ReZoom

Taking a look back at the Watts Riots, uncovering the turmoil through the eyes of Los Angeles journalist Betty Pleasant.

Even after 42 years, the vivid images of the Watts Riots – truckloads of National Guardsmen, burning furniture, personal assaults on the street – remain in the consciousness of the south central Los Angeles community to this day.

The Watts Riots lasted six days and resulted in 34 reported deaths.

Of course, the riots represented Watts residents' disgust at the low job rates, dearth of education opportunities and slum-like living conditions – one year after the Civil Rights Act in 1964 was approved.

But it is important to recognize how the riots actually started: On a hot summer night in 1965, California Highway Patrolman Lee Minikus pulled Marquette Frye over for drunk driving. Just two blocks from his home, Frye became violent and refused to be taken into custody. As Frye's mother reached the scene and began scolding her son for driving drunk, onlookers grew hostile and started fighting the cops as well, sparking six days of turmoil that resulted in 34 reported deaths, more than 1,000 injuries and 4,000 arrests.

Betty Pleasant, who covered the riots as a 16-year-old youth editor for the Los Angeles Sentinel, said that Day One of the Watts Riots was the worst day of her life.

"The riots were hell, that's what I remember most," Pleasant said. "I was sitting in the office when I heard about the riots over the AM radio wire, and I was the only one there. I was the only one available so that's how I ended up covering the story ... the Wheeler [TV Service and Radio] is gone now, along with everything else in the area."

While covering the battle, Wheeler actually wound up a target of the National Guard: As she and a photographer approached a street blockade, a bullet from a Guardsman's rifle whizzed by her head. The experience scarred Pleasant, though she wasn't surprised.

"I was raised in the '60s, and during that time we didn't like any kind of cops," said Pleasant. "It's just how we were brought up."

Today, Watts has designed a more positive philosophy under the Watts Renaissance Planning Committee, which aims to "engage the people of Watts in the development of self-help solutions to the challenges in their community." Pleasant, meanwhile, is now a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Wave, with her most recent column criticizing the "political indifference, bureaucratic mismanagement and professional incompetence" that resulted in the controversial Aug. 10 closing of the Martin Luther King Jr. – Harbor Hospital in south central Los Angeles.

This is number nine in our "Our Defining Moments" series, an ongoing ReZoom.com feature looking back on the moments that, through the power of photography, have been emblazoned into our collective consciousness. To see another "Our Defining Moments," click here.