Not Going Down Without a Fight_ , _L.A. Free Press_ , June 23, 1969 "He was a young man," the mayor says of the slain activist, "who did not fear his enemies—no, he invited them into his very home and let them talk to him in his own language. Which could not be tolerated." — _Los Angeles Daily News_ , June 24, 1969 Citing the FBI's "total inability to deal with terrorism" in Vietnam, New Left leader Tom Hayden calls on the federal government to "take over all local police departments." — _Los Angeles Free Press_ , July 1, 1969 Two years after its approval by Los Angeles voters, the Watts uprising has been transformed into a major political issue in the Los Angeles mayor's race. Voters turn out for an anti-rioting rally held on the steps of a Long Beach public housing project, where the mother of murdered black teen Ronnie Chaney was a longtime resident. — _Los Angeles Times_ , June 12, 1970 **Fear and loathing over the racial revolution in Los Angeles is expressed in a poem published in** **_The Negro Digest_** **magazine. The author, one of whose ancestors was a slave who escaped to a Confederate camp during the Civil War, calls the "negroes" who rioted "mad white men."** ** ** **TWO SIDES OF THE RACE QUESTION** ** _(An Open Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from a "Negro Digest" Reader)_** Dear Dr. King: I am so troubled about the Negro riot in Los Angeles. I have been to Mississippi and Alabama and I have seen hatred and poverty. In this instance, Negroes have used their anger as a tool. But, what they have never discovered is that hatred is a cancer. It eats your life away. I am a Negro and most Negroes are not. I have seen so many Negroes who are so rich in good things that have no control of their hatred. I have been to so many Negroes who sit around and talk about hate without recognizing the fact that one has to go beyond hate to have self-respect. And, this I say to myself, "Is there anyone out there who really knows what it means to feel the full intensity of that hatred?" And, if so, how do we go beyond hatred and become productive men and women? How do we go from hatred to love? And, how can we expect to live together in peace if we cannot first be peaceful with one another? I want to write something in praise of the white man. But, we are not a homogeneous group. We are not all God's children. I am not a white man and neither are you. We are all children of God and each of us must reach out to each other as fellow human beings. There are people in this country who despise other people because of their color. To these people I say: God made you in his image—then you must love each other. In this struggle there must be no more hate. All we have is our minds and all we have to give must be given willingly. I am saying these things to the Negro people of Los Angeles and the rest of the world. To the racist Negroes who have forgotten what life is, all I can say is that you must find the way to love the people in your community and in this country. I, like so many others, am a black man living in this great country of America. Like others I have my hopes and dreams. Like others, I have been denied so many things in life that other people have been allowed to have. But, I am still seeking my own answers to these questions. I guess that is what we do as human beings—we all seek our own answers. Some people cannot get enough love; some people get too much hatred. Some people cannot get enough understanding; some people want to use their hatred to destroy their own lives. In my own belief I can state that there is such a thing as life and there is such a thing as death. If the Negro people want to survive, they have to grow from hate into understanding. If the people in our country do not want to hate, then they must grow from hatred into love. And, we will have to search ourselves in order to know what we mean by love. This is why I am writing you. We will need you in this struggle that we call life. I am just one man; I am just one black man. But, I am a man who is very much concerned about his people. And, as I look out the window of my home in Los Angeles, I see two separate groups of Negroes. One group lives in a way that makes me fear for their very lives. They appear to hate all who are different than they are. The other group appears to hate no one. I do not understand this. And, this is where I need you, Dr. King. You must give them all the answers. I know that you are a man who can speak to both sides of the racial problem in this country. I also know that you know what hate is—that you lived for many years in a land that was full of hate. And, that is why I am asking for your advice and guidance. I want to live a life that will last forever. As one who has seen hate grow into man's heart, I know it is not easy to grow beyond this state. And, I also know that if hate has grown, it has been by chance. There is a will for man to live. I am not one who thinks that anyone can do the work of justice for me. If one says that I should do something, I will make myself do it. But, I need the moral support of you and other men and women who are working for peace. _I would be proud if you thought of me as your friend—to know that my people are trying to grow from hate to understanding_. _ _ **In an open letter to Mayor Sam Yorty, the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, calls Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty "a courageous and determined man" in the aftermath of the uprising and praises the president's comments on race. "We should applaud our racial divisions," Nixon says.** ** ** Los Angeles has "made a heroic effort to preserve law and order" during the riots, says President Nixon, whose administration had called for increased federal funding for urban centers while the nation's capital continued to hemorrhage black residents. In his weekly radio address, Nixon praised white officials for "not being afraid" in the face of destruction. "If this kind of fear and hostility could be turned into mutual understanding and help," he said, "then people in a desperate situation would be inspired to do great things—to rise above anger and despair, to show courage and compassion." — _Los Angeles Times_ , July 15, 1970 **In the wake of the riots, the Los Angeles Police Department undergoes one of its most sweeping changes in modern history. The first female African American police officer is sworn in. And police use video cameras to assist in the investigation of a homicide. In all, more than eight hundred people are arrested in the unrest, including some five hundred black youths.** ** ** By a single vote, Los Angeles moves to the forefront of its sister cities as the first to elect a woman to city office. On March 10, a vote by the Los Angeles City Council elects Norma Redfield Ringer, a Republican, to the top spot on the five-member board of the city's Community Relations Commission. The same year, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American to run for president, announces her candidacy for president of the United States. — _Los Angeles Times_ , March 12, 1972 _For her first campaign for mayor in 1973, a year after being elected to the City Council, Dianne Feinstein would run as an independent. Her platform included a call to make Los Angeles "a world class city," a promise to end job discrimination in city employment, and a $750-million plan to build low-income housing. She also promised to bring the city out of recession. "I've never seen a more depressed area than this community," she told a crowd at Washington High School. "People used to go on vacation here. Not now." Feinstein was the youngest person elected mayor in city history and served two terms in office before she was term-limited in 1975. Though she lost her bid for reelection to Ed Koch, Feinstein served in Congress until she lost a reelection bid in 1992 to Willie Brown, the first African American elected to the U.S. House from San Francisco. She is currently a member of the San Francisco Giants board of directors. A decade later, the city approved a plan for the construction of three low-income housing projects in North Bayview–Hunters Point, the first three of the 12,000 units that would eventually be built. The last of those units—the first housing project for which construction contracts had been awarded—was finished in 1986. Today, almost 40,000 low-income residents reside in North Bayview–Hunters Point._ —Courtesy of History San Jose # SCHOOL The United States Supreme Court rules unanimously in _Keyes v. School District No. 1,