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- speakerI have just signed a proclamation declaring a state of extreme emergency in the County of Los Angeles.
- speakerThis new proclamation is set for the purpose of establishing a curfew beginning at eight~
- speakero'clock tonight. I repeat, eight o'clock tonight.
- speakerLos Angeles: Profile of a Riot. This is a summary of the findings of a
- speakerteam of sociologists and reporters who were sent to find out the facts behind the
- speakerrioting in what came to be called simply "Watts." It was
- speakerproduced by the Group W stations of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in cooperation with
- speakerthe New York University school of Social Work, Alex Rosen, Dean.
- speakerYour reporter, Walter McGraw.
- speakerThe area of riots and fire.
- speakerBut the curfew can and will be extended to new areas as necessary.
- speakerI implore everyone in Los Angeles to stay off the streets tonight.
- speakerWhite Los Angelinos, most of them, heeded that warning, especially since there were
- speakerrumors that the burnings were going to spread to the Hill communities that surround the City of Angels.
- speakerFear showed itself in various ways. Gun stores sold out their stocks and
- speakersome Hollywood wit coined the term "riots a Go-Go." It meant that you went
- speakerhome and watched the riots on television and covered up the fear that you might
- speakerbecome involved by making up flip phrases like "riots A Go-Go."
- speakerGroup W reporter Stan Brooks [Brooks, Stanley Bertram] heard some of the reactions from what are known on the West
- speakerCoast as Caucasians.
- speakerMy children are seven and five years old and the two are watching the accounts of their riot on television.
- speakerThey came to associate the Negro with violence. And, I think, this influence is
- speakernot alone felt with my children, but probably with children all over the
- speakerarea and the adults also expressed whatever underlying emotions they
- speakerhad regarding prejudice. I thought a lot of prejudice in Los Angeles just beneath the surface.
- speakerWorking behind a bar, I am probably inclined to see more of it than the average person
- speakerwho is not accustomed to hearing people speaking without their usual inhibitions."
- speaker"I think it was just an outbreak of just savage lawlessness. The rioting.
- speakerThe murders. The savage brutality toward white people. This didn't affect me half as much
- speakeras much as the one word that you kept hearing all the time: "hatred."
- speakerWhy should someone hate me when I have a white skin and they have a black skin? I can't figure out why?" How
- speakerhas this affected your feelings towards the Negroes now? "I don't trust them any more."
- speakerWhile the white face is the face of oppression to the Negro, the black face has become the face of fear to the white.
- speakerWhile the whites watched it on TV, writer Louis Lomax as a Negro
- speakerwas able to go into the riot areas and watch the action in person.
- speakerAt first, it was extemporaneous. I think it just happened. I think it happened from
- speakersociologically valid reasons. Not to justify it. But from that point
- speakeron, it just ran wild, and what you actually got was an expression
- speakerparticularly the burning and particularly the looting. You got an expression
- speakerfrom people who, for whatever reasons, have no stake in this society. Here you have
- speakerpeople who are looking at just glittering jewels and diamonds and their
- speakerminds are being assaulted and impinged upon daily, by radio and television.
- speakerPressing them with the middle class symbols and conveying the notion that one doesn't really live,
- speakerunless one shops here or does this or does the other and.
- speakerthen the society fails to provide them with an honest way to realize all the thing she's been
- speakerconditioned to want. And, if he gets on relief, the inference is that he is a no
- speakergood, lazy Nigger, who won't work. And then the humiliation comes not only from the white
- speakerpeople but from the middle class Negroes who resent him as much, if not more, than the white men.
- speakerThis is one of the real problems of our society. We start to consume and we are going to make our economy work
- speakerbut we had better come up with some ways so people can honestly achieve these goals, else they are
- speakergoing to burn it down.
- speakerDr. Harold Jones is also a Negro.
- speakerI was able to walk through the area without any great apprehension or fear for my own safety.
- speakerIn that sense, the groups were more in control than one would ordinarily expect in a mob
- speakerincident. I also sensed about the people who were cheering and waving
- speakera sense of pride.
- speakerI do not feel the same for riots such as this.
- speakerThe general feeling of most of the men in the community ( I am speaking particularly of Negro men). We, we.
- speakerI don't feel we have to make an apology for what has happened. No more than the white men
- speakerneed to make an apology for what happened in Alabama.
- speakerFrankly, it is the best thing that ever happened to the Negro men.
- speakerToo long, we've been considered "boys" and "uncles" in this country. And I think for the first time, it is going to make
- speakerthem sit up and take notice that these people do think. They will take action
- speakerif necessary to get their rights.
- speakerIt might have been a riot, but so far, as a Negro woman, I felt so damn happy that somebody
- speakerdid something.
- speakerAlex Rosen is dean of the New York University School of Social work.
- speakerWhat we see here in Los Angeles are the birth throes of a community trying to develop
- speakerovernight in a pressure cooker, so to speak, the social institutions it needs for
- speakersocial control and growth. A community, be it a geographical or ethnic or
- speakerracial in character usually grows slowly over decades in developing necessary social
- speakerinstitutions and leadership. I refer to churches, social and fraternal groups,
- speakerbusinesses, schools, political parties and so on. The Watts population is so
- speakernew, so mobile, so mushrooming in growth that has not developed
- speakerthis leadership found in more mature communities. Paradoxically the Negro
- speakerleadership in Watts. They find the impetus in this act of violence for the more rapid
- speakerdevelopment of stability and social control.
- speakerBut as Los Angeles cleaned up its millions of dollars of damage, many of its citizens
- speakerlook for simpler, if more sinister, reasons for the riots.
- speakerThey don't think it was the Negro person doing it.
- speakerThey think it was mobs brought in from the Eastern states to start the riots with the colored people.
- speakerAll I'd say is these riots are very similar to the riots which broke out in Rochester, New York.
- speakerin Philadelphia, Harlem, and several other cities. Obviously, it was caused by
- speakersome national organization. Probably the incumbent is behind the whole thing.
- speakerOther organizations were also nominated. For instance, Urban League Director
- speakerWesley R. Brazier said this to Group W reporter George Barber.
- speakerI would think that the Afro-nationalist, which has its headquarters in New
- speakerYork had something to do with it.
- speakerI think the Black Muslims had some role to play in this. I can remember listening to
- speakerMuhammad [Muhammad, Elijah] at a meeting, in which he stated he could have stopped it immediately and
- speakermerely by making a couple of phone calls.
- speakerWell , the Muslims had their little fingers in it at certain levels toward the tail end.
- speakerThey, like the Communists, always come in at the ninth hour. And you know....
- speakerBut, and if you are probing sociologically, you may want to dig up this point.
- speakerThe gangs who cooperated to keep the thing going, were gangs who ordinarily fought each other in the street..
- speakerLouis Lomax [Lomax, Louis Emanuel] gives less importance to the influence of communists than does Mayor
- speakerSam Yorty [Yorty, Samuel William] , who says they, at the very least, set up the atmosphere for the
- speakerriots. While police chief William Parker [Parker, William H.] does not disagree with the mayor he
- speakeradds this.
- speakerCommunist agitation, I think, is always present wherever there is trouble.
- speakerThey move in on all of these things. They capitalize on them. But, frankly as much as I am an
- speakeranti-Communist, and notoriously so, I'm more concerned about the behaviors of African
- speakerpeople because I think if the American people are led into these situations.
- speakerYou gotta know who the agitators are. That the responsibility would lie with the people themselves.
- speakerWhile few would disagree that in a democracy the final responsibility for
- speakerany political action rests with the people, it's this tendency to
- speakeroversimplify that perhaps makes Chief Parker vulnerable to the critics who are now
- speakerdemanding his ouster and naming him as a riot cause.
- speakerI do believe as a getaway car I don't mean that at all because he don't give a damn
- speakerabout my color of coat.
- speakerI think that this man is totally out of, is totally out of it when it comes
- speakerto having a concept of what the community needs. For example, he has
- speakerone of his commanders.One of the precincts has more understanding
- speakerof community relations than this man does.
- speakerBefore Mayor Yorty was elected he so much as hinted
- speakerthat he was going to remove Parker as police chief.
- speakerMayor Yorty brands that as part of the big lie being promulgated by
- speakercommunist agitators. But pressure both unofficial and official is being
- speakerput on the mayor to ease Chief Parker out of the job he's held for the past fifteen
- speakeryears. During the riots Negro state assemblyman Mervyn Dymally [Dymally, Mervyn Malcolm]
- speakerannounced.
- speakerI have yet to deliver from Mayor Yorty asking for the resignation of police chief Parker.
- speakerThere is a tremendous amount of resentment in this community against the chief, and I believe
- speakerhis continued presence on the city's police department is not going to make for good police
- speakercommunity relations. Mayor Yorty's reaction:
- speakerI think is utterly ridiculous to start blaming the police instead of
- speakerblaming the criminal element who robbed and looted.
- speakerHow come, all of a sudden, we have permitted attention to be diverted from them, and all
- speakerkinds of demands made against the police chief Parker and the police department.
- speakerBut the riots in Watts have focused attention on William Parker a
- speakerman long respected as one of the country's top professional cops. What kind of a
- speakerman is he?
- speakerI, as a human being, would like to see everyone lead a pleasant life. But on the other hand,
- speakerI do know something about discipline. For example, the homes in
- speakerthe Watts area that we call the Ghetto, most of them are far superior to the house I
- speakerlived in as a child. But suddenly in a generation, we have become a nation of people
- speakerwho think we are entitled to all that there is to have. Without explaining to how much effort to
- speakerget it. I wasn't raised under that kind of discipline. That is difficult for me to understand.
- speakerThe sociologists would have to explain that. I can't. This country has almost
- speakerruined the police service as an attractive career. Now, we can stampede. And
- speakeryou did that in New York one year when Steve Kennedy [Kennedy, Stephen P.] was the commissioner.
- speakerYou put five thousand people on. You were very callous about how they were
- speakerselected. You put on alcoholics and you put on physical misfits. And you ended up with
- speakera department less effective with five thousand more men than it had beenbefore you hired them. And I will not make that
- speakermistake here. I don't know what the solution is to the police recruitment problem, But, I'll tell you
- speakerthis. That those who would like to see me out of here. If they can persuade Los Angeles to do what
- speakeris now going on in New York. And that is the training of high school dropouts to
- speakersuccessfully pass a police examination. They won't have to worry about me because I just won't be here.
- speakerBut the prediction is Chief Parker will stay on the job even though
- speakerone city official, off the record, labelled him a luxury Los Angeles might
- speakernot be able to afford especially in view of what were called his insulting
- speakerremarks about the rioters.
- speakerIn anything that you say, if you say anything, will be twisted. Now when I talked about
- speakermonkeys in a zoo, I had in mind the Boston police strike which
- speakerwas one of the great examples of looting in America. Two hours after the Boston police
- speakerpulled off the streets, a man broke a window. He stole a pair of shoes. And
- speakerwithin two more hours, the whole city was looted because everyone followed suit. And that's what
- speakerI meant by monkeys in the zoo. When I said we are on the top and
- speakerthey are on the bottom, that meant that the position had been reversed because we had lost control of the situation. I produces
- speakerI could just as well have said the situation well in hand.
- speakerYes, point out his critics. He could've said it, but he didn't.
- speakerFew of his critics disparage his ability to run a tight police force. They feel,
- speakerhowever, he has lost contact with the community problems. Of the nineteen
- speakersixty's. Dean Rosen [Rosen, Alex].
- speakerIn a complex urban community. Police officers need to be fully professional.
- speakerThis means a more self- conscious awareness of not only technical efficiency but also
- speakerunderstanding of the diverse racial and ethnic groups in their community. This obviously
- speakerputs an additional strain on what is an admittedly difficult task of law enforcement. The
- speakershortcoming of chiefs of police like Chief Parker is not just an individual characteristic and
- speakershortcoming but rather as a shortcoming of a police profession as such. This is
- speakerstill a semi professional occupation which needs to gain in status knowledge
- speakerand understanding of human beings and how their behavior and reactions is
- speakeraffected by their disadvantaged status in life. This is a tall order but
- speakerthat's why professions differ from routine occupations.
- speakerBut many white householders in Los Angeles feel Chief Parker is their only
- speakerreal protection against the marauders that are rumored to be on their way from Watts to
- speakerharass the mansions in the hills. One told me the happiest sound he ever heard
- speakerwas Parker saying we're on the top. Chief Parker is aware of the
- speakersupport. I'd been here thirty-eight years.
- speakerFinancially there is nothing here for me. I'm as well off on my retirement
- speakerwithin a very few dollars than if I'm working. So I'm gaining
- speakernothing out of this except the expenditure of regular energy, and probably the
- speakercompensation is the obvious--the appreciation of the great people in
- speakera great city.
- speakerPerhaps the fairest evaluation of Chief Parker's position came from political leader
- speakerJesse Unruh [Unruh, Jesse Marvin]. Chief Parker
- speakerhas been a good law enforcement official. And I think he is caught
- speakeras many other police chiefs thoughout this nation are caught in the dilemma that
- speakerno matter how fair they are, they do become a symbol of oppression.
- speakerBut the Negroes of Los Angeles insist that oppression by Chief Parker's police force is
- speakernot just symbolic.
- speakerHe hit me with his armor. He declares this abuse physically. And, if you fell on the ground,
- speakerthey kick you.
- speakerThese were real rumps. We got them up at the grocery shop on seventy-seventh Street.
- speakerThe grocery shop on 77th Street is the police station.
- speakerThey come through the alley one day and tried to run me down. People in general called me
- speakera black Nigger. And I tell.
- speakerBut again Chief Parker is supported by Mayor Yorty.
- speaker[Yorty, Samuel speaking] We have a police force recognized throughout the world as one of the best. We have been for
- speakerseveral years carrying on a rather extensive program in improving
- speakerrelations between the Negro community and the police department. Of
- speakercourse, we've been up against the big lie technique of the
- speakerconstant repetition of the charge police brutality which originally was
- speakerconfined to excessive physical force. Then later it was demonstrated over and over
- speakeragain in cases that we investigated that there was no excessive use of force.
- speakerThen they fell back on the matter of verbal brutality.
- speakerAnd they said that the police officers said things to them that were offensive. And they call this
- speakerbrutal. And then as we worked hard to correct that, the next time they
- speakerfell back on to claim brutality was, well it is just an attitude.
- speakerThere will always be physical force involved as long as people resist the application of the law.
- speakerAny physical force can be called brutality by those who wish to brand it as such.
- speakerBut can language, an attitude, or manner be called brutality?
- speakerDean Rosen.
- speaker[Rosen, Alex speaking] There is mutual frustration and communication on part of both the police and the Negro
- speakercitizen. The police are as much insensitive as brutal. They use
- speakerphrases sometimes unconsciously which cut the Negro to the quick.
- speakerThere is the over familiar use of first names instead of the more respectful Miss or Mrs.
- speakerThere's a casual police assumption that any Negro seen near a crime is automatically a
- speakerlegitimate suspect. When the Negro reacts emotionally to such behavior, the
- speakerpolice are baffled. Now that the Negro no longer passively accepts second class
- speakercitizenship, the police will need to better understand how to avoid this
- speakerlanguage of prejudice.
- speakerOn the other hand, the Negro struggle to escape second class citizenship is looked
- speakerupon as at least an aggravating factor in the riots, according to Chief
- speakerParker and one of his top officials.
- speakerOne of the things that has developed this has been the tremendous amount of discussion
- speakerin the past few years about the pride of the Negro in America. And the fact that
- speakerhe has not been elevated socially or economically with the rest of the nation.
- speakerAnd this stirs up the emotions of people to the point that they sometimes don't
- speakerreason about these things.
- speakerI cannot help but think personally that the Civil Rights demonstrations
- speakermaybe lack the attitude with regard to crime. And
- speakersomebody along the line has sold a job to some of these people
- speakerthat because they had been deprived, that they had the right to riot, that they had
- speakerthe right to loot, and they had the right to burn.
- speakerPolitical observers say that as a result of the riots in Southern California, Whitey's
- speakerface is turning to the right. And that a part of that conservative swing is an
- speakerincreasing disenchantment with the Civil Rights movement. Dean Rosen.
- speakerThe civil rights movement in the United States is at a turning point, nationally as well as in Los
- speakerAngeles. There is growing realization, for instance, that street marches and
- speakerdemonstrations are not as effective as political organization, voter
- speakerregistration and finding allies in the general community. The negro cannot go it
- speakeralone in realizing the objectives of a better life. The white man has ignored the Negro
- speakercondition until the recent decades. The civil rights movement is now incurring some
- speakerfear and some hostility from whites. Some will argue that is better to be held in
- speakerfeared than to be held in contempt. In group conflict and accommodation, it
- speakeris an illusion to think that all be smooth sailing from now on. How to
- speakerhandle these delicate and explosive feelings on the part of both whites and Negroes
- speakeris the challenge of the mid nineteen sixty's to the growing strategy of the civil rights movement.
- speakerMany white householders in Los Angeles, some of them once staunch liberals,
- speakerfind themselves echoing Chief Parker.
- speaker[Parker, William H.] "If you want to breed anarchy; if you want to pander to the anarchists, if you want to give in
- speakerto them by leaving them to the Mafia. The people in Sicily tried to deal with the Mafia and never got
- speakerthem off their backs.This nation has to live with the rule of law. I don't care what color the people are,
- speakerThey've got to obey that law. They've got to learn to obey that law. They've got to adjust to differences
- speakerand make their social progress within the framework of the law. And if we get to the point
- speakerthat we have to select a certain skin color before we can send an officer out to solve a police
- speakerproblem, well, then I think, we, we're we've gone a long way toward the total disintegration.
- speakerof this nation, and it certainly is not progress in the standpoint of Civil Rights.
- speakerBut, there is a certain tragic irony in these reactions. Dean Rosen:
- speaker[Rosen, Alex] Among the several tragedies of the Watts community in Los Angeles is that the civil rights
- speakerorganizations did not reach to masses of Negroes. Had they done so the Negro
- speakercommunity would've been able to express their feelings in more benign, more acceptable, ways
- speakerin street demonstrations, marches on city hall and so on. It was the very absence of
- speakersuch safety valves that made the explosion inevitable.
- speakerWhy was the Los Angeles civil rights movement so weak?
- speakerThe problem simply is that people don't really know who the leaders are.
- speakerThey couldn't function. They have problems just staying alive. This town is just ripped
- speakerand torn. The leadership struggle is here is beyond belief.
- speakerA Negro middle class forgot about Watts. The white community now hardly ever knew it
- speakerexisted. And now that Civil Rights organizations have really
- speakerreached the people to the extent that we
- speakershould have.
- speakerI don't think they were actually deaf and blind to it because there were many
- speakerorganizations in the last two-three years that have been talking about it. But that's what's been happening has
- speakerbeen talking and no new programs have been developed to do anything about it.
- speakerThere seem to have been several areas where nobody had gotten around to do anything
- speakerabout it. One of these concerned the anti-poverty program. This summer Los
- speakerAngeles was the only major city without a functioning program. The reasons for
- speakerthis allegedly are political, but the human results have been felt
- speakerand recognized in Watts.
- speakerThey're spending money on astronaut and sending money to other different places in the United States
- speakerwhen there's problems here that we have to settle ourselves, you know. It seems to me that there is going to be more trouble.
- speakertrouble if they don't try to help the people that's in need now. Because I thought they might
- speakergain a moon, or something like that. But, just because they might gain something like that, it's still going to be
- speakerhate putting stuff down in Los Angeles.
- speakerWhat are the politicos doing about the hatefulness and stuff in Los Angeles?
- speakerMayor Yorty:
- speakerWe will do everything we can do. We have four thousand people in jail. And we'll find
- speakerout who they are. The Negroes in the area are unable to tell you who these people
- speakerwere. Most of our Negro citizens in that area, and they are the ones who've lived here a long
- speakertime, that are just as law-abiding as anybody else. They were terrorized. They stayed inside. They didn't know
- speakerthese people and we don't know ourselves who a lot of them are. But now that they've been arrested, we will find
- speakerout, of course.
- speakerGovernor Brown [Brown, Edmund Gerald, Sr.] and Jesse Unruh, who is rumored to be ambitious to become governor,
- speakerview the future as not completely a police problem.
- speakerThe solution to this problem has to be a two-pronged approach.
- speakerOne a massive input to deal with the underlying causes.
- speakerAnd the same time a heavily enforced program of Law and Order.
- speakerI think that, in order to get the kind of support that you need for the former, you will have to have
- speakerthe latter.
- speakerWe're going to step up everything that we've done in the past ten fold. And we're going to try to get people to work just
- speakeras fast as we possibly can. We are going to try to get community programs going out there. Get this
- speakeranti-poverty program off the ground. And we're going to try to get an understanding of these things. Then we're going to prosecute the
- speakerto prosecute the people who violated the law.
- speakerDean Rosen: The city fathers will need to distinguish between palliatives and more
- speakerpermanent solutions. For instance, the beefing up of the poverty program is
- speakerfine. But what about the employment prospects of these youth after their temporary
- speakersubsidized employment. Private industry, the various professions, labor, and the
- speakergovernment itself will find that business as usual will not solve the
- speakerunemployment or housing crises, to mention only two major areas. To find good
- speakeranswers one must first pose good questions. And therefore I ask of the city
- speakerfathers after the temporary solutions, then what? The people will
- speakerwant to know. I think it's interesting to note that, with all of the destruction tha.
- speakerwas going nearby at one hundred third Street. And this being 107th. There was no
- speakerattempt to destroy one piece of glass. And there were hundreds of billions
- speakerof pieces on the Towers.
- speakerAgain at the watch towers, Judson Powell, as he said, with all the
- speakerdamage wrought in Watts, the beautiful ugly towers were unscathed.
- speakerPowell teaches art to Watts teenagers in a building overshadowed by this
- speakerstrange work of folk art.
- speakerI feel safe to say that none of the teenagers that are involved in this
- speakerproject with us was in any way affiliated with the riotous
- speakeractivity that is going on here in Watts. In fact we stood here and saw
- speakerfour hundred third Street going up in flames. And we were engaging in
- speakerour art classes. Just these few short blocks away, art classes were held
- speakerall afternoon, and the place was packed. Why do you think what happened on a hundred and third
- speakerStreet happened there? Frustration of some of the teenagers. It was a
- speakerhot day. There was a lack of excitement. This was an exciting
- speakerthing. They needed something to happen. There was very little happening as a
- speakercommunity. Dean Rosen:
- speakerWhat is the meaning of the Los Angeles riots? Were they merely accidental actions by
- speakerirresponsible criminal elements, needing only increased political action to curb them?
- speakerOr were they acts of collective violence that was symptoms of more serious social conditions
- speakerand therefore requiring deep-rooted political and economic changes? Behavior,
- speakereven shocking pathological behavior, has meaning. The job of a scholar and
- speakera thoughtful citizen as well, for that matter, is not to blame or to praise. That is all
- speakertoo easy. Rather the more difficult task is to understand. This is certainly not
- speakersimple especially in situations where people's emotions and fears are involved.
- speakerWhen we cannot comprehend behavior, we tend to condemn it. What therefore society was
- speakersaying to these people is this, since I cannot understand you, I'm angry with you.
- speakerOur society will need to find better ways than this to help people who cannot control
- speakerthemselves and will commit violence. Violence is seen by scholars and social
- speakerscientists as weapons or tools used in group contention struggle. It can be
- speakerregarded, even though we deplore it, as a form of inarticulate language in which one group of
- speakerpeople communicate with other groups of people about their feelings, their
- speakerdeterminations, and their problems. The Negro community in Los Angeles did not have the leadership
- speakerin its ministry, businessmen, or professionals, who could win for the people what they needed, or to give
- speakerthem a sense of participation in the greater community as a whole. Excluded as they were from the white
- speakerman's world, Negroes who looked at the white man's television, his drama, and his
- speakerculture found little echo of their own personalities, of their own identities, in
- speakerthem. The central fact that the Los Angeles grew violence is that there was a
- speakermessage conveyed by the Negroes to the white community. In its starkest form, I think
- speakerthat this message was this: "Look at me! I am here! I am not
- speakerinvisible! And I need help!" On a more articulate level, the violence
- speakerindicated that, as long as Negroes feel excluded from American society,they're not going to feel
- speakerbound by its constraints. The fact that hundreds of Negroes were willing to die or
- speakerto engage in violence as gestures of protest would indicate that they live on the edge of
- speakerdespair so profound as to be unimaginable to most comfortable
- speakerAmericans. The tragedy, however, is that the aid now being rushed to
- speakerWatts, Los Angeles, may be too little and too late to save the youngsters and
- speakerthe older heads of families who have not made it so far. The American people seem un
- speakeraware, even after this tragic riot, of the tremendous and unprecedented changes
- speakerrequired in political, economic, and educational terms if the
- speakerNegroes are to become part of President Johnson's [Johnson, Lyndon Baines] vision of the Great Society.
- speakerWhose fault is one hundred third Street? Society's.
- speakerSociety's to allow teenagers to come up without any
- speakerhope. Comes another hot day, can it happen again? Comes another hot day, yes.
- speakerIt's a grim fact, but the violence of August eleventh nine hundred sixty five
- speakercould be recorded in history only as Los Angeles Riot
- speakerNumber one.
- speakerI think the answer is perfectly obvious. The potential is here, and to some extent is greater
- speakerthan it ever was before because the tensions are higher.
- speakerUnless You know. really you put, put some money on the table and start working on this
- speakerproblem, well, you will have some more trouble.
- speakerThese people are no longer playing around. And they are not going to get down on their knees and just pray
- speakerany more. They going to take some type of action if they don't feel they're gettin their just due.
- speakerIf some of the power structure from downtown, if they don't decide to do something soon,
- speakeryou'll probably have a repeat, only it will be worse this time because, I think, it is nothing more
- speakerthis was a warning. Dean Rosen:
- speakerIf there is merely a splurge of temporary activity
- speakeror the setting up of commissions, which make reports, which are then filed away. And, if the Negro
- speakerthen goes back to social isolation and to neglect.
- speakerIn such conditions, I would predict that we will have either this type of violence or other
- speakerkinds of other inarticulate manifestations of distress.
- speakerPresident Johnson could have been speaking of Los Angeles and our findings in our
- speaker"Profile of a Riot," when he said,
- speakerAbout these systems, time is moving. So let us act before it is too late."
- speaker"Los Angeles: Profile of a Riot" was produced by the Group W stations of
- speakerWestinghouse Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the New York University School of Social
- speakerWork, Alec Rosen, dean. Group W newsmen assigned to Los
- speakerAngeles were Art Schreiber, Washington; Stan Brooks, New York;
- speakerand George Barber, Pittsburgh. Executive Producer Bill Kaland
- speakerYour reporter and producer Walter McGraw.
