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Price (Kendall O.) Los Angeles Riots records
7019
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Kendall O. Price Los Angeles Riots records
creator:
Price, Kendall O.
creator:
University of Southern California. School of Public Administration
Identifier/Call Number: 7019
Identifier/Call Number: 1927
Physical Description:
1.5 Linear Feet
1 document box, 2 audio reels
Date (inclusive): 1965-1967
Abstract: Kendall O. Price, a faculty member of the School of Public Administration at USC in the 1960s, organized with his colleagues
a non-profit corporation called Public Executive Development and Research (PEDR) and worked closely with the School of Public
Administration. They conducted two seminars and a conference which led to the Critique of the Governor's Commission on the
Los Angeles Riots. The seminars dealt with issues in the African-American community and included grass roots leaders from
the Watts area and social welfare agency executives from public and private agencies in Los Angeles County. The materials
in this small collection are some of the products of that conference, including audiotapes of the sessions.
Advance notice required for access.
In August of 1965, six days of rioting ensued in the Watts region of Los Angeles after an African-American man was pulled
over by the California Highway Patrol for drunk driving, and his mother and brother participated in the altercation when the
police officer radioed for the man's vehicle to be impounded. Marquette Frye, the motorist, was subdued with physical force
by several officers who were trying to arrest him. As the situation intensified, growing crowds of local residents watching
the exchange began yelling and throwing objects at the police officers. After Frye was arrested along with his mother and
brother, the crowds continued to grow and the police returned to the scene several times that night to break them up and were
attacked with rocks and concrete. The ensuing six days saw a 46-square mile area of Los Angeles transformed into a combat
zone. During the rioting, 3900 National Guardsmen were called out who enforced a curfew when martial law was declared.
In addition to the guardsmen, 934 Los Angeles Police officers and 718 officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
were deployed during the rioting. It was estimated that between 31,000 and 35,000 adults participated in the riots over the
course of six days, while twice that many were "sympathetic, but not active."
Prior to 1992, the Watts riot was the most severe in the city's history, resulting in 34 deaths, 1032 injuries, 3438 arrests,
and over $40 million in property damage. After the Watts riot, there was much debate regarding what really happened and why.
Governor Pat Brown appointed a commission to investigate the riots--known as the McCone Commission, because it was headed
by former CIA director John A. McCone. The result of the Commission was a 101-page report entitled
Violence in the City--An End or a Beginning?: A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965. The report identified the root causes of the riots to be high unemployment, poor schools, and other inferior living conditions
for African Americans in Watts. Recommendations for addressing these problems included "emergency literacy and pre-school
programs, improved police-community ties, increased low-income housing, more job-training projects, upgraded health-care services,
more efficient public transportation, and many more."
The idea to "revisit" the McCone Commission report originated with Dr. Kent M. Lloyd who ran for California State Superintendent
of Public Instruction and for U.S. Congress in California, and was later an official at the U.S. Department of Education working
directly with Ted Bell, the Secretary of Education. During this time, Dean Henry Reining was the Dean of the School of Public
Administration at USC where Kendall Price was on the faculty. He and his colleagues felt it was important to get another
perspective on the McCone report and USC's relation to the African-American community. They organized a non-profit corporation
called Public Executive Development and Research (PEDR), Inglewood, California. Working closely with the School of Public
Administration, they conducted two seminars and the conference which led to the
Critique of the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots. (Dr. Price stated that they originally had called it
The McCone Report Revisited, but doesn't remember when or why the title got changed.) As the two-day conference was being organized, Dean Reining received
a call from John McCone about the conference who was apparently concerned about a conference dealing with the McCone Commission--
and John McCone was also a member of the USC Board of Trustees. He must have been reassured by Reining since the Conference
went on as planned.
In creating this Critique, PEDR had the involvement of civic leaders, intergroup relations professionals, government agency
heads, academics, and leaders from the community. Thanks to Dr. Lloyd, PEDR received financial support from the U.S. Office
of Education to conduct two eight-week seminars dealing with issues in the African-American community. The first of these
was with twenty intergroup relations and social welfare agency executives from public, private, federal, state, and local
agencies in Los Angeles County. The second included twenty African-American grass roots leaders from the Watts area, including
Ron Everett- Karenga who became internationally respected as a founder of Kwanza. These seminars were a lead-up to the conference
that would deal with the McCone Report, and included preparation of papers which would be presented at the later conference.
It is Dr. Price's belief that their report--and the activities that led to its creation--helped to begin building a stronger
relationship between USC and the neighborhood it inhabits. Prior to this period, USC was known more for its football team
than for its academic reputation, and it was not as involved in community issues as it is now. Even though USC is not in
Watts, the neighborhood and community around USC struggles with many of the same social and racial issues as its more southern
neighborhood.
The collection is comprised of the reports created as a result of two seminars and a conference related to a critque of the
McCone Report following the 1965 Los Angeles riots. In addition to the reports directly related to the seminars and conference,
the materials include documents from training programs for U.S. Air Force Security and Law Enforcement Officers for 1965,
1966, and 1967. These publications were the result of work done through USC with Air Force Law Enforcement personnel to help
them establish skills in administration and in dealing with race relations, relative to the work done on the McCone report.
Each of the participants was assigned a different city administrator--many of whom had been educated at the USC School of
Public Administration--to gain experience, share ideas, and prepare a written report.
Related Finding Aids at the University of Southern California
Los Angeles Webster Commission records
Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department records
Los Angeles Riots (1965) records
Richard M. Mosk Christopher Commission records
[Box/folder# or item name], Kendall O. Price Los Angeles Riots records, Collection no. 7019, Regional History Collection,
Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California
The materials were donated by Dr. Kendall O. Price, formerly of USC's School of Public Administration.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Civil rights -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Riots -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Watts (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Race relations -- Archival resources
Ephemera
Reports
Lloyd, Kent -- History-Sources
Price, Kendall O. -- Archives
Reining, Henry -- History-Sources
University of Southern California. School of Public Administration -- Archives