This Week in Black History: The Long Hot Summer of 1967

This week marks the 45th anniversary of the Long Hot Summer, a series of civic uprisings  that plagued America’s cities during the summer of 1967.

Beginning in June with disruption in Atlanta, Boston and Cincinnati, as well as Buffalo, New York and Tampa, Florida, the unrest spread like wildfire, breaking out in Detroit, Birmingham, Chicago, New York City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Rochester the following month. Two of the most violent riots took place between July 12 and 17 in Newark, New Jersey and left more than 26 people dead and hundreds injured.

None of these events were as widely covered or remembered as the Los Angeles Watts Riots that preceded them by two years.

In addition to a host of books on the topics of race riots and civil unrest in the African American community, the Mayme A. Clayton library and museum also has other materials from the period of social unrest like a pamphlet entitled “Race Riots Aren’t Necessary” commissioned by the American Council on Race Relations- one of the first organizations to promote the scholarly study of racial issues intended to be used in reports to assist the government and private institutions in alleviating issues in the inner cities and an issue of SEPIA magazine which dedicated its entire November 1965 spread to articles on the social and political climate of Los Angeles in the aftermath of the infamous Watts Riots.

Written by American sociologist Alfred McClung Lee, the “Race Riots Aren’t Necessary” pamphlet provided theories on why the so-called race riots were happening and how they could be stopped. Well thought out and well researched, the pamphlet provides some good theories on solutions among some language that reflects a gap in understanding of issues that we now know to be integral causes of the unrest. Reflecting the paranoid climate of American politics in the aftermath of the red scare as it stood under the surveillance of the FBI’s  Hoover administration, the pamphlet provides a unique look into the time period.

Fashioned along the lines of LOOK or Ebony magazines, SEPIA was a photojournalist periodical founded in 1948 that peered into the lives of African-Americans until the early 80s. The special issue on the Watts Riots presented numerous features stories on the City of Angels including “Los Angeles: The Myth of Paradise West,” “Race Relations in L.A.,” “Police Brutality in L.A.,” as well as an article on Police Chief W.H. Parker, an eyewitness report on the riots, and many other articles on advanced education opportunities, black business owners, and other issues related to quality of living in L.A.

For more information on the riots in the summer of 1967, as well as the riots here in our backyard in Watts in 1965 and L.A. in 1992 come for a visit or make an inquiry with the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum at 310-202-1647.