PART TWO: UPRISING
Rising Up	43	(21)
Death in the Afternoon, Evening, and Morning	64	(15)
Fire/Guns	79	(19)
``The Hearing Children of Deaf Parents''	98	(21)
PART THREE: CONFLICT
Black Scare	119	(15)
Iron Fist	134	(37)
PART FOUR: IMPACT
The Old Leadership	171	(14)
The New Leadership	185	(28)
The State and Civil Society	213	(34)
PART FIVE: CLASS VERSUS CLASS
A Class Divided by Race	247	(16)
Right, Left, and Center	263	(16)
Politics: Local and Beyond	279	(28)
Business	307	(15)
Representing Rebellion	322	(17)
PART SIX: MEANINGS
After the Fire	339	(16)
Epilogue: The 1990s	355	(12)
Notes	367	(55)
A Note on Sources	422	(3)
Index	425