Inner-City Rebellions

By P.L. Vaughan

BackgroundMany reasons can be attributed to

urban unrest.Discrimination, poverty, high

unemployment, poor schools, poor healthcare, projects all contributed to a vicious cycle of abuse and neglect which inevitably resulted in violence.

Watts RiotsThe immediate cause of the Watts Riot

was police brutality, particularly the arrests of the Frye brothers.

The long term causes were the aforementioned racial injustices that affected the Watts community.

The Riots lasted 6 days and over three thousand were arrested and 34 were killed. They were the worst example of rioting until the 1992 riots in LA.

Det-riotThe Riot was a result of the raid of a

illegal afterhours bar in Detroit's Near West Side. The scene escalated into a full scale riot.

More than 7200 were arrested and millions of dollars of property was damaged.

The Kerner Commission11 member commission created to

investigate the causes of the urban unrest.

The report concluded “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.”

Works Citedwww.africaonline.orgHistorymatters.gmu.eduwww.canada.comwww.detnews.org