King understood that the chaos of Watts did not emerge from a single incident. While not excusing the violence or the indiscriminate lawlessness, he also knew that the black residents of Watts had witnessed the nearly all-white police force repeatedly brutalizing their neighbors. The people living in this South Central Los Angeles neighborhood felt trapped by the forces of poverty, incarceration, failing schools, and racism. Though activists had been working for change over the course of many years, the cries of the people went largely unheard. As an alternative to gradual change through the
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