How the L.A. Times covered the 1965 Watts Riots

By Los Angeles Times staff

The Times staff won a Pulitzer Prize for loc­al spot news re­port­ing for the pa­per’s cov­er­age of the Watts ri­ots. Here’s a look at the front pages dur­ing the height of the un­rest in Au­gust 1965, as well a sev­en-part series, called “The View From Watts,” which ran in Oc­to­ber that year.

Read more:

Po­lice and Mo­tor­ists At­tacked. Routine Ar­rest of 3 Sparks Watts Mel­ee; 8 Blocks Sealed Off

Stores Looted, Cars Des­troyed. Many Fires Star­ted; 75 Re­por­ted In­jured in 2nd Vi­ol­ent Night

Scores of Fires Rage Un­checked; Dam­age Ex­ceeds $10 Mil­lion

21,000 Troops, Po­lice Wage Guer­rilla War; 8 p.m. Curfew In­voked

Po­lice­man Killed as Fel­low Of­ficer’s Gun Is Fired Ac­ci­dent­ally

In­quiry Board to Be Named. Isol­ated Snip­ing Re­por­ted.

This series ran from Oct. 10 to 17, 1965. In­cluded here are the sev­en parts — or­gan­ized by the full-page view, then the full-text view, in or­der of how they ran. Page 4 con­tains a note from the ed­it­or of The Times, Nick B. Wil­li­ams in 1965, ex­plain­ing the series. Page 28 is an ed­it­or­i­al, head­lined “Watts: A Time for Ac­tion.” Page 29 con­tains let­ters from Times read­ers about the series.