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. White middle-class people in neighborhoods bordering black districts moved en masse to the suburbs, where newer housing was available. 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. In the post-World War II era, suburbs in the Los Angeles area grew explosively as black residents also wanted to live in peaceful white neighborhoods. 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. Davenport Builders, for example, was a large developer who responded to the demand, with an eye on undeveloped land in Compton. As a result, housing in South Los Angeles became increasingly scarce, overwhelming the already established communities and providing opportunities for real estate developers. This further bolstered the migration of black residents into the city during the Second Great Migration to occupy the vacated spaces, such as Little Tokyo. įollowing the US entry into World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the federal government removed and interned 70,000 Japanese-Americans from Los Angeles, leaving empty spaces in predominantly Japanese-owned areas. Such real-estate practices severely restricted educational and economic opportunities available to the minority community. 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. 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. By the 1940s, 95% of Los Angeles and southern California housing was off-limits to certain minorities.

In the 1910s, the city was already 80% covered by racially restrictive covenants in real estate. unincorporated territory at the time) and immigration from Mexico, Japan, Korea, and Southern and Eastern Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, Los Angeles was geographically divided by ethnicity, as demographics were being altered by the rapid migration from the Philippines ( U.S.

Los Angeles had racially restrictive covenants that prevented specific minorities from renting and buying property in certain areas, even long after the courts ruled such practices illegal in 1948 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. 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%. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 directing defense contractors not to discriminate in hiring or promotions, opening up new opportunities for minorities. In the 1940s, in the Second Great Migration, black workers and families migrated to the West Coast in large numbers, in response to defense industry recruitment efforts at the start of World War II. This wave of migration largely bypassed Los Angeles. 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. In the Great Migration of 1915–1940, major populations of African Americans moved to Northeastern and Midwestern cities such as Detroit, Chicago, St. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992. Nearly 14,000 members of the California Army National Guard helped suppress the disturbance, which resulted in 34 deaths, as well as over $40 million in property damage. Six days of civil unrest followed, motivated in part by allegations of police abuse. Rumors spread that the police had kicked a pregnant woman who was present at the scene. Meanwhile, a crowd of onlookers had gathered. Marquette resisted arrest, with assistance from his mother, Rena Frye a physical confrontation ensued in which Marquette was struck in the face with a baton. After he failed a field sobriety test, officers attempted to arrest him.

On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, a 21-year-old African-American man, was pulled over for drunken driving.

The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965.

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