Policemen force a man into a police car during the second night of rioting. Bettmann/Getty Images
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Members of the National Guard take aim during the rioting.Express/Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A makeshift sign urges drivers to "Turn Left or Get Shot."Keystone/Getty Images
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Almost a full city block appears to be bombed out following four days of burning, looting, and rioting.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Three stores burn to the ground on Avalon Blvd.Bettmann/Getty Images
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A convoy of trucks rolls into the Watts district loaded with National Guardsmen ordered to quell the riots.Bettmann/Getty Images
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A blood-splattered man sits beside an armed policeman.Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images
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With his .22 hunting rifle on his lap and a revolver in his belt, heavyweight boxer Amos Lincoln, a.k.a. Big Train, guards the family drug store during the riots.Express/Getty Images
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An unidentified man pushing two brooms tries to tidy up the sidewalk following the rioting.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Armed National Guardsmen march toward smoke on the horizon during the street fires of the riots.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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National Guardsmen take up positions in west Watts after they were called in to help quell the riots.Bettmann/Getty Images
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An armed National Guard patrolman leans against a street sign, smoking a cigarette and standing in rubble following the riots.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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National Guardsmen, exhausted after long hours, catch some sleep under the "battery quick charge" sign at a gas station.Bettmann/Getty Images
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LA policemen hunt for the killers of their colleague, Richard Lefebre, during the riots.Express/Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A policeman searches a suspect during the rioting.Express/Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A policeman guides a group of women to safety. Their homes were destroyed during the conflict.Express/Archive Photos/Getty Images
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A policeman aims his revolver at a building from which a sniper was taking potshots at passing cars.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Thirty-four were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded in the riots, primarily African-Americans, and hundreds of buildings were destroyed. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
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Looters carry off merchandise from a Watts loan shop after tearing down the iron fence in front of the store. Bettmann/Getty Images
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A suspect being searched by two armed police during the riots.Harry Benson/Getty Images
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Los Angeles County Sheriffs search a car while the car's driver stands handcuffed nearby.Bettmann/Getty Images
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A number of buildings are left gutted and smoldering after being set ablaze.Bettmann/Getty Images
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Armed police patrol the streets.Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images
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A group of men are confronted by state troopers with bayonets at a street corner.Express Newspapers/Getty Images
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Two African-American men hold their hands up against the wall of a dry cleaners while being arrested by state troopers.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Armed police stand by as rioters lay face down in the street during the riots.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Kids carrying armloads of clothes run from looted stores.Underwood Archives/Getty Images
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National guardsman in a jeep patrol a rubble-strewn street.PhotoQuest/Getty Images
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After the Watts riots, a group of African-American children play in a rubble-strewn vacant lot.Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
“They Had It Coming”: Photographs Of The Watts Rebellion Of 1965
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What truly triggered six days of rioting and rebellion in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in August 1965 remains somewhat hazy. It depends, largely and predictably, on who you ask.
History has proven that deep-seated racial tensions and a legacy of police brutality were major causal factors. But, unlike the infamous video evidence that initiated the riot that Los Angeles would see 27 years later, what happened during the inciting incident behind the Watts riot isn't entirely clear.
The flashpoint of the unrest was the routine drunk driving stop of 21-year-old African-American Marquette Frye by a highway patrolman on August 11. A sobriety check revealed that Frye had indeed been drinking. Nevertheless, the officer that made the stop claims that the mood was light and that he was even joking around with Frye — until Frye's mother raced to the scene and got involved.
Frye's mother, Lena Price, scolded her son, and, according to the arresting officer, "appeared to incite Marquette to refuse to submit to physical arrest." The officer also claims that Frye swore at him and threatened to kill him — a 180-degree turn from the supposedly jovial mood prior to Price's appearance.
Within minutes, more than 200 onlookers gathered at the scene. Punches were thrown, arrests were made, and accusations were flung far and wide. Rumors about pregnant women getting roughed up — perhaps caused by at least one woman getting arrested while wearing a barber's smock — spread through the city, followed quickly by rioting, looting, and arson, turning the area into a war zone for six days.
Ultimately, more than 1,000 people were wounded — primarily African-Americans in a primarily African-American neighborhood — and 34 people were killed during the riot. The unrest also caused the destruction of more than 600 buildings for a property damage total of nearly $100 million.
And as for the true, underlying causes of all this destruction, they were a mystery to some. On day two of the riot, The New York Timesreported that officials largely overlooked racial factors in their report: "Officials were at a loss to explain the cause of the rioting, which started last night after a routine drunken driving arrest. The unusually hot, smoggy weather was doubtless a contributing factor."
But in the aftermath, the CIA implied what has historically been considered the root cause, without acknowledging it outright: "In examining the sickness in the center of our city, what has depressed and stunned us most is the dull, devastating spiral of failure that awaits the average disadvantaged child in the urban core." The agency also exonerated the police, essentially, crediting "race but not racism" for the violence, according to the Chicago Tribune.
But one witness told the Times that first night that the "devastating spiral of failure" wasn't the only thing that daily awaited inner-city youths: "The cops, they keep coming in here and busting heads," said a neatly dressed young man selling a Black Muslim newspaper. "They had it coming."
The Watts riot gallery above features photographs from reporters on the scene throughout those bloody and brutal six days in August, capturing what was then the most intense unrest in the city's history.
Kellen Perry is a veteran writer on topics including television, history, music, art, video games, and food. His work has also appeared on Grunge, Ranker, and Looper.
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.
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Perry, Kellen. "“They Had It Coming”: Photographs Of The Watts Rebellion Of 1965." AllThatsInteresting.com, August 11, 2017, https://allthatsinteresting.com/watts-riot. Accessed March 2, 2025.
