TIME MAGAZINE

(August 20, 1965)

The atmosphere reminded soldiers of embattled Saigon. Yet this, last week, was Los Angeles--the City of Angels, the "safe city," as its boosters like to call it, the city that has always taken pride in its history of harmonious racial relations.

Savagery replaced harmony with nightmarish suddenness. One evening white Angelenos had nothing to worry about but the humidity. The next--and for four nights after that--marauding mobs in the Negro suburb of Watts pillaged, burned and killed, while 500 policemen and 5,000 National Guardsmen struggled vainly to contain their fury. Hour after hour, the toll mounted: 27 dead at week's end, nearly 600 injured, 1,700 arrested, property damage well over $100 million.

What caused the disorders? There were as many explanations as there were points of view. In Los Angeles, "the long, hot summer" was blamed--as it was in Harlem last year--and not without reason: the rioting broke out on the fourth day of an unusual heat wave in which the Angelenos sweltered in humid 90-to-100 degree temperatures night and day. A deeper source of irritation for urban Negroes is their isolation and poverty in a land of conspicuous plenty.