So when the jury on the Rodney King trial returned its verdict, the residents of South Central LA, who gathered in protest on the steps of Simi Valley courthouse, were reacting not to a single injustice, or some apolitical controversy, but to decades of social and legislative prejudice. ( Above: Burning buildings during the Watts riots) However, despite Los Angeles boasting, by the late 1960s, the largest black population of any city in the US, little legislative action was taken to improve its black neighbourhoods and the city’s racial divide became wider. Afterwards, the McCone Commission determined the riots had roots in the low living standards of LA’s black communities, including poor-quality housing and limited access to schools.
The passing of Prop 14, along with the arrest of Marquette Frye, sparked rioting in Watts in 1965 during which 34 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured. Racial tensions had intensified in Los Angeles since the passing of Proposition 14 in 1964, a legislation that effectively overturned the Supreme Court ruling made almost 20 years prior, once again making it legal to discriminate against prospective property buyers based on race. Neighbouring city Watts had also seen the arrival of thousands of African-Americans during the second migration, and in response had constructed several housing projects, including Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs, areas that, by the 1960s, were almost 100% black. By the early 1960s, the population of Compton had been transformed, with more than 40% of the city’s residents now either black or Hispanic. Fearing an influx of migrants, especially after 1948, when the Supreme Court ruled it was not legal to discriminate against property buyers based on skin colour, much of Compton’s white population fled to the northern reaches of Los Angeles, selling even more land to developers in the process. In response, LA building contractors purchased swathes of undeveloped land in areas such as Compton and Huntington Park, with the aim of providing affordable housing for the new workers. To understand the extent to which the studio’s writers airbrush complexity from their depiction of contemporary LA, you have to go back to the early 20th century.īy the outbreak of World War II, thousands of migrants had arrived in Los Angeles, looking for work in the city’s many munitions and aircraft factories.
These riots are heavily based on the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which followed the acquittal of four LAPD police officers for the beating of taxi driver Rodney King, and yet in their version of historical events the writers at Rockstar preclude actual history. One of the most politically and socially significant moments in 20th-century America, the culmination of centuries of black oppression at the hands of the white establishment, is made apolitical and asocial.
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