This Account is Tweeting the Watts Riots

By Aura Bogado Aug 14, 2015

People in Los Angeles—and in Watts in particular—are commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the Watts Riots this week. Just 10 days ago, a new Twitter account popped up, chronicling what happened, day-by-day on August 11 to 17, 1965. The account, @WattsRiots50 a project of Community Coalition of South LA, and The California Endowment’s Sons and Brothers, has tweeted some real-time events connected to the anniversary, but the timeline is perhaps most compelling for the words and images of what was happening 50 years ago today. Just consider how it all started:

 

The feed is poignant in that, although some of the images look dated, the stories of police violence against black people hasn’t changed—nor has the familiar account of what happens when a community decides it’s had enough. The account continues to tell what happened, as it happened:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there it is: how is a community ever supposed to recover from this kind of violence? Does it? Follow @WattsRiots50 to find out.