To many young people today, the Watts Riots are a distant headline in a history book. But for those who lived it, it still resonates six decades later.
Despite countless incidents in the intervening 30 years, police accountability continues to be sidelined in favor of unchecked funding increases.
Fifty-six years ago on this day, Aug. 11, 1965, what is oftentimes referred to as the Watts Riots but more accurately described as the Watts Uprising or Watts rebellion began in the eponymous Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, lasting for six harrowing days.
Outrage over racial profiling and the killing of African Americans by police officers and vigilantes in recent years helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
