Watts: 40 Years Later

As The Times reminded us this morning (and with on-going opinion series), today marks the 40th Anniversary of the Watts Riots. The oral history today, particularly the words of arresting officer Lee Minikus, provide some compelling perspective on the incident that sparked the outrage. NBC's Furnell Chatman did some investigative reporting of his own while Long Beach remembers how the riots reached them. The Weekly reviews two recent documentaries on the event.

What we're more interested in, though, is the Watts of today. As we talked about a month ago, based on the results of The State of Black Los Angeles study, things aren't much better for that community and, in some ways, might be worse.

The Full Times Opinion Series on Watts:
Walter Mosley
Kay Hymowitz

Joe Hicks
Magnificent Montague