August 20, 1972: The Wattstax Concert, the Black Woodstock

The Rev. Jesse Jackson (left) and Issac Hayes

August 20, 1972: Stax Records, based in Memphis, hosts a benefit concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, to benefit the black community of Los Angeles, centered around the South Central neighborhood of Watts. It is publicized as "Wattstax."

All seats were reserved and priced at only$1.00 each, as Stax wanted to make it possible for anyone to attend. Pre-sales were quite successful, easing concerns about the financial viability of the concert. The crowd was estimated at over 112,000, counting on-field seating.

Dale Warren, the main arranger for Stax Records, began the show at 2:38 PM Pacific Time (5:38 U.S. Eastern), with a composition titled "Salvation Symphony." Kim Weston, formerly of Motown Records, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson gave an invocation, and included a poem, written in 1950, by the Rev. William Holmes Borders, Sr. He paused to allow the crowd to chant, "I am... Somebody!" along with him. "I may be poor... young... on welfare... small... I may have made mistakes... My clothes... my face... my hair is different, but I am Somebody! I am black, brown,or white. I speak a different language. But I must be respected, protected, never rejected. I am God’s child!"

Having sung the actual National Anthem, Weston then sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing," by James Weldon Johnson, known as "The Black National Anthem." The Staple Singers were the first act. Deborah Manning sang the hymn "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." A few other performers took the stage, leading up to Eddie Floyd singing his 1966 hit "Knock On Wood."

David Porter, who wrote several Stax classics with Isaac Hayes, sang "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)," written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson as the 1st solo hit for Diana Ross. The Bar-Kays, the reconstituted band of ill-fated Stax singer Otis Redding, played. Carla Thomas, daughter of disc jockey and soul singer Rufus Thomas, and duet partner of Redding's, sang. Blues guitarist Albert King followed her, and he was followed by Rufus Thomas. Luther Ingram sang his current hit "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right."

As darkness fell, Hayes came on to close the show. It was his 30th birthday. Stripped to the waist, but draped with chains, as he was when he performed it at the Academy Awards, he performed the theme from the film Shaft. It was the highlight of the show. He followed it with "Soulsville," and "Never Can Say Goodbye," written by minister-actor Clifton Davis, already a hit for The Jackson 5, and later a disco hit for Gloria Gaynor.

Months after the festival, Stax released a double LP of the concert's highlights, Wattstax: The Living Word. The concert was filmed by David L. Wolper's film crew, and was made into the 1973 film titled Wattstax, directed by Mel Stuart. Between the show and the subsequent album and film, It was as close to a "black Woodstock" as the world was going to get.

*

August 20, 1972 was a Sunday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers, 2-0 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Bobby Murcer grounded into a fielder's choice in the top of the 10th inning, scoring relief pitcher Sparky Lyle with the winning run. Between them, Rob Gardner and Lyle allowed 6 hits over a 10-inning shutout.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-1 at Shea Stadium. Pete Rose went 3-for-5 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Johnny Bench did not play. Willie Mays did, going 1-for-3.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Atlanta Braves, 1-0 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Bill Stoneman pitched a 2-hit shutout. Hank Aaron went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Harmon Killebrew did not play. Rod Carew went 1-for-5. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Reggie Jackson did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the California Angels, 11-9 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 9-7. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 5-4. Carl Yastrzemski did not play in the opener, but went 1-for-4 with 3 RBIs in the nightcap.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 2-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept a doubleheader from the San Diego Padres, 9-3 and 5-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Roberto Clemente did not play in either game. Willie Stargell went 3-for-7 with a walk and 3 RBIs.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. In his only season with the Dodgers, Frank Robinson did not play.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

August 11, 1965: The Watts Riot

August 11, 1965: A race riot breaks out in Watts, in South Central Los Angeles.

Like the connected Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and East New York, Watts had been a white and Jewish neighborhood before World War II. But when the returning veterans took advantage of housing opportunities to move to nicer places, poor black people moved in, and found it harder to move up. 

There had already been a black community in Los Angeles, having arrived there as a result of what's known as the Great Migration. In the 1910s and '20s, thousands of black people left the South, and headed for the industrial cities of the Northeast and the Midwest, and some went to Los Angeles, looking for jobs without segregation, with limited success.

Then came another migration, this time of white people out of the South. The Great Depression, its bank foreclosures on farms, and farms rendered useless by the Dust Bowl forced a lot of people out of the Southern States of Oklahoma and Arkansas.

These people, derisively nicknamed Okies and Arkies, headed west on U.S. Route 66, and looked for farm jobs in the interior of California. Some of them kept going and reached Los Angeles.

Ray Manzarek, keyboard player for the Los Angeles-based rock band The Doors, made the point that some of these migrants joined the Los Angeles Police Department, bringing their Southern attitude with them. This manifested itself in the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, when LAPD officers joined with white soldiers and sailors from the South, stationed in LA, to attack Mexican American teenagers wearing the fancy suits of the period.

As is so often the case, once a family enters law enforcement, it stays there, and the rednecks-turned-cops of 1940s L.A. had sons who became urban racist cops in the 1960s. And the already-present conservative oil and film industry executives of the city were all too happy to accept this.

By 1965, Southern California was more Southern than white liberal America realized, or perhaps was willing to admit. Indeed, to this day, many people, including LAPD officers, call Southern California "The Southland."

As with the race riots in Harlem and North Philadelphia the year before, and the Newark and Detroit in 1967, the event that sparked the Watts Riot was an act of white police brutality on a black person. 

On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, 21, was pulled over for perceived drunken driving. After he failed a field sobriety test, officers attempted to arrest him. He resisted arrest, and was hit in the face with a baton. 

A crowd of onlookers had gathered. As with the Newark Riot two years later, an erroneous belief that the situation was even worse then it was led to the start of civil unrest, which in this case lasted six days.

The riots were finally suppressed by the California National Guard, and led to 34 deaths, 3,438 arrests, and $40 million in property damage -- about $345 million in 2022 money.

Marquette Frye found it difficult to get a job after the riots, even using his mother's maiden name for a time, before he finally found a living as a motivational speaker, on the subject of civil rights. But his health was not good, and in 1986, only 42 years old, he died of pneumonia. He did not live to see the beating of Rodney King in 1991, the travesty of a verdict a year later, and the even worse race riots that followed that.

*

August 11, 1965 was a Wednesday. Actress Viola Davis was born.

It was the offseason for the NFL, the AFL, the NBA and the NHL. These Major League Baseball games were played on that day:

* The New York Yankees the Minnesota Twins 5-4 at the old Yankee Stadium. Mel Stottlemyre outpitched Jim "Mudcat" Grant. This was unusual, because this was the year the Yankee Dynasty collapsed, and the Twins went on to win their 1st Pennant since 1933, as the Washington Senators. The Twins went 12-5 against the Yankees that year.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1-0 at Dodger Stadium. Don Drysdale pitched a 5-hit shutout, and Jim Gilliam singled home the winning run in the 7th inning.

Dodger Stadium is 11 miles north of the epicenter of the riot, which was weighing heavily on the mind of Dodger catcher John Roseboro 11 days later, when he had his confrontation with Giants pitcher Juan Marichal. He had a similar situation on his mind, the civil unrest in his native Dominican Republic. Their tempers boiled over, resulting Roseboro hitting Marichal's ear with a throw back to pitcher Sandy Koufax, and Marichal retaliating by Roseboro on the head with his bat.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the California Angels, 6-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Luis Tiant pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City Athletics at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Tigers won the 1st game 6-2, and the 2nd game 5-4, on a Don Wert RBI single in the 10th inning. 

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. In the 1st game, The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-2. The Pale Hose won the 2nd game 7-0, as Juan Pizarro pitched a 1-hit shutout.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros, 5-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* And a game was rained out Candlestick Park in San Francisco. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 1st game, 4-3. The San Francisco Giants won the 2nd game, 5-2. 

July 28, 1965: LBJ's Big Draft Increase

July 28, 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to more than double the number of men drafted per month, from 17,000 to 35,000.

Until now, Vietnam had been just a name to most Americans. And the protests of the war had been small, manned by just a few thousand people -- most still with suits and short hair. They certainly didn't look like radicals.

LBJ probably figured, with his signing ceremonies for Medicare and the Voting Rights Act coming up, most people wouldn't notice this increase in the draft rolls. (That's why embarrassing stories are often leaked by politicians on Fridays or just before holiday weekends, and it's not just the nature of the holiday that leads to pardons on Christmas Eve.)

But the Watts riot was about to happen -- between that and this, the Johnson Administration had peaked, and would never be so popular again. Most Presidents usually get a "honeymoon" that lasts 100 days after their Inauguration, January 20 to April 30, with good media coverage, without serious criticism. Because he had become President following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, LBJ had gotten over a year and a half, including an actual election. But it was coming to an end.

There was another change the following month: On August 26, 1965, LBJ signed an Executive Order, ending the exemption for married men from being drafted. Any marriage performed after Midnight, local time, on August 26 would be powerless to save someone from the draft under the U.S. Selective Service Act.

All across America, young couples scrambled to say their "I dos" before the clock struck 12. In one Las Vegas courthouse, which usually handled 10 to 12 weddings a day under the liberal marriage (and divorce) laws of the State of Nevada, 171 frantic couples tied the knot on August 26, most of them between the hours of 10:00 PM and 12:00 Midnight.

The backlash had already begun. On April 17, in a demonstration organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 25,000 people marched against the war in Washington. On May 5, 40 men burned their draft cards, the 1st time this was publicly done, at the University of California, Berkeley, and a coffin was marched to the Berkeley Draft Board. As far as I can tell, this is the first public burning of draft cards in the Vietnam era.

*

July 28, 1965 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. Starter Jack Cullen and reliever Steve Hamilton fell apart in the top of the 8th inning, including a home run to Norm Cash. Al Kaline went 2-for-4. For the Yankees, Tony Kubek hit a home run, and Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4.

* The New York Mets were swept in a doubleheader by the Chicago Cubs, 7-2 and 9-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Larry Jackson pitched a 5-hit shutout in the 2nd game. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 5-for-9 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 6-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski hit a home run. Bill Monbouquette allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the California Angels, 5-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Washington Senators, 8-1 at District of Columbia Stadium (later Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) in Washington. Harmon Killebrew hit a home run.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. With 1 out in the top of the 14th inning, Don Schwall walked Tony González, Johnny Callison and Dick Allen. Alex Johnson singled Rojas home with the winning run. Vernon Law had pitched 12 shutout innings for the Pirates. Jim Bunning pitched 2-hit shutout ball for 8 innings, and Jack Baldschun allowed 3 runs over 6 innings to be the winning pitcher.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Houston Astros, 6-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. Hank Aaron went 0-for-2 with a walk and an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Rookie Joe Morgan hit a home run for the Astros.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Sammy Ellis outpitched Sandy Koufax, including getting more strikeouts, 12-8. Frank Robinson went 0-for-4. Pete Rose went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with a walk.