Civil rights movement

=== Watts riot of 1965 ===
{{Main|Watts Riots}}

[[File:Wattsriots-policearrest-loc.jpg|thumb|Police arrest a man during the [[Watts riots]] in Los Angeles, August 1965]]

The new Voting Rights Act of 1965 had no immediate effect on living conditions for poor blacks. A few days after the act became law, a riot broke out in the [[South Los Angeles|South Central]] Los Angeles neighborhood of [[Watts, Los Angeles|Watts]]. Like Harlem, Watts was a majority-black neighborhood with very high unemployment and associated poverty. Its residents confronted a largely white police department that had a history of abuse against blacks.<ref>[[Spencer Crump]], ''Black riot in Los Angeles: the story of the Watts tragedy'' (1966).</ref>

While arresting a young man for drunk driving, police officers argued with the suspect's mother before onlookers. The spark triggered massive destruction of property through six days of rioting in Los Angeles. Thirty-four people were killed,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATS6CwAAQBAJ&q=Turn+left+or+get+shot&pg=PA69|title=From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America|last1=Hinton|first1=Elizabeth|date=2016|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-73723-5|pages=68–72}}</ref> and property valued at about $40&nbsp;million was destroyed, making the [[Watts riots]] among the city's worst unrest until the [[1992 Los Angeles riots|Rodney King riots]] of 1992.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joshua |first1=Bloom |last2=Martin |first2=Waldo |title=Black Against Empire: The History And Politics Of The Black Panther Party| title-link = Black Against Empire |date=2016 |publisher=University of California Press |page=30}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Szymanski|first=Michael|title=How Legacy of the Watts Riot Consumed, Ruined Man's Life|newspaper=Orlando Sentinel|date=August 5, 1990|url=http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-08-05/news/9008031131_1_frye-riots-in-american-rights-leaders|access-date=June 22, 2013|archive-date=December 6, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131206012123/http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-08-05/news/9008031131_1_frye-riots-in-american-rights-leaders}}</ref>

With black militancy on the rise, ghetto residents directed acts of anger at the police. Black residents growing tired of police brutality continued to riot. Some young people joined groups such as the [[Black Panther Party|Black Panthers]], whose popularity was based in part on their reputation for confronting police officers. Riots among blacks occurred in 1966 and 1967 in cities such as [[Atlanta]], [[San Francisco]], [[Oakland, California|Oakland]], [[Baltimore]], [[Seattle]], [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma]], [[Hough Riots|Cleveland]], [[Cincinnati]], [[Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[1967 Newark riots|Newark]], Chicago, New York City (specifically in [[Brooklyn]], Harlem and [[the Bronx]]), and worst of all in Detroit.