Lost Vegas: The 1969 West Las Vegas Riots
If you Google "West Las Vegas riots," you'll see stories about the 1992 riots that broke out in a historically black area of Las Vegas following the Rodney King verdict. While this tragic incident resulted in one death, another riot that occurred at the same location 23 years ago was even more deadly.
It has almost completely disappeared into history.
Between October 5 and 8, 1969, West Side residents set fires, broke windows, looted stores and overturned parked cars. The trigger was protests against police brutality against two black men. When the smoke cleared, two people were dead, 200 arrested and hundreds injured.
“This was the largest uprising in the history of the city at that time,” said Tyler Parry, associate professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Why have reports of the riots not only disappeared from the history books but become virtually nowhere to be found? Found it on the internet?
Even though the black community had valid reasons to oppose the police state in the late 1960s, it wasn't something that people understood at all," Parry said. "Because it was just a bunch of rowdy teenagers trying to destroy property, most people just said , 'Let's forget about this and move on. ’”
Information about the riots can now be found almost exclusively in old books or on paid newspaper archive websites. At UNLV, Parry stumbled upon microfilm coverage of the Las Vegas Sun
“For my purposes, it’s interesting to look at it from the perspective of historically voiceless groups of people,” said Parry, who cited the riots as a topic he will discuss at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on April 4. The subject of a talk delivered by the branch as part of the University Forum series.
What started
Parry, who draws his view from hundreds of interviews, news reports and personal letters he uncovered, believes the riots were the result of rising racial tensions not just in Las Vegas but throughout the United States at the time.
"This is the conclusion of a decade that exposed the false promises of many political leaders," he said. “It shows how people in the post-civil rights era are dissatisfied with the lack of progress and are demanding government attention by speaking out against police brutality and systemic racism.”
The trigger for this ugly incident was frequent traffic jams. On Sunday, October 5, a black police officer, Robert Arrington, stopped a black taxi driver for speeding.
Gerald Davis was working on his mother's car on the street. He knew the driver and walked over to ask what was wrong. According to Parry, Arrington viewed this as "an affront to his authority."
According to Parry, Arrington followed Davis back to his mother's car and yelled, "'What did you say?' What did you say to him?!'"
"The officer had no reasonable excuse," Parry noted. "Davis had no reason to be harassed. Under the law, he did not have to speak to the officer."
In order to ignore Arrington, Davis entered his mother's house. According to Parry, both officers followed him. Once inside, they saw him hand his sister a gun that was officially registered in his name.
"Then it took off," Parry said.
Point of No Return
Arrington drew his gun and ordered Davis to kneel down and put his hands up. Davis' brother Mike saw this and walked out of the house with an unloaded shotgun.
"It's my understanding that he intended to exercise his Second Amendment rights, which he considered to be an abuse of state power," Parry said. "He's a hot-headed teenager who is probably tired of seeing police harassing people in his community."
According to Parry, Arrington followed the brothers back to the house and arrested them both, but not before knocking everyone in the house unconscious.
At this point, approximately 150 people had gathered to watch the event.
Within hours, there was a real confrontation between 200 police officers and demonstrators at the Golden West Mall around the corner. Realizing that their presence would only make the situation worse, the police left before midnight.
The next morning, city officials held their breath, hoping to label the incident an isolated incident.
But that afternoon, two white men drove into the mall and were attacked by a group of people and beaten unconscious, triggering a second wave of violence. Rioters looted a Friendship pub to obtain bottles of alcohol to make Molotov cocktails. They threw them, along with rocks, at any patrol car that drove into the neighborhood.
A 64-year-old electrician was then pulled from the vehicle and beaten, and a woman was pulled from the vehicle and forced to take off her clothes.
More than 150 helmeted police officers and sheriff's deputies responded, cordoning off 40 blocks and then conducting repeated searches in an unsuccessful attempt to regain the upper hand.
Las Vegas Mayor Oran Gragson imposed a lockdown at 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and a request to the governor to declare a state of emergency. Paul Laxalt should mobilize the National Guard. As night fell, the power company cut off all power in the area.
Both deaths occurred on the third night. Albert Hayes Jr., a 35-year-old black man, was killed by Lonnie Johnson, a black manager of a liquor store, when he heard the store windows being broken and saw Hayes fleeing the building. Lonnie Johnson was shot in the back.
Also on Oct. 8, Carl Benson, 71, who was white, was shot in the neck and killed while trying to rob his W.T. van. Raleigh companies boycotted. George D. Singleton, 22, was charged with murder.
Although more than 350 Guardsmen were gathered in their armory, they were never deployed. The riot subsided on its own, leaving the West End in ruins.
United States History X-ed
Parry said Las Vegas' African-American history had only recently been destroyed "in favor of its Mafia history, Howard Hughes and corporate takeovers of the casinos."
Historically, this kind of money-related story has been more interesting when people think of Las Vegas. ” he said. “So what happened in the West End was never really prioritized within the larger narrative. To this day, most people who come to Las Vegas don't even know there's a historically black community, even though it's literally right across the railroad tracks. "
Parry will perform "They Forgot, We're Human Too: Revisiting the 1969 West Las Vegas Uprising" beginning at 7 p.m. - Thursday, April 4, 9 p.m., Room 101, Beverly Rogers Literary and Law Building, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Admission is free to the public.
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Source: www.casino.org
