Participation in the Los Angeles Riot

Data from a survey of the black community in Los Angeles, conducted shortly after the Watts riot, are analyzed to provide a clearer picture of the people involved in the riot. About 15 percent of the area's residents were active in the riot, with another 30 percent as “close spectators.” It was perceived as a proximate and immediate event, touching personally most of the ghetto residents. Degree of proximity did not, however, distinguish those adopting a protest ideology from those who saw the riot as a meaningless, random event. The “riff-raff” theory of riot participation failed in several respects: the riot was not the work of a small handful of the ghetto's residents, or of any particularly deviant subgroup within the ghetto, but of a large proportion of the area's youth. Moreover, non-participants did not strongly oppose it; they were rather optimistic about its potential effects, despite their abhorrence of its violence.