After you have completed your annotations, assess the entry on the riot you are studying:
- Referring to your timeline and map, how well does the entry describe the events of the riot, and when and where they occurred?
The entry also provides detail about what started the riots. The resentment of longstanding racial injustices in the Watts area of Los Angeles turned the inciting incident of the traffic stop of a Black man into a series of riots across the 45 miles. My timeline and map provides much more detail about the time and location of the inciting incident. You can also see through my timeline and map how the rioting spread from the epicenter of the inciting incident.
There is not much detail in the Wikipedia entry about the actual incidents during the riot – specifics like the fires, looting of neighborhood stores, mosque incident, tear gas by police, for example. Those details would explain the timing of bringing in the National Guard. There is also no descriptions of who was injured and killed (white vs. black, law enforcement vs. citizens) which are important details.
- How well does the label applied to the riot in the entry fit with the information in the entry and with your interpretation of the riot?
The entry does address whether the event was a riot or rebellion at the beginning but continues to call it a riot throughout the entry. In the initial assignment, I identified the event as a rebellion because it was ultimately a deliberate insurgency against an illegitimate regime, an act of political resistance with the intent of destabilizing or overturning the status quo. The entry goes on to describe events during the rebellion but often leaves out important information like times and locations. My timeline and map give a clearer picture of how the event exploded from one incident that caused the population of the Watts area to rebel. The destruction was also confined mostly to their own neighborhoods and very little of the activity went outside of the African-American communities.
Post your answers to these questions on your blog and submit a link to that blog post using the link at the top of these instructions.
