JANUARY 14, 2019

NEWS AND VIEWS

WHAT MAKES BERNIE SO GOOD IS THAT HE IS FULL OF ENERGY, IMAGINATION, AN INDOMITABLE PURPOSE AND INTESTINAL FORTITUDE. HE DOESN’T SEEM TO BE AFRAID OF MUCH. SHOULD HE FEAR TRUMP? I HOPE THE DONALD WOULDN’T GO SO FAR AS A PHYSICAL THREAT JUST TO WIN AN ELECTION. THE OTHER DEMS ARE UP AND GOING, TOO. I THINK THERE ARE A BUNCH OF ANGRY DEMS, UNDERSTANDABLY. THE TRUMP CAMP HAVE PLAYED DIRTY IN EVERY WAY THEY CAN AND THAT IS ONE THING THAT ANGERS US. BLATANT DISHONESTY WILL NOT WIN IN THE END, THOUGH, BECAUSE MOST AMERICANS BELIEVE IN HONESTY.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/14/bernie-sanders-campaign-2020-election-1098795
2020 ELECTIONS
Bernie Sanders staffs up for 2020
The Vermont senator is making additions to his digital operation, which already surpasses the rest of the field.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN 01/14/2019 05:01 AM EST

PHOTOGRAPH -- Sen. Bernie Sanders is poised to enter the 2020 Democratic primary field with a digital operation and social media army that outpaces virtually any other candidate, at least for now. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Bernie Sanders is adding firepower to his political team ahead of a potential 2020 campaign, locking down digital alumni who were key to his surprise performance in 2016 and recruiting the media production company that helped launch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to prominence.

The flurry of activity, detailed by four people familiar with the campaign’s thinking, is the latest sign that the Vermont senator is closing in on a decision on a second run for the White House.

Means of Production, the filmmaking cooperative that created the viral campaign video that propelled Ocasio-Cortez’s House campaign, is in talks with the Sanders team about a major role in 2020. And two people who powered Sanders’ record-breaking small-dollar fundraising operation in 2016 have agreed to join a subsequent presidential bid if it materializes, according to a Sanders campaign aide: Tim Tagaris and Robin Curran, his digital fundraising director and digital production director in 2016, respectively.

The aide said another pair that have helped Sanders build a digital media juggernaut out of his Senate office — media producer Armand Aviram and digital director Georgia Parke — are likely to be part of his 2020 team, too.

The behind-the-scenes moves underscore one of Sanders’ key strengths: He is poised to enter the Democratic primary field with a digital operation and social media army that outpaces virtually any other candidate, at least for now. For all the attention on Beto O’Rourke’s online dominance last year, only Sanders would start the campaign on the foundation of a full-fledged, grass-roots presidential campaign.

The steps also suggest that Sanders has every intention of trying to reactivate the army of liberal activists he amassed two years ago, undergirded by an unapologetic Democratic socialist message backed by a state-of-the-art fundraising and digital infrastructure.

“Senator Sanders maintains an organic and very expansive social media following that really only he has” among possible 2020 contenders, said David Duhalde, political director of Sanders-founded Our Revolution. “He has a significant advantage.”

Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes, activists in the Democratic Socialists of America who left a global PR agency and commercial production freelancing to launch Means of Production, rocketed into the national spotlight last year when they produced the hit ad highlighting Ocasio-Cortez’s working-class roots and left-wing policies. It received 300,000 views in a day, and eventually racked up nearly 4.6 million views on Twitter and YouTube.

“They’ve proven that they’re on the cutting-edge of popularizing progressive populist and democratic socialist politics in America,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the progressive political action committee that recruited Ocasio-Cortez.

Burton said the Detroit-based team would likely create “big, beautiful ads” and “drumbeat content” for Sanders if it was brought on for 2020.

"We have certainly been talking with his team," she said, adding that if Sanders runs, "He's the only candidate we would work for.”

Tagaris, a member of Sanders’ inner circle who was expected to be part of any 2020 campaign, is known as a trailblazer in small-dollar fundraising. Now the owner of Aisle 518 Strategies, he has been running Sanders’ email program and digital advertising. Curran, in addition to working on Sanders’ 2016 campaign, was the Democratic National Committee's email director during the 2018 midterm cycle.

Asked about their future roles, Tagaris confirmed that, along with him and Curran, who is now vice president of digital strategy at Aisle 518 Strategies, his firm’s Hal Irish and Saron Olkaba have also pledged to be part of any 2020 Sanders campaign.

Curran’s allies said she transformed the DNC’s email program, which critics considered almost beyond repair, during her time there.

Aviram, a former producer for the millennial-focused media company NowThis News*, and other Senate staffers have posted more than 1,000 videos on Sanders’ Facebook and Twitter pages over the past two years, on everything from labor strikes to climate change to the government shutdown. They’ve allowed Sanders to bypass traditional media and, when it comes to audience size, sometimes surpass it.

This week, Sanders’ Senate team streamed his rebuttal to President Trump’s Oval Office address on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which went on to garner more than 1.1 million views. In comparison, former Rep. O’Rourke, who is also considering a presidential bid, received almost 200,000 views when he filmed himself on Facebook live for more than an-hour-and-a-half to refute Trump; a short clip of the video got another 480,000 views on Twitter.

CrowdTangle* data recently compiled by a person close to the Sanders campaign also underscores his social media muscle compared to other presidential hopefuls: Sanders’ videos had nearly 1.5 billion views in 2017 and 2018 on Facebook — almost three times more than all other potential 2020 Democratic candidates’ videos combined, according to the report. He also outpaced other possible contenders in Facebook interactions.

Still, other presidential aspirants are building up their digital teams, too, and could ramp them up to overcome Sanders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has waxed about her policy stances and affinity for beer on on Instagram Live since announcing her exploratory committee. O’Rourke has proven to be a social media sensation: One video he posted at the end of last year slamming Trump’s proposal for a border wall had more than 5.4 million views.

Critically, some key Sanders alumni have also defected to O’Rourke: According to the New York Times, Middle Seat, a digital firm created by former Sanders staffers, is "hoping" to be part of an O’Rourke 2020 campaign. Other former employees not working on the digital staff have joined Warren’s operation or otherwise signalled they are looking at different campaigns.

The defections highlight how drastically different a primary race Sanders would face this time, with potentially dozens of candidates including several others competing for a lane he had to himself in 2016.

Meanwhile, other major changes are underway in Sanders' inner circle. Last week, CNN reported his 2016 campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, would not return to a 2020 campaign in that role, instead serving as a senior adviser.

Sanders, 77, has not decided yet whether to run for president a second time. In recent weeks, he has come under fire over news reports detailing sexual harassment by male staffers on his 2016 campaign as well as an alleged pay disparity between male and female aides. Sanders has apologized to the women who said they were harassed and promised that his 2018 Senate campaign implemented new guidelines to prevent sexual misconduct.

“To the women in our campaign who were harassed or mistreated, I apologize,” Sanders said last week. “Our standards, our procedures, our safeguards, were clearly inadequate.”

Sanders has said he will “probably run” for president if he believes he is the best candidate to defeat Trump.

Whoever the eventual Democratic nominee is, they will need to be able to compete on social media with Trump, who, like Sanders, has used Twitter to bypass mainstream media.

On Saturday, the People for Bernie Sanders hosted more than 400 house parties throughout the country to push Sanders to run in 2020.

Winnie Wong, a co-founder of the group, said the events showed that outside pro-Sanders organizations also have extensive social media power that can be put to use in a presidential election.

“Sanders’ grass-roots social media machine is very much driving these house parties,” she said. “We are able to organize without any formal organizing plan in place.”

RELATED:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a New Hampshire organizing event.
2020 ELECTIONS
Warren calls for 'systemic change' in first New Hampshire swing
By STEPHANIE MURRAY

RELATED:
2020 ELECTIONS
‘They heard the message’: Castro makes play for the Obama coalition
By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL



WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, BERNIE? IT’S NOT ABOUT THE HOROSCOPES. IT’S ABOUT THE YEAR WE WERE BORN. I WAS BORN IN 1945, HE WAS BORN JUST THREE OR FOUR YEARS EARLIER, AND WE SURVIVED WWII BUT WITH AN INDWELLING FEELING OF VAGUE GRIEF FROM THE HITLER YEARS AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS YEARS AND THEN THE VIETNAM WAR. AND I RECOGNIZE THE ORIGIN OF “BURN, BABY, BURN,” ALL TOO WELL. IT WAS THE WATTS RIOTS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots. SEE QUOTATIONS FROM THAT ARTICLE BELOW.

THIS IS A FUN INTERVIEW ABOUT SANDERS HIMSELF. THIS IS THE MOST “PERSONAL” MOOD THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN HIM IN. OF COURSE, THAT IS WHY ELLEN ALWAYS HAS HER GUESTS COME IN DANCING. ANSWERS TO HER QUIZ, WHAT SONG WOULD YOU LIKE TO SING? “STAYIN’ ALIVE”, “IF YOU WERE A BEN AND JERRIE’S ICE CREAM FLAVOR, WHAT WOULD YOU BE? “BURN BERNIE BURN.” YOU MEAN HOT AND SPICY? YES. “WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELAX? “I HAVE SEVEN BEAUTIFUL GRANDCHILDREN AND THEY ARE THE JOY OF MY LIFE, AND I RELAX WHEN I’M AROUND THEM.” AND WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG? “A SOCIAL WORKER.” THE REASON SANDERS SEEMS SO HONEST IS BECAUSE HE ISN’T FULL OF INNER CONFLICTS. IF HE’S PISSED, HE LOOKS PISSED. IF HE’S HAPPY, HE RADIATES GOOD WILL. WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET. HE’S A RELATIVELY SIMPLE MAN WITH COMPLEX IDEAS, IS WHAT I WOULD SAY.

MY FAVORITE BERNIE VIDEO OF ALL IS WHEN THE LITTLE MESSENGER FROM HEAVEN, A SPARROW, CAME DOWN FROM THE SKY IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS SPEECH AND PERCHED ON HIS LECTERN, EXAMINING HIM FOR AT LEAST 30 SECONDS WITH ITS’ HEAD COCKED TO THE SIDE. BERNIE TOTALLY STOPPED TALKING AND WATCHED IT WITH DELIGHT. IT’S REALLY HARD NOT TO LIKE HIM. THAT’S WHY HE IS THE MOST POPULAR SOCIALIST IN AMERICAN POLITICS. OF COURSE, FDR WAS IMMENSELY POPULAR, AND FOR A SIMILAR REASON. HE WAS FOR THE “THE SMALL MAN,” AND FULL OF IDEAS ON HOW TO JUMPSTART THE AMERICAN ECONOMY FROM A LONG PERIOD OF STAGNATION. WE SEEM TO FORGET THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO MONEY CAN’T BUY THE PRODUCTS THAT OUR BUSINESSES WANT TO SELL. IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO, YOU KNOW.

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/15/448849041/here-it-is-bernie-sanders-dancing-on-ellen
Here It Is — Bernie Sanders Dancing On 'Ellen'
October 15, 20157:33 AM ET
Domenico Montanaro - 2015
DOMENICO MONTANARO

PHOTOGRAPH -- Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., laughs at a campaign event earlier this month. Sanders taped an appearance on the Ellen show, where he showed a lighter side. Michael Dwyer/AP

Let's not bury the lede. Here's Bernie Sanders dancing:


Ellen DeGeneres
✔
@TheEllenShow
Presidential candidate @BernieSanders is ready for his entrance onto my show.

9,830
8:02 PM - Oct 14, 2015


The Vermont senator taped a segment on the Ellen show Wednesday that will air Thursday. There was some seriousness early on, but it was mostly light fare. He joked about his hair and played along in a lightning round when he was asked:

-- What Republican presidential candidate would want to be stuck on a deserted island with. After a long pause, he said, "Marco Rubio; he's used to the sun." Rubio's from Florida.

-- If he was a flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (based in Burlington, Vt., where Sanders is from), what would he be called? "Burn, Bernie, Burn." "So, it would be hot and spicy ice cream?" DeGeneres joked.

-- Whether he had ever been in handcuffs. "Yes," he said quickly, before pausing and following up, "I don't know exactly what you mean by that." Well, then. "When I was young, I was involved in a civil rights demonstration, and I was arrested," Sanders clarified. "All right, let's call it a civil-rights demonstration," DeGeneres quipped.

-- Better hair — him or Trump? He pointed to his cranium, obviously.

-- Favorite member of the band One Direction? With a little help from the audience, "Harry," he answered.

-- What karaoke song would he sing. "Stayin' Alive," or, as he called it, "John Travolta walking down the street."

-- Boxers or briefs? "Briefs."

-- Favorite swear word? "Can't say." (At least, on television, right?)

DeGeneres also gave him a present — a mobile fold-out lectern in a briefcase. What else do you get a traveling candidate who has everything, right?

He came out dancing to "Disco Inferno." ("Burn, baby, burn." Get it?):

And, appropriately, he did a little something of a disco move. So, here's more dancing (followed by serious stuff, and a really awkward high five that never quite materializes):

A great black disco band and singer, called the Trammps – Disco Interno, singing “Burn, Baby Burn.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M&feature=youtu.be
CoooLverstukas
Published on Dec 14, 2008


BURN, BABY, BURN LEADS ME DOWN THE PATH OF SADNESS, UNFORTUNATELY. DO YOU REMEMBER THE 5 DAYS OF RIOTS IN LOS ANGELES IN 1965? READ THIS WIKIPEDIA STORY ABOUT IT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots
Watts riots
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion,[1] took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965.

On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving.[2][3] A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police.[2] Community members reported that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of civil unrest followed.[3] Nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard helped suppress the disturbance, which resulted in 34 deaths[4] and over $40 million in property damage. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.

Background

In the Great Migration of 1915-1940, major populations of African-Americans moved to Northeastern and Midwestern cities such as Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City to pursue jobs in newly established manufacturing industries; to cement better educational and social opportunities; and to flee racial segregation, Jim Crow Laws, violence and racial bigotry in the Southern states. This wave of migration largely bypassed Los Angeles.

In the 1940s, in the Second Great Migration, black Americans migrated to the West Coast in large numbers, in response to defense industry recruitment efforts at the start of World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 directing defense contractors not to discriminate in hiring or promotions, opening up new opportunities for minorities. The black population in Los Angeles dramatically rose from approximately 63,700 in 1940 to about 350,000 in 1965, rising from 4% of L.A.'s population to 14%.[5][6]

Residential segregation

Los Angeles had racially restrictive covenants that prevented blacks and Mexican Americans from renting and buying property in certain areas, even long after the courts ruled such practices illegal in 1948 and federal civil rights legislation was passed in 1964. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Los Angeles has been geographically divided by ethnicity. In the 1910s, the city was already 80% covered by racially restrictive covenants in real estate.[7] By the 1940s, 95% of Los Angeles and southern California housing was off-limits to African Americans and Asians.[8][9] Minorities who had served in World War II or worked in L.A.'s defense industries returned to face increasing patterns of discrimination in housing. In addition, they found themselves excluded from the suburbs and restricted to housing in East or South Los Angeles, which includes the Watts neighborhood and Compton. Such real-estate practices severely restricted educational and economic opportunities available to the minority community.[8]

With an influx of black residents, housing in South Los Angeles became increasingly scarce, overwhelming the already established communities and providing opportunities for real estate developers. Davenport Builders, for example, was a large developer who responded to the demand, with an eye on undeveloped land in Compton. What was originally a mostly white neighborhood in the 1940s increasingly became an African-American, middle-class dream in which blue-collar laborers could enjoy suburbia away from the slums.[8]

Suburbs in the Los Angeles area grew explosively as black residents also wanted to live in peaceful white neighborhoods. In a thinly-veiled attempt to sustain their way of life and maintain the general peace and prosperity, most of these suburbs barred black people, using a variety of methods. White middle-class people in neighborhoods bordering black districts moved en masse to the suburbs, where newer housing was available. The spread of African Americans throughout urban Los Angeles was achieved in large part through blockbusting, a technique whereby real estate speculators would buy a home on an all-white street, sell or rent it to a black family, and then buy up the remaining homes from Caucasians at cut-rate prices, then sell them to housing-hungry black families at hefty profits.

The Rumford Fair Housing Act, designed to remedy residential segregation, was overturned by Proposition 14, which was sponsored by the California real estate industry, and supported by a majority of white voters. Psychiatrist and civil rights activist Alvin Poussaint considered Proposition 14 to be one of the root causes of black rebellion in Watts.[10]

Police discrimination

Because of discrimination Los Angeles' African American residents were excluded from the high-paying jobs, affordable housing, and politics available to white residents; moreover, they faced discrimination by the white-dominated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).[citation needed] In 1950, William H. Parker was appointed and sworn in as Los Angeles Chief of Police. After a major scandal called Bloody Christmas of 1951, Parker pushed for more independence from political pressures that would enable him to create a more professionalized police force. The public supported him and voted for charter changes that isolated the police department from the rest of the city government. In the 1960s, the LAPD was promoted as one of the best police forces in the world.

Despite its reform and having a professionalized, military-like police force, William Parker's LAPD faced repeated criticism from the city's Latino and black residents for police brutality—resulting from his recruiting of officers from the South with strong anti-black and anti-Mexican attitudes. Chief Parker coined the term "Thin Blue Line", representing the police as holding down pervasive crime.[11]

Resentment of such longstanding racial injustices are cited as reasons why Watts' African-American population exploded on August 11, 1965, in what would become the Watts Riots.[12]

Inciting incident

On the evening of Wednesday, August 11, 1965, 21-year-old Marquette Frye, an African-American man driving his mother's 1955 Buick, was pulled over by California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer Lee Minikus for alleged reckless driving .[13] After administering a field sobriety test, Minikus placed Frye under arrest and radioed for his vehicle to be impounded.[14] Marquette's brother, Ronald, a passenger in the vehicle, walked to their house nearby, bringing their mother, Rena Price, back with him to the scene of the arrest.

When Rena Price reached the intersection of Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street that evening, she scolded Frye about drinking and driving, as he recalled in a 1985 interview with the Orlando Sentinel.[15] But the situation quickly escalated: someone shoved Price, Frye was struck, Price jumped an officer, and another officer pulled out a shotgun. Backup police officers attempted to arrest Frye by using physical force to subdue him. After community members reported that police had roughed up Frye and kicked a pregnant woman, angry mobs formed.[16][17] As the situation intensified, growing crowds of local residents watching the exchange began yelling and throwing objects at the police officers.[18] Frye's mother and brother fought with the officers and were eventually arrested along with Marquette Frye.[19][20]

After the arrests of Price and her sons the Frye brothers, the crowd continued to grow along Avalon Boulevard. Police came to the scene to break up the crowd several times that night, but were attacked when people threw rocks and chunks of concrete.[21] A 46-square-mile (119 square kilometer) swath of Los Angeles was transformed into a combat zone during the ensuing six days.[17]

Police discrimination

Because of discrimination Los Angeles' African American residents were excluded from the high-paying jobs, affordable housing, and politics available to white residents; moreover, they faced discrimination by the white-dominated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).[citation needed] In 1950, William H. Parker was appointed and sworn in as Los Angeles Chief of Police. After a major scandal called Bloody Christmas of 1951, Parker pushed for more independence from political pressures that would enable him to create a more professionalized police force. The public supported him and voted for charter changes that isolated the police department from the rest of the city government. In the 1960s, the LAPD was promoted as one of the best police forces in the world.

Despite its reform and having a professionalized, military-like police force, William Parker's LAPD faced repeated criticism from the city's Latino and black residents for police brutality—resulting from his recruiting of officers from the South with strong anti-black and anti-Mexican attitudes. Chief Parker coined the term "Thin Blue Line", representing the police as holding down pervasive crime.[11]

Resentment of such longstanding racial injustices are cited as reasons why Watts' African-American population exploded on August 11, 1965, in what would become the Watts Riots.[12]

Inciting incident

On the evening of Wednesday, August 11, 1965, 21-year-old Marquette Frye, an African-American man driving his mother's 1955 Buick, was pulled over by California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer Lee Minikus for alleged reckless driving .[13] After administering a field sobriety test, Minikus placed Frye under arrest and radioed for his vehicle to be impounded.[14] Marquette's brother, Ronald, a passenger in the vehicle, walked to their house nearby, bringing their mother, Rena Price, back with him to the scene of the arrest.

When Rena Price reached the intersection of Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street that evening, she scolded Frye about drinking and driving, as he recalled in a 1985 interview with the Orlando Sentinel.[15] But the situation quickly escalated: someone shoved Price, Frye was struck, Price jumped an officer, and another officer pulled out a shotgun. Backup police officers attempted to arrest Frye by using physical force to subdue him. After community members reported that police had roughed up Frye and kicked a pregnant woman, angry mobs formed.[16][17] As the situation intensified, growing crowds of local residents watching the exchange began yelling and throwing objects at the police officers.[18] Frye's mother and brother fought with the officers and were eventually arrested along with Marquette Frye.[19][20]

After the arrests of Price and her sons the Frye brothers, the crowd continued to grow along Avalon Boulevard. Police came to the scene to break up the crowd several times that night, but were attacked when people threw rocks and chunks of concrete.[21] A 46-square-mile (119 square kilometer) swath of Los Angeles was transformed into a combat zone during the ensuing six days.[17]

Riot begins

After a night of increasing unrest, police and local black community leaders held a community meeting on Thursday, August 12, to discuss an action plan and to urge calm. The meeting failed. Later that day, Los Angeles police chief William H. Parker called for the assistance of the California Army National Guard.[22] Chief Parker believed the riots resembled an insurgency, compared it to fighting the Viet Cong, and decreed a "paramilitary" response to the disorder. Governor Pat Brown declared that law enforcement was confronting "guerrillas fighting with gangsters".[4]

The rioting intensified, and on Friday, August 13, about 2,300 National Guardsmen joined the police in trying to maintain order on the streets. Sergeant Ben Dunn said: "The streets of Watts resembled an all-out war zone in some far-off foreign country, it bore no resemblance to the United States of America."[23][24] By nightfall on Saturday, 16,000 law enforcement personnel had been mobilized and patrolled the city.[4] Blockades were established, and warning signs were posted throughout the riot zones threatening the use of deadly force (one sign warned residents to "Turn left or get shot"). 23 of the 34 people killed during the riots were shot by law enforcement or National Guardsmen. Angered over the police response, residents of Watts engaged in a full-scale battle against the law enforcement personnel. Rioters tore up sidewalks and bricks to hurl at Guardsmen and police, and to smash their vehicles.[4]

Those actively participating in the riots started physical fights with police, blocked Los Angeles Fire Department personnel from using fire hoses on protesters, or stopped and beat white motorists yelling racial slurs in the area. Arson and looting were largely confined to local white-owned stores and businesses that were said to have caused resentment in the neighborhood due to low wages and high prices for local workers.[25]

To quell the riots, Chief Parker initiated a policy of mass arrest.[4] Following the deployment of National Guardsmen, a curfew was declared for a vast region of South Central Los Angeles.[26] In addition to the Guardsmen, 934 Los Angeles police officers and 718 officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were deployed during the rioting.[22] Watts and all black-majority areas in Los Angeles were put under the curfew. All residents outside of their homes in the affected areas after 8:00pm were subject to arrest. Eventually nearly 3,500 people were arrested, primarily for curfew violations. By the morning of Sunday, August 15, the riots had largely been quelled.[4]

Over the course of six days, between 31,000 and 35,000 adults participated in the riots. Around 70,000 people were "sympathetic, but not active."[21] Over the six days, there were 34 deaths,[27][28] 1,032 injuries,[27][29] 3,438 arrests,[27][30] and over $40 million in property damage.[27] Many white Americans were fearful of the breakdown of social order in Watts, especially since white motorists were being pulled over by rioters in nearby areas and assaulted.[31] Many in the black community, however, believed the rioters were taking part in an "uprising against an oppressive system."[21] In a 1966 essay, black civil rights activist Bayard Rustin wrote:

The whole point of the outbreak in Watts was that it marked the first major rebellion of Negroes against their own masochism and was carried on with the express purpose of asserting that they would no longer quietly submit to the deprivation of slum life.[32]

Despite allegations that "criminal elements" were responsible for the riots, the vast majority of those arrested had no prior criminal record.[4]

Parker publicly said that the people he saw rioting were acting like "monkeys in the zoo."[25] Overall, an estimated $40 million in damage was caused ($320,000,000 in 2018 dollars), with almost 1,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Homes were not attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires.[citation needed]

After the riots

Debate rose quickly over what had taken place in Watts, as the area was known to be under a great deal of racial and social tension. Reactions and reasoning about the riots greatly varied based on the perspectives of those affected by and participating in the riots' chaos.

National civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke two days after the riots happened in Watts. The riots were partly a response to Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment sponsored by the California Real Estate Association and passed that had in effect repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act.[33] In 1966, the California Supreme Court reinstated the Rumford Fair Housing Act in the Reitman v. Mulkey case (a decision affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court the following year), declaring the amendment to violate the US constitution and laws.

A variety of opinions and explanations were published. Public opinion polls studied in the few years after the riot showed that a majority believed the riots were linked to communist groups who were active in the area protesting high unemployment rates and racial discrimination.[34] Those opinions concerning racism and discrimination were expressed three years after hearings conducted by a committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights took place in Los Angeles to assess the condition of relations between the police force and minorities. These hearings were also intended to make a ruling on the discrimination case against the police for their alleged mistreatment of members of the Nation of Islam.[34] These different arguments and opinions are often cited in continuing debates over the underlying causes of the Watts riots.[25]

McCone Commission

A commission under Governor Pat Brown investigated the riots, known as the McCone Commission, and headed by former CIA director John A. McCone. It released a 101-page report on December 2, 1965 entitled Violence in the City—An End or a Beginning?: A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965.[35]

The McCone Commission identified the root causes of the riots to be high unemployment, poor schools, and related inferior living conditions that were endured by African Americans in Watts. Recommendations for addressing these problems included "emergency literacy and preschool programs, improved police-community ties, increased low-income housing, more job-training projects, upgraded health-care services, more efficient public transportation, and many more." Most of these recommendations were never implemented.[36]

Aftermath

Marquette Frye died of pneumonia on December 20, 1986 at age 42.[37] His mother, Rena Price, died on June 10, 2013, at age 97.[38] She never recovered the impounded 1955 Buick which her son had been driving, because the storage fees exceeded the car's value.[39]

Cultural references

.... The 1972 music festival at Los Angeles Coliseum known as Wattstax, and its follow-up 1973 documentary film, were created to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the riots.[40]
.... The Hughes brothers film Menace II Society (1993) opens with images taken from the riots of 1965. The entire film is set in Watts from the 1970s to the 1990s.
.... Frank Zappa wrote a lyrical commentary inspired by the Watts riots, entitled "Trouble Every Day". It contains such lines as "Wednesday I watched the riot / Seen the cops out on the street / Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff /And chokin' in the heat". The song was released on his debut album Freak Out! (with the original Mothers of Invention), and later slightly rewritten as "More Trouble Every Day", available on Roxy and Elsewhere and The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life.
.... Phil Ochs' 1965 song "In the Heat of the Summer", most famously recorded by Judy Collins, was a chronicle of the Watts Riots.
.... Curt Gentry's 1968 novel, The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California, dissected the riots in detail in a fact-based semi-documentary tone.
.... Charles Bukowski mentioned the Watts riots in his poem "Who in the hell is Tom Jones?" and briefly mentions the events towards the end of Post Office.
.... The 1990 film Heat Wave depicts the Watts riots from the perspective of journalist Bob Richardson as a resident of Watts and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
.... The 1994 film There Goes My Baby tells the story of a group of high school seniors during the riots.
.... The producers of the Planet of the Apes franchise stated that the riots inspired the ape uprising featured in the film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.[41]
.... In "Black on White on Fire", in the television series Quantum Leap episode aired November 9, 1990, Sam Beckett shifts into the body of a black man, who is engaged to a white woman, while living in Watts during the riots.
Scenes in "Burn, Baby, Burn", an episode of the TV series Dark Skies, are set in Los Angeles during the riots.
.... The movie C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America mentions the Watts riots as a slave rebellion rather than a riot.
.... Walter Mosley's novel Little Scarlet, in which Mosley's lead character Easy Rawlins is asked by police to investigate a racially charged murder in neighborhoods where white investigators are unwelcome, takes place in the aftermath of the Watts riots.
.... The riots are depicted in the third issue of the Before Watchmen: Comedian comic book.
.... The riots are referred to in the 2000 film Remember the Titans. An Alexandria, Virginia school board representative tells head football coach Bill Yoast that he would be replaced by Herman Boone, an African American coach from North Carolina, because the school board feared that otherwise, Alexandria would "...burn up like Watts".
.... In Chapter 9 of A Song Flung Up To Heaven, the sixth volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography, Angelou gives an account of the riots. She had a job in the neighborhood at the time and was there as they played out.
.... Joseph Wambaugh's novel The New Centurions (1971), and the 1972 movie adaptation of the same name, are partially set during the Watts riots.
.... The arrest of the Frye brothers and the riots are referred to by the character George Hutchence in the second volume of the comics miniseries Jupiter's Circle, as an example of class struggle.[42]
.... O.J.: Made in America, 1st episode
The riots are mentioned in Richard Powers' novel The Time of Our Singing (2003).
.... The riots are mentioned in Michael Connelly's lost chapter of his 1999 novel Angels Flight, as well as his 2005 novel The Closers
.... The titular song from American hip hop group Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up opens up with the line "Not since the Watts Riot of 1965, has the city seem so out of control. Los Angeles is still on edge".


“AFTER THE ASSASSINATION, THE CITY OF MEMPHIS QUICKLY SETTLED THE STRIKE ON FAVORABLE TERMS TO THE SANITATION WORKERS.”[38][39] FUNNY HOW THESE THINGS WORK SOMETIMES, ISN’T IT?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. CST. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, in London at Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States, and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary.[1] He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful; he died in prison in 1998.[2] King's assassination has sparked unverified conspiracy theories.

Background

Photograph -- King in 1964

Location Lorraine Motel
Memphis, Tennessee
Coordinates 35°08′04″N 90°03′27″WCoordinates: 35°08′04″N 90°03′27″W
Date April 4, 1968; 50 years ago
6:01 p.m. (CST (UTC–6))
Target Martin Luther King Jr.
Attack type
Sniper assassination
Weapons Remington 760 Gamemaster .30-06
Deaths Martin Luther King Jr.
Perpetrator James Earl Ray


King on death

As early as the mid-1950s, King had received death threats due to his prominence in the Civil Rights Movement. He had confronted the risk of death, including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958, and made its recognition part of his philosophy. He taught that murder could not stop the struggle for equal rights. After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, King told his wife Coretta, "This is what is going to happen to me also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society."[3][4]

Memphis
Main article: Memphis sanitation strike

King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking African American city sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on February 11, 1968, to protest unequal wages and working conditions imposed by then-mayor Henry Loeb. At the time, Memphis paid black workers significantly lower wages than white workers. There were no city-issued uniforms, no restrooms, no recognized union, and no grievance procedure for the numerous occasions on which they were underpaid. During Loeb's tenure as Mayor, conditions did not significantly improve, and the gruesome February 1968 deaths of two workers in a garbage-compacting truck turned mounting tensions into a strike.[5]

King participated in a massive march in Memphis on March 28, 1968, that ended in violence.[5] On April 3, King returned to Memphis to attempt a successful new march later that week. His airline flight to Memphis was delayed by a bomb threat but he arrived in time to make a planned speech to a gathering at the Mason Temple (World Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ).[6][7][8]

There, King delivered the speech, now known as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address. In it, he recalled his 1958 attempted assassination, noting that the doctor who treated him said that because the knife used to stab him was so near to his aorta, any sudden movement, even a sneeze, might have killed him.[9] He referred to a letter, written by a young girl, who told him she was happy he had not sneezed. He used that reference to say,

I, too, am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in interstate travel.[9]

He repeated the phrase, "If I had sneezed", several more times, recalling numerous other events and acts of civil disobedience of the previous several years: the Albany Movement (1962), the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and the Selma to Montgomery March (1965).[10]

As he neared the close, he referred to the bomb threat:

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats... or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord![11]

Assassination

PHOTOGRAPH -- Wide view of the Lorraine Motel and the boarding house from which James Earl Ray fired the fatal shot from a second-floor bathroom window (to the left of the lightpole).

The motel is now part of the complex of the National Civil Rights Museum. The wreath marks the approximate spot where King was shot.

View of Lorraine Motel from window where James Earl Ray fired at King
On Thursday, April 4, 1968, King was staying in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The motel was owned by businessman Walter Bailey and named after his wife. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, a colleague and friend, later told the House Select Committee on Assassinations he and King had stayed in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often that it was known as the "King–Abernathy Suite".[12]

According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's last words were to musician Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at a planned event. King said, "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."[13]

King had gone out onto the balcony and was standing near his room when he was struck at 6:01 p.m. by a single .30-06 bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle.[14] The bullet entered through King's right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein and major arteries in the process, before lodging in his shoulder. The force of the shot ripped King's necktie off. King fell violently backward onto the balcony, unconscious.[citation needed]

Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man, later believed to be James Earl Ray, fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the Lorraine Motel. Ray had been renting a room there. Police found a package dumped close to the site, which included a rifle and binoculars, both with Ray's fingerprints. Ray had purchased the rifle under an alias six days earlier. A worldwide manhunt was triggered, which culminated in the arrest of Ray at London's Heathrow Airport two months later.[15]

At the time, Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the deck, bleeding profusely from the wound in his cheek.[14][16] Jesse Jackson stated after the shooting that he cradled King's head as King lay on the balcony, but this account was disputed by other colleagues of King; Jackson later changed his statement to say that he had "reached out" for King.[17] Andrew Young, a colleague from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, first believed King was dead, but found he still had a pulse.[18]

King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. Paul Hess, assistant administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital, where Dr. King died despite emergency surgery, said the minister had "received a gunshot wound on the right side of the neck, at the root of the neck, a gaping wound. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 P.M. Central standard time (8:05 P.M. New York time) by staff doctors," Mr. Hess said. "They did everything humanly possible." According to Taylor Branch, his autopsy revealed that despite being aged just 39, his heart was in the condition of a 60-year-old man, which Branch attributed to the stress of his 13 years in the Civil Rights Movement.[19]

Responses

Coretta Scott King

Mrs. King had difficulty settling her children with the news that their father was deceased. She received a large number of telegrams, including one from Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, which she regarded as the one that touched her the most.[20]

Within the movement

For some, King's assassination meant the end of the strategy of nonviolence.[21] Others in the movement reaffirmed the need to carry on King's and the movement's work. Leaders within the SCLC confirmed they would carry on the Poor People's Campaign that year despite his loss.[22] Some black leaders argued the need to continue King's and the movement's tradition of nonviolence.[23]

Robert F. Kennedy speech

Main article: Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

That night, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, running to gain the presidential nomination to represent the Democratic Party, spoke about the assassination. Kennedy had spoken earlier that day in Indiana[24] and learned about the shooting before boarding a plane to Indianapolis. He had a speech scheduled there in a predominantly black neighborhood of the city. His press secretary Frank Mankiewicz suggested he ask the audience to pray for the King family and to follow King's practice of nonviolence.[25] Kennedy did not learn King had died until he landed in Indianapolis.

Mankiewicz and speechwriter Adam Walinsky drafted notes for Kennedy's use, but he refused them, using some he likely had written during the ride to the site.[26] The Indianapolis chief of police advised Kennedy he could not provide protection and was worried he would be at risk in talking about the death of the revered leader.[27] Kennedy decided to go ahead. Standing on a flatbed truck, Kennedy spoke for four minutes and fifty-seven seconds.[28]

He was the first to tell the audience King had died; some of the attendees screamed and wailed in grief. Several of Kennedy's aides were worried that the delivery of this information would result in a riot.[29] When the audience quieted, Kennedy acknowledged many would be filled with anger. He said: "For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man." These remarks surprised his aides, who had never heard him speak publicly of his brother's death.[30] Kennedy said the country had to make an effort to "go beyond these rather difficult times", and quoted a poem by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." In conclusion, he said the country needed and wanted unity between blacks and whites, and asked the audience members to pray for the King family and the country, quoting the Greeks again.

His speech was credited in part with preventing post-assassination rioting in Indianapolis, on a night where such events broke out in major cities across the country.[31] It is widely considered one of the greatest speeches in American history.[32]

Kennedy subsequently canceled all of his scheduled campaign appearances and withdrew to his hotel room. Several phone conversations with black community leaders convinced him to speak out against the violent backlash beginning to emerge across the country.[33] The next day, Kennedy gave a prepared response, "On the Mindless Menace of Violence", in Cleveland, Ohio. Although still considered significant, it is given much less historical attention than the Indianapolis speech.[34]

President Lyndon B. Johnson

President Lyndon B. Johnson was in the Oval Office that evening, planning a meeting in Hawaii with Vietnam War military commanders. After press secretary George Christian informed him at 8:20 p.m. of the assassination, he canceled the trip to focus on the nation. He assigned Attorney General Ramsey Clark to investigate the assassination in Memphis. He made a personal call to King's wife, Coretta Scott King, and declared April 7 a national day of mourning, on which the U.S. flag would be flown at half-staff.[35]

Riots
Main article: King assassination riots

Colleagues of King in the Civil Rights Movement called for a nonviolent response to the assassination, to honor his most deeply held beliefs. James Farmer Jr. said:

Dr. King would be greatly distressed to find that his blood had triggered off bloodshed and disorder. I think instead the nation should be quiet; black and white, and we should be in a prayerful mood, which would be in keeping with his life. We should make that kind of dedication and commitment to the goals which his life served to solving the domestic problems. That's the memorial, that's the kind of memorial we should build for him. It's just not appropriate for there to be violent retaliations, and that kind of demonstration in the wake of the murder of this pacifist and man of peace.[36]

However, the more militant Stokely Carmichael called for forceful action, saying:

White America killed Dr. King last night. She made it a whole lot easier for a whole lot of black people today. There no longer needs to be intellectual discussions, black people know that they have to get guns. White America will live to cry that she killed Dr. King last night. It would have been better if she had killed Rap Brown and/or Stokely Carmichael, but when she killed Dr. King, she lost.[36]

Despite the urging for calm by many leaders, a nationwide wave of riots erupted in more than 100 cities.[37] After the assassination, the city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on favorable terms to the sanitation workers.[38][39]

Reactions

PHOTOGRAPH: Garment workers listen to the funeral service for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on a portable radio. April 9, 1968

On April 8, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, together with the couple's four small children, led a crowd estimated at 40,000 in a silent march through the streets of Memphis to honor the fallen leader and support the cause of the city's black sanitation workers.[40]

The next day, funeral rites for King were held in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. The service at Ebenezer Baptist Church was nationally televised, as were these other events. A funeral procession transported King's body for 3.5 miles through the streets of Atlanta, followed by more than 100,000 mourners, from the church to his alma mater of Morehouse College. A second service was held there before the burial.[40]

In the wake of King's assassination, journalists reported some callous or hostile reactions from parts of white America, particularly in the South. David Halberstam, who reported on King's funeral, recounted a comment heard at an affluent white dinner party:

One of the wives—station wagon, three children, forty-five-thousand-dollar house—leaned over and said, "I wish you had spit in his face for me." It was a stunning moment; I wondered for a long time afterwards what King could possibly have done to her, in what conceivable way he could have threatened her, why this passionate hate.[3]

Reporters recounted that many whites were also grief-stricken at the leader's death. In some cases, the shock of events altered opinions. A survey later sent to a group of college trustees revealed their opinions of King had risen after his assassination.[3] The New York Times praised King in an editorial, calling his murder a "national disaster" and his cause "just".[41][42]

Public figures generally praised King in the days following his death. Others expressed political ideology. Governor George Wallace of Alabama, known as a segregationist, described the assassination as a "senseless, regrettable act".[21] But Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia called King "an enemy of our country" and threatened to "personally raise" the state capitol flag back from half-staff. California Governor Ronald Reagan described the assassination as "a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd break". Strom Thurmond, South Carolina Senator, wrote to his constituents: "We are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case."

FBI investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was assigned the lead to investigate King's death. J. Edgar Hoover, who had previously made efforts to undermine King's reputation, told Johnson his agency would attempt to find the culprit(s).[35] Many documents related to this investigation remain classified, and are slated to remain secret until 2027.[citation needed] In 2010, as in earlier years, some argued for passage of a proposed Records Collection Act, similar to a 1992 law concerning the Kennedy assassination, in order to require the immediate release of the records.[citation needed] The measure did not pass.

Funeral

Main article: Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.

A crowd of 300,000 attended his funeral on April 9.[35] Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended on behalf of Johnson, who was at a meeting on the Vietnam War at Camp David. (There were fears that Johnson might be hit with protests and abuses over the war if he attended). At his widow's request, King's last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played at the funeral; it was a recording of his "Drum Major" sermon, given on February 4, 1968. In that sermon, he asked that, at his funeral, no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the [Vietnam] war question", and "love and serve humanity".[44]