BRIEF HISTORIES: THE WATTS RIOTS

(Image source: ClickAmericana.com)

"We rioted because the white man was doin the Negros-- they was taking what the Negros had-- all they had just about-- and I had enough of it."

On a hot Wednesday night August 11, 1965 a 21 year-old Black man named Marquette Frye along with his brother Ronald Frye were pulled over at a routine traffic stop by a white police officer. The stop was reportedly for drunk driving.

"It is very hard to try to explain to someone what it feels like to be Black in a white world. The things that happen to you daily and that affect you and that are so much apart of you are very hard sometimes to even remember because they have become so routine."

California Highway Patrol Officer Lee Minikus made Frye walk the line. The officer berated him with questions. Frye was then forcibly arrested on the scene. His mother's 1955 Buick was going to be impounded. Frye's brother Ronald ran to get their mother, who was only two blocks away. By now, a small group of onlookers gathered around the scene.

"There is really nothing that I can tell you here that would fully-- really let you know what it is like because it is too horrible and too deep to communicate to anyone."

When Rena Frye arrived and saw what was unfolding she wasted no time at all. She pushed through the officers to scold her son for drunk driving. Two more officers had arrived on the scene. One of them pulled his mother away from Frye. Another one struck Frye on the side of the head with a baton. Frye's mother jumped on the officer and tore his shirt. Another officer pulled out a shotgun and shoved Frye against the car yelling: "you get your black ass up against the car! If you get off that car I will blow your ass off!"

"I don't like to use the word riot. I say it was a revolt, or a overthrow. It wasn't a riot. That's a bunch of crazy folk going crazy without reason. There was a reason. And I have always wanted to see some changes around here"

A police officer handcuffed Rena Frye. By now the group of onlookers swelled substantially and reached a fever-pitch. The crowd grew openly hostile towards the police officers. Rocks and bottles were hurled at officers and the police car. Marquette, his brother, and Rena Frye were all arrested and thrown into the police car. "The crowd was pissed when the cops picked on my mama. I got angry. I took a swing at one. They handcuffed my hands and legs, threw me in the car and kicked me. Ronnie was thrown over the top of the car." The police car drove off. In less than an hour the crowd had transformed into a mob. Enraged by the police brutality and the rumors spreading that Frye's pregnant girlfriend was also brutalized by police, the people rose to their feet. The crowd flooded the streets, pulled white drivers out of their cars and beat them. Stones shattered store windows and people scrambled to take whatever they could get their hands on. Firebombs were thrown into buildings and cop cars were flipped over. The streets of Watts ripped open flesh wounds.

"I threw the firebomb right into the front window; right in the front window. A friend of mine went in the store towards the back and threw a firebomb in the back and the place went up in flames. But it was pretty well uh-- emptied by the looters and so forth."

"Then we would decide to burn and the cry in the streets was 'burn baby, burn!' "

"Our YOUR FRIEND CHARLIE pawnshop
was a glorious blaze
I heard the flames lick
then eat the trays
of zircons
mounted in red gold alloys"

"We decided to burn this store because we felt like this man hadn't been doing nothing but gaining on us anyway."

"We scream but we can't be heard. We talk but we can't be heard. It just seem like people don't understand."

It was one of the biggest racial uprisings in United States history. Police came to break up the crowd several times through out the course of the night but were repelled by stones and gun fire. Firemen attempting to put out the fires were shot at and driven out. The rioting continued and intensified into the next night and into the next night and into the next. By the fourth day a curfew had been set and the California Governor had called The National Guard.

By the following Tuesday the rebellion had ended. The uprising lasted for six days and resulted in the deaths of at least 34 people. There were reportedly over 1000 injuries and at least 4,000 arrests. Property damage totaled over $40 million dollars. At least 30,000 people took part in the revolt.

"I didn’t know there was a riot. When I got out of jail and turned on the radio, I heard Wolfman Jack play 'Burn, Baby Burn,' and then I heard my name, my brothers name and my mother's, and I heard about the people killed so far. I just cried."

"After the revolt, they fed us pacification programs. They put their little police department here for control. They were going to make damn sure this never happened again"

The economic deprivation of Watts, the wide-spread employment discrimination, the anti-black racism and heavy policing all contributed to the powder keg. Residence were sick of poverty and joblessness. They were sick of decrepit living conditions. The State's denial of the rights outlined in Civil Rights Act left many residence indignant. The insurrection threw Watts into the national spotlight. America asked the stupid question "what does the Negro want?" Reporters pored into the area after the riots to investigate the reasons for why the rebellion occurred, interviewing many of the residence who were apart of the riot. It was then that America suddenly "discovered" the economic conditions that pushed so many people to the breaking point.

"You are gonna make a black monster down here and this monster is gonna get larger and larger and pretty soon its going to eat all of us up."

Then all the cameras left. And most of the buildings destroyed by the riots have never been repaired. Watts has generally been kept in the condition it was in over fifty years ago.

"There was a Japanese restaurant over there, a corner barber and a liquor store. They all burned up. The trees along the streets were bigger. Police cut them back so we couldn't climb up and throw bottles from there. That green complex across the street is where all the people from the hood came out to watch me do my dance for the officers. The trash, well, that's still here from '65 probably."

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Brief Histories

THE DECOLONIZER
February 2016

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BRIEF HISTORIES: THE PUERTO RICAN NATIONALIST PARTY

by Dubian Ade

It was nearing the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. After 400 years of Spanish colonial domination, Spain had finally granted Puerto Rico it's autonomy through the Carta de Autonomía. As the United States closed in on the island, The Macheteros de Puerto Rico, a loose band of Puerto Rican militants fought to defend the hope of a new nation. With relative success they were able to repel U.S forces.

Spain however, lost the war. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris the U.S laid claim to Puerto Rico even though it was no longer a Spanish territory. Puerto Rico was immediately annexed and without any elections Charles Herbert Allen was appointed the first U.S Governor of Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico was now a United States colony. At the expense of the Puerto Rican people, Allen opened up the island to U.S business ventures. Allen himself resigned in 1901 so that he could be president of America Sugar Refinery Company, which soon became the largest sugar-refining company in the world. In a 30 year period most of Puerto Rico's arable land had been converted to sugar plantations. American Sugar Refinery Company, which would later be renamed Domino, owned virtually all of these plantations.

A group of members from the Union Party of Puerto Rico separated from the party and joined with two pro-independence organizations. On September 17th , 1922 the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico was formed.

Pedro Albizu Campos

Internal strife between leaders over how the party should be run weakened the organization for some years until Pedro Albizu Campos was elected president in 1930. Campos would hold the position until his death in 1965.

Under Campos' direction, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party became unwavering in its stance for independence and nationalization where other organizations lightened on their views. The Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico advocated for the independence of Puerto Rico by any means necessary, including armed force. The Party's revolutionary position would come to have a profound affect on the Puerto Rican people.

BRIEF HISTORIES: THE REBELLION OF TUPAC AMARU II

by Dubian Ade

Tupac Amaru II

The very last ruler of the Incan Empire was publicly assassinated before the people of Cuzco by the Spanish Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo in 1572. His name was Tupac Amaru, the rightful heir of the Incan throne who was shafted in a series of political maneuvers by the Viceroy and his own Incan officials. The crowd of thousands mourned over his death as the Spanish crown moved in to begin the genocide in Peru. October of that year Toledo ordered the Libro de Tasas, a document which began the process of systematically annihilating all vestiges of Inca rule.

It is said that Tupac Amaru was survived by two daughters, Juana and Magdalena, who found refuge with the Archbishop of Lima. Juana would later marry the curaca of Surimani and Tungasuca named Condorcanqui. Her decedent was Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, who would later be known as Tupac Amaru II.

The colonizing process in Peru moved forward with harshest domination. The Spanish Crown regarded the Indigenous peoples as its immediate subordinates. The Christianization of indigenous populations was made into policy. The repartimiento system, which allotted plots of land and native labor to Spanish colonizers, was introduced. The conditions on the repartimientos and in the mines in which Indigenous workers toiled were absolutely deplorable. For the native members of the mitta who were forced to work in the obrajes the situation was particularly atrocious.  

  

The country was divided into small jurisdictions called corregimientos. Each corregimiento was overseen by a corregidor. Many of the corregidors were Spanish viceroyalty and the unregulated abuse from the corregidors ran rampent. The corregidors collected increasingly large amounts of taxes from the Indigenous people living in these areas for the purpose of keeping them in a perpetual state of debt to the Spanish colonizers. Native rights to trade were restricted. The Christian church generally became an extortion ring as tribute was demanded as well as fees for baptisms, weddings, and burials. The native ruling class of the curacas generally aligned themselves with the Spanish colonizers and served to reinforce the exploitation of the impoverished native sectors. The gradual worsening of conditions for Indigenous Peruvians continued for more than a century.

In the late 1700’s the Corregidor of Tinta, Antonio Arriaga, had a notorious reputation for ruthlessness and colonial tyranny especially among native people. Arriaga’s callousness was further amplified by the imposed Bourbon Reforms which raised taxes significantly in the corregimientos. In 1777 a curaca of Tinta traveled to Lima to express his grievances and to represent the natives of the region before the Spanish administration. After talks with the corregidors proved fruitless, Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui traveled back to his home in Tungasuca, Tinta. He changed his name to Tupac Amaru II.

On November 4, 1780 Tupac Amaru II and a few others ambushed Antonio Arriaga on his way home from a dinner party. Arriaga was taken prisoner in Tungasuca and large ransom was demanded from the Spaniards. On November 10^th before a crowd of dispossessed Indigenous people, the hated Arriaga was executed.                       

Arriga's execution set all the conditions needed for a massive Indigenous up-rising. Within a matter of days Tupac Amaru II had assembled a crew of several hundred people. Amaru used the money secured from Arriga’s ransom to win over the loyalty many more native people.  On November 17^th 1780, the rebel force successfully attacked Sangarara as Spanish troops fled to a nearby church. The church caught on fire after being pelted by the rebel forces. Over 500 Spaniards were killed. The victory at Sangarara greatly encouraged many natives to join the insurgency.

It is said that Tupac Amaru’s forces numbered close to 60,000 at this point. The rebel forces moved southward and split into three factions, some of which went to the region of Ayaviri and Azangaro. Many cruelties and atrocities were committed by the forces in Ayaviri and Azangaro against Spanish sympathizers.

Tupac Amaru returned to Tungasuca on December 14^th and with the partnership of his wife Micaela Bastidas staged two failed attempts to take the city of Cuzco that January.  Though the insurgency was widely supported by the native curacas and the rebel army was significantly larger than the Spanish forces, the insurgents were unable to overcome the Spanish defenses. Receiving word of the revolts, the Spanish colonial administrator Jose Antonio de Areche had heavily armed the colonial militias and ordered troops to be imported from Lima and surrounding areas. Spanish defenses were able to successfully repel the rebel forces.

The defeats at Cuzco were a serious blow for Tupac Amaru’s army, which took refuge in Tinta to recuperate. By this time more than 17,000 of the Spanish forces from Lima had arrived under General Jose del Valle y Torres. Fighting began on March 12, 1781 and a series of battles in the Vilcamayu Alley led to the complete defeat of the rebel army at Checcacupe on April 6, 1781. Tupac Amaru, Micaela Bastidas, their two children, and numerous others were captured. Sixty-seven insurgents were hung in Tinta.

The captives were taken to Cuzco were they were tortured. On May 18^th, by order of Jose Antonio de Areche, Tupac Amaru was forced to watch the execution of his wife and children. His tongue was ripped out of his mouth and his limbs were tied to four horses running in different directions. When that failed to dismember him he was beheaded, his body was burned, and his remains were distributed among the native villages. Afterwards, Areche banned the use of the Quechua language in the Peruvian territories and commanded that all documents, folktales, and literature in Quechua be destroyed. In addition all of Tupac Amaru’s property was thoroughly destroyed and all members of the Incan royal family line were hunted down by the Spanish administration and viciously murdered.       

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Brief Histories, Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
December 2015

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BRIEF HISTORIES: THE NEW JEWEL MOVEMENT (GRENADA)

by Dubian Ade

via berniegrantarchive.org

The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation group (NEW JEWEL) was established in March of 1973 in response to the deplorable economic conditions under Eric Gairy's neocolonial administration and Gairy's increasing corruption within the government. Gairy had been pushing an agenda for Grenadian independence and began talks with the British Crown as early as 1970. Gairy had intentionally excluded the Grenadian people from the negotiations.

Gairy had first come to prominence as the founder of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP). Under the GULP ticket, Gairy had won the election of 1951 and was elected to leader of the Grenadian assembly. Gairy had become the first Black Grenadian to hold that office.

Gairy's tenure as leader of the assembly was marked with serious corruption. So much so that in 1962 the British colonial administration intervened in Grenada to schedule new elections. Gairy was defeated by Hurbert Blaize but was reelected to leader of the assembly in 1967 after economic conditions failed to improve. Grenada was granted its independence on February 7th 1974 after more than two centuries of British rule. Gairy had become the country's first prime minister.

BRIEF HISTORIES: MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH

by Dubian Ade

via emanuelamechurch.org

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1816 in the midst of protests. White Methodists in Charleston announced plans to build a shed directly on top of a black burial ground. In response over 4,000 blacks decided to part from the white Methodist church and to establish a religious institution of their own. Under the ministry of Rev. Morris Brown and Denmark Vesey, Mother Emanuel came to be the epicenter of black religious life in Charleston.

The church was a target for white citizens and city officials. City and state ordinances prohibited black worship after sunset without the presence of a majority white congregation. White terror consistently descended upon Mother Emanuel. Service was routinely interrupted and dispersed. Charleston authorities accused the ministry of teaching blacks reading and writing, which was against state policy. By 1818, whites had stormed the church and arrested 140 freed and enslaved blacks in violation of the state's anti-literacy policy. Ministers were fined and given lashes.