I came across an article online from Life magazine of women in the 1960s. Life magazine has always published some of the most powerful images of past centuries. Fashion models, actresses and even London police women posing in uniforms graced the pages of this article. However, it was the image from the Watts riots in Los Angeles, taken in 1965, that struck me the most. Upon further research, I was taken aback by the scale of these riots-- they lasted six days total, ending in six hundred damaged buildings, four thousand arrests and thirty-four were killed. This image captured from the riots is visually stricking. Four small black children standing in a line are clinging to one another as the cold, cement storefront (probably white-owned) covered in graffiti looms behind them. It conveys desparation and fragility. These riots represented a violent but necessary rise for black self-empowerment.
I was actually looking the other day at a book I have that is from Life as well, called "100 Photographs that Changed the World". A few of the photographs are from 1963 and show young black and white men and women having drinks dumped on them for sitting at the Woolworth's lunch counter together, while another shows black people being blasted with a fire hose in Birmingham, Alabama. These photos really left a lasting impression on me, just as the photo from the LA riot seems to have done for you. It is so sad to think that this type of treatment was occurring in the U.S. just 46 short years ago (44 in the case of the riot).
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