Hello and welcome to the state and esoteric political history from

radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. Now a quick reminder for those

will be listening in Boston or no folks in Boston. We are doing our first ever live show on September 13th

Friday September 13th tickets are available now for that show you could find a link in show notes or on our social media.

All right let's get into the episode this day August 11th 1965 a

confrontation between cops and a 21-year-old black man, as well as his mother, sparked six

days of civil unrest in Los Angeles.

This would come to be known as the Watts riots, some 14,000 members of the California National Guard

flood into LA to suppress the disturbance. There's 34 deaths over 40 million

dollars in property damage. President Johnson offers remarks,

MLK visits California, and speaks to the residents on the ground.

A year later, Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin would kind of frame it this way which is really interesting.

He says the whole point of the outbreak in Watts was that it marked the first major rebellion of

Negroes against their own masochism and was carried on with the express purpose of asserting

that they would no longer quietly submit to the deprivation of slum life.

So let's talk about Watts, Summer, 1965. Pick up on that framing from Bayard Rustin. Here, as always, to do that,

Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello, there.

Hello, Jody. Hey there. Before we get to the

Tic-talk of how the riots went down I am very curious about Rustin's framing

there. The first major rebellion of Negroes as he puts it.

Kelly, can you give us a little that 1965 context?

I mean every time we talk about this era, I feel like it's so important to say like

...