Understanding Your Assignment
Before you begin looking for information you should make sure you understand your assignment. Some good questions are:
Your professor is your best resource to answer these questions.
Background
In August 1965, the Watts area of Los Angeles exploded as Black Americans expressed pent-up rage over second-class status in America. The event that triggered the so-called Watts Riots was a simple traffic stop of young man by a Highway Patrol motorcycle officer for reckless driving. A crowd gathered, the driver’s mother was called to come to see what was happening. At first she was angry at her son; when an officer tried to restrain her, the crowd exploded. Within 24 hours Police Chief William Parker called in the National Guard to patrol the streets of Los Angeles. A simple traffic stop had become a national stand-off about civil rights and a community-wide release of decades of anger. The Watts Riots changed Los Angeles - and America - forever.
Your Assignment
Your assignment is to write a paper describing the underlying causes that sparked Black citizens of Los Angeles to explode. The full assignment is below.
Requirements
You must draw on 5 sources: newspapers or magazines: video or documentary film footage; a book or ebook; a scholarly journal; and a newspaper or magazine (on one hand, reporting from the Riots provided a close-up look at what happened, but on the other hand, coverage played its own biased role in the upheaval– the LA Times coverage was so one-sided that 50 years later the Times criticized itself.
Breaking Down The Research Process
The following outline gives a simple and effective strategy for finding information for a research paper and documenting the sources you find. Depending on your topic and your familiarity with the library, you may need to rearrange or recycle these steps. Adapt this outline to your needs. We are ready to help you at every step in your research.
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Below are some additional related research guides |
Need Help 
The Cerritos College Librarians can help you with your research in a variety of ways:
Librarians are available during library hours to answer your questions by phone or chat.
(562) 860-2451 x2425