The 1960’s was a critical decade for the civil rights movement filled with frustration and violence. As the movement fought for the equal rights of African Americans, the efforts of the movement had not resolved all the issues African Americans faced on a daily basis. African Americans faced housing discrimination where if they”tried to move into working class “white neighborhoods,” they were attacked and some had their homes burned”(112). Although racism was being fought through bills and acts, legal action was not going to halt all societal racism in the nation. Just because a black person could own a house, it did not mean they were socially welcome to own any house they could afford, they had restrictions to what was ‘their place’. Instead they …show more content…
The riots were counterproductive for the image of African Americans but necessary for their emotional health. After years and years filled with frustrating days of racial oppression, it all reached a limit. A limit where emotions poured onto the street in the form of lootings, fires, destruction and violence. Emotions were expressed but opinions were changed. As white privileged Americans watched from home, they did not and could not understand the frustration felt within the violence and chaos of the Watts riots. They did not endure what the black individuals on their tv screens had. They could not relate when Martin Luther King, JR said, “A riot, is at bottom, the language of the unheard”. The riot allowed blacks to feel “invincible” and “powerful” they were able to hold nothing back and just express their frustrations, it allowed them to look back and feel “completely relieved”. The Watts riot was just one of countless other riots. While people were fighting for the equality of all black individuals no one was completely listening to what they were still going through even after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, they were still