American Violence

When Watts erupted in violence in August 1965, it sparked one of the most intense and dramatic episodes of the 1960s — a reaction to decades of racial hostility and inequality in the City of Angels. It would also spark a wave of riots and revolts throughout cities in the rest of the nation, many struggling with the same issues as LA. In this series we’ll examine the history of violent conflict in Los Angeles — the riots, the uprisings, the rebellions — and how they were critical to the development of the city, and their lessons and warnings for the generations to come.

Wartime Los Angeles in the 1940s seethed with interracial conflict, fed by scandal-mongering newspapers and opportunistic politicians, who sparked LA’s latest riot by exploiting public fears over…a fashion choice. And not for the first time, the city’s Mexican Americans faced the brunt of the violence, facing not only local hostility but brazen attacks by members of the U.S. military — in a brutal episode that would have a powerful effect across the country.

Chinese Americans in frontier Los Angeles faced a difficult life, struggling between those who took advantage of them and those who wanted to drive them out of town. This culminated in a burst of mob activity against them that turned into one of the worst instances of mass violence in U.S. history. The massacre of 1871 would have profound implications for the city's development, and a telling example of injustice never resolved.

As it is in many U.S. cities, injustice in Los Angeles runs deep, going all the way back to the time when the city was a frontier pueblo — nicknamed Hell Town. LA's first riot, and the subsequent reaction and terror, would set the template for the kind of racial hostility and official brutality that would mark Los Angeles for more than 150 years after.

The United States has among the highest rates of criminal and police violence among Western nations, and its social and political violence is also considerable. In this podcast, we’ll examine the nature of our national fixation on violence, how it has transformed our society, and been reinvented and reimagined over time. We’ll look at everything from the spirit of revolution in 1776, to 19th-century gangs and labor revolts, to modern conflicts that continue to plague our society — and the promise of someday resolving them. This introduction provides a brief overview to the podcast.