Anecdote – Watts Towers and Death in LA

Watts Towers and Death in LA

Back in 1979 Los Angeles was very racially segregated. There were Chicano area, Black areas and White areas. There were Chicano gangs, Black gangs and White gangs. As an English person it was all a bit strange. I was to teach in a High school in Norwalk and that year Norwalk had the highest number of gang related murders. That was scary. The week I arrived a young man was executed. He was walking in the park and a group of youths chased him, dragged him back to their car and shot him in the head. It seems he was new in from Mexico. He’d innocently walked through the park wearing the wrong colour jacket. They thought he was from the rival gang. The Crypts and Bloods had a turf war.

We were given a lecture on where it was safe to go and which streets not to go near. We were told not to stop at traffic lights in certain areas. People would shoot you. We had to keep all our doors locked.

Needless to say we took no notice at all of all the warnings. We drove where we wanted.

One of the places we wanted to visit was Watts Towers. They were an amazing set of structures created by Sabato (“Simon”) Rodia who was an Italian artist. It was made out of old bottles and cans all cemented together into these great spindly towers. It was an impressive work of art and one that we were eager to see.

The only problem seemed to be that Watts Towers were in the middle of Watts. That was a black gang area. According to the teachers at school this was a ‘no go’ area. To go into Watts was certain death.

Undaunted we loaded up the van with kids and headed off to Watts. I didn’t have an issue with race; I didn’t see why anybody else would have. We hadn’t done anything wrong.

As we headed down the boulevard it was noticeable that we were part of a multicultural group. In the cars around us and on the sidewalks there were black, white and Chicano all seeming to be in harmony and getting along fine.

When we reached the intersection for Watts it was noticeable that this changed. We were in traffic driven solely by black people; all the sidewalks were full of black people. All the white and Chicano traffic had turned off.

At each intersection groups of black youths, lounging against walls, peered in at us. They seemed bemused. They were wondering how ‘whitey’ had managed to get lost.

We found Watts Towers, despite the fact that satellite navigation had not been invented, due to Liz’s map reading, and had a good look round. They were incredible. We returned to our van and went home.

We hadn’t been shot once! We hadn’t even been threatened. Everyone we spoke to was polite and friendly.

When I told them at school the next day they were horrified. They could not believe we had put the poor kids at such risk.

I believe you have to live by your principles and take people as you find them.