It is not an easy question to answer.
“Are people in Watts better off today than they were 60 years ago after the Watts Riots? Yes, in terms of many metrics. But relatively speaking, about the same,” answered Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science and Chicana/o Latina/o studies at Loyola Marymount University, and the founding director of the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles.
Guerra, who has spent more than 30 years studying Los Angeles history and politics, was asked along with others, to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the Watts Riots — that erupted on Aug. 11, 1965 after a traffic stop of a Black motorist — and offer their assessments of the present day with an eye toward the future.
“Safer today than 60 years ago? Yes,” he said on Tuesday Aug. 5. “Is there still racial profiling? Yes. But not to the degree it used to be. Still income inequality? Yes. Still less social status living in Watts? Yes.”
Shift in demographics
Watts, a community of about 31,000 and part of the southwestern district of the city of Los Angeles, has a median household income of $54,999, with about 30% living in poverty, according to Watts Rising, a collaborative of 40 groups from data collected and released in 2021.
Watts went from a majority Black community to a community that is 70% Latino and about 28% African-American, the group reported. Of those, 78% are citizens and 22% are non-citizens, according to the Point2Homes web page on Watts, which used U.S. Census Bureau data.
Access to resources are more limited for residents of Watts than for residents of affluent L.A. and L.A. County neighborhoods, Watts Rising reported. Guerra agreed, saying Watts and South Los Angeles residents have less resources compared to other parts of the city. “There are always portions that get less than society has to offer; always communities that get less,” he said.
Economic opportunity
Unemployment and lack of economic opportunity also played into the unrest in the 1965 uprising, experts spoke on those issues as part of their community snapshot today.
Small businesses are struggling to survive because there are no controls on commercial rental rates, experts said. “They can get their rent jacked up for any reason by any amount by their landlord. Also, some have problems with leases not in a language they understand,” said Cynthia Strathmann, executive director of the group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) based in South L.A.
Low-income families and new entrepreneurs don’t have the level of experience or knowledge seen in middle and upper middle class societies. Strathmann said, “In middle class families you are taught about bank accounts and retirement accounts, so financial literacy is important. But these people start out at a huge disadvantage.”
So SAJE offers small business workshops that explain the ins and outs of starting a business and also teaches immigrants about their rights, she said.
James Nelson, 59, who works as a campaign and program manager for the advocacy group Dignity and Power Now, said in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, those without work barely survived on government assistance. Some who were working in low-paying jobs could not afford rents even in low-income housing.
Nelson said many individuals ended up incarcerated for lengthy terms for possessing rock cocaine, while affluent white residents received light sentences or were sent to a drug diversion program for possession of powder cocaine. “That was the gateway to mass incarceration,” Nelson said. “Our community is marginalized for locking up a mass number of folks and some are still suffering through it.”
He spent 29 years in prison for murder, a crime he later proved he did not commit. He was released on parole 11 years ago by the director of the California Prison Board. Now he runs a group helping those formerly incarcerated to adjust to life on the outside.
“We have mutual aid to help them with their rent or get them food,” he said.
In addition, some folks lost their homes in the Great Recession of 2008 and ended up homeless. “A big percentage of those people never recovered from that. They are living in motorhomes and move from street to street and they can’t afford a house or an apartment,” Nelson said.
Homeless encampment sweeps often take their personal property and dollars set aside for homeless services are not reaching the neediest, Nelson said.
“Every time there is a disruption in the economy, places like Watts are disproportionately negatively impacted,” Guerra said.
Residents with criminal records have a hard time landing a job. Many who benefitted from the “Ban The Box” movement, and were no longer required to check the box on job applications asking if they had a prior conviction, got fired years later when they were up for a promotion and employers ran background checks on them, Guerra said.
“From 1965 to 2025, it’s like we’ve taken three steps back,” said Nelson, who grew up in Watts and now lives in Lakewood.
The ‘new oppression’
Policing policies in the Los Angeles Police Department under then-Chief William H. Parker were described as racial profiling and oppressive 60 years ago by historians and students of history. Today the LAPD has changed, said Guerra. “The LAPD is not as racist or violent or oppressive as it used to be, there is no doubt about that today in 2025,” he said. “LAPD itself is incredibly diverse: The majority of police officers are Black and brown.”
He said the “new oppression” is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, targeting Latino residents, the new majority. ICE raids took place in Watts and South L.A. in the 1930s and 1950s, but the raids in June 2025 were met with more opposition, including from white people, and were considered more shocking, he said.
“If I were to tell you a year ago there would be a significant number of people in Watts and South Central L.A. who are so fearful about what might happen to them they would stay home, you would say there was no way,” Guerra said.
“The immigrants are the easy scapegoats for Donald Trump,” he said. “Just like Blacks were easy scapegoats for (LAPD) Chief Parker” in 1965.
“With intense ICE raids, people have not gone to work,” said Strathmann. “The tamale lady on my corner said she is not going to sell. In some ways, it is a great illustration of how everything is different, but nothing is different.”
She compared the police harassing Black residents in the 1960s to ICE chasing and arresting undocumented residents with jobs 60 years later, often without warrants. “This is the same phenomenon. Terrorizing your cheap labor,” she said.
Many who work in hotels, restaurants, factories, car washes and as garment workers have not been reporting to work in June and July, she said. The drain on the L.A. economy was highlighted by Mayor Karen Bass and Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, D-Los Angeles, who visited Boyle Heights and witnessed vacant streets and empty Mexican restaurants.
Moving up, out
One thing that can be considered a positive is the increase in property values. As Black residents readied for retirement in the 1980s and 1990s, many sold their property for a bigger house in Lancaster, Palmdale or Moreno Valley, said Guerra.
He sees moving out and up as typically American. And he sees gentrification — as more affluent people move in and drive up rents and prices for goods and services in the neighborhood — as typical for many communities in Los Angeles spurred by the mobility of the city and the state.
“It’s a simple decision for millions of Americans made constantly. That is to move up. You buy a bigger home in the suburbs,” he said.
Nelson works in South L.A. and Watts for Dignity and Power Now, and once in awhile visits the Watts Towers, the iconic architectural structures made of scraps, concrete and wire mesh, created by local artist Simon Rodia. It makes him feel proud every time he sees it.
“It is like what the flag is to America, that is the flag to the Watts community members,” he said. “It is energizing to go back to that space.”