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The city of Richmond, a few miles north of Oakland, had been the site of several major shipyards during World War II. Many blacks migrated to the area for wartime jobs but found themselves unemployed and underemployed during the postwar demobilization and deindustrialization. Much of the postwar bl…

The conference program featured the symbol of a black panther from the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) that Carmichael was publicizing. The LCFO was part of a new effort by local blacks and SNCC to build an independent political party outside of the exclusive white Democratic Party, mark…

The rebellion spread out over 46.5 square miles. All told, 34 people—almost all black—were killed, many by police, and more than 1,032 were wounded; 3,952 people were arrested. The rebellion caused more than $40 million in property damage to over six hundred buildings, completely destroying two hun…

Watts exploded. On August 12, at 9:30 P.M., a group identifying itself as “followers of Malcolm X” arrived on Avalon Boulevard shouting “Let’s burn . . . baby, burn!” The next day, at 3:30 P.M., the Emergency Control Center journal recorded “6 male Negroes firing rifles at helicopter from vehicle, …

Tensions between Watts residents and the police ran high. While the vast majority of Watts residents in 1965 were black, only 4 percent of the sworn personnel of the Los Angeles Police Department and 6 percent of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were black. Police Chief William Parker us…