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As I said during the watch riot, even at its worst, there were 4,000 people involved. Less than 1% of the Negro population lost anglers. The average Negro citizen in 1965 in Watts was in his house with his doors and windows closed because he was frightened of what was going on. National Educational Television presents Citymakers, a series of conversations on the Urban Dilemma in America, recorded in the campus of Brandeis University, January 9, 1969. Dr. Kenneth Clark, Citymakers host, and Larry Allison of the Long Beach Press Telegram, talk with Sam Juarty, Mayor of Los Angeles, the country's fastest growing city. You mentioned Watts, and there was a time when Los Angeles was, the image of Los Angeles was sort of dominated by the glamour of Hollywood and movie stars and the affluence of America.
Since 1965, it seems to me that Los Angeles, that image is somewhat balanced by the image of Watts as there have been any significant changes in the problems of Watts since the riot. Yes, of course, there have been tremendous changes, but before I discussed that, I would like to say that Watts is not what the Easterners think it is. Watts is a name that's been given to a much bigger area than Watts itself, which is a very small area. But it is an area of small homes and churches and schools. It is absolutely nothing like Eastern Slums and Tenements. And these Eastern writers who have been writing about Watts come out there and see it, and some of them sort of gas, because it's a weapon. As a Western writer in the East, would you sort of, would you like it? It's absolutely true. Watts is not a slum problem at all.
It's a, you have only classic problems of a ghetto except, it's not a mysterious housing situation. What about the psychological slum? Psychologically, the problem with the... Psychologically, I think only as a, I would say a ghetto problem, not a slum problem. And in the way that ghetto has come to be accepted as a place where only one color people or one ethnic group live. And in that sense, it is. But from the standpoint of any of the other problems, it's entirely different now. In 1964, the National Urban League took a survey of all the big cities. And I was very proud when it came out, because Los Angeles was really way ahead of the other big cities, as far as a good life for the Negro citizens was concerned. We were rated the best big city in the United States. Now right after 1964, you remember Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference began their drive for what we accepted in Los Angeles versus the right to vote.
I can remember when I was conducting voter registration drives in the Negro or Black area, some of the people preferred to call it. And I couldn't understand why they wouldn't vote, because they were in my district and as a congressman, and I wanted them to get out and vote. And the President's congressman, but not then Augustus Hawkins, said to me one day, said, well Sam, the reason you can't get him registered, they think there's a poll tax. He said, they don't know that California doesn't have a poll tax. So while Dr. King was demonstrating for the right to go to the polls and the vote in his section of the country, we were conducting voter drives. But our people were watching on television what was going on in some Southern cities. And they were watching dogs chasing peaceful demonstrators. They were watching cow prods, and they had a couple of sheriffs who were billed up as the villain, and they were watching them. And they created a highly agitational atmosphere.
So I think it was a major factor, yes, I do, because I, myself, felt very agitated watching what I saw on TV. And I don't subscribe to all of Dr. Marshall McCluhan's theories. But I do think that his idea that this television is what he calls a cool medium that involves you, and you're part of this action, I think that's true. And I believe that it did set the stage for what happened in Los Angeles. When Charles Evers visited Los Angeles, and was talking about his problems in Mississippi, registering voters and so forth, the young black militants in Los Angeles didn't quite relate with him, because Charles Evers, of course, has a good deal of antagonism toward people and stories. But there are some realistic problems having to do with the conditions of life of the Negroes and Watts, which contributed to the structure. The same conditions that have existed for the Negroes has, and through the nation for
a very long time, I mean, the feeling of discrimination. Well, the feeling and the definite discrimination, yes. And of course, you got to remember that we're different also from some other cities that we're growing so fast. And we estimate that about 2,000 new citizens a month come into the city, and I mean more than that, but that many from the southern Negro population growing in a fast, about 2,000 a month, out of about 1,000 a week is our growth rate now. That we estimate, we don't have any Census Bureau border line, but this is our the best estimate we can make. And of course, these people, I'm sure, came with great hopes and felt that they could easily get a job and the conditions would be much better for them. And they do come in through Watts as a sort of a corridor and then disperse into other areas, but certainly there were great frustrations. And there was a higher unemployment rate, as there still is.
One thing that I notice, and I visit Los Angeles in particular in the Watts area, is that there has been precious little rebuilding of the devastation of the 65 riot at Watts. Is that deliberate or are we just waiting for? It's not deliberate from the standpoint of city policy. It hasn't been easy to get all the people together on a redevelopment plan. As I pointed out to you, we set aside some area for industry to bring jobs there. This was turned unacceptable, we had to redo the plan and leave out industry and so forth. But I am really happy that we finally have a Watts redevelopment plan that's been accepted by the people. We held meetings in the area, we had committees, and the vast majority are now for the plan and it will go forward from here on. But you don't rebuild an area in a year or two. One of the first things, even before the Watts disturbance, it called my attention to the fact that maybe Los Angeles was not to be understood just in terms of Hollywood and
glamour. It was the fact that the police in the Black Muslims, remember when Malcolm X was alive, there was an incident between Los Angeles police and the Black Muslims. More recently, the Black Panthers in the police seem to be having a sort of a set too in Los Angeles, not unlike a few other cities. Is this an ongoing problem with police and Black militants? There's a problem between police and the extreme Black militants because the extreme Black militants would create the problem if it didn't exist anyway. Now they say when you police create it. Yes, but I know what they are doing and some of them have been infiltrated by groups that are using them and manipulating them. You've got a lot of Maoist anarchists and all kinds of people working on the Panthers. They are arming themselves in some cases.
We know they have arsenals. They are making threats against policemen. They have people that are agitating them and they give a completely distorted view of the Black citizens of Los Angeles. That is the Black Panthers in Los Angeles because, as I said, during the watch riot, even at its worst, there were 4,000 people involved. Less than 1% of the Negro population in Los Angeles and the average Negro citizen in 1965 in Los Angeles was in his house with his doors and windows closed because he was frightened of what was going on. Well, recently, Mayor Yordi, you stated that student disruptions in general were largely to blame or largely instigated by Communists and Communist Front Organizations. Well, no, I didn't say that. I said that the Communists had infiltrated the student movement, particularly like the SDS.
Well, don't you feel they admitted that they accept Communists? Do you think the same is true of the extreme Black militants? Well, I know to some extent it is, I know of some cases where they have been infiltrated. And if you look at where some of their leaders go, they go to Havana, they go to Hanoi, they don't go to Saigon. Some of them, of course, have held meetings with the North Vietnamese and the so-called Vietnam and other parts of the world. And I think we'd be pretty naive not to think that the Communists want to influence them. I was just thinking, no, that if the danger of pinning the Communists tag on student disruptions in general, what do you think that tends to obscure some of the issues these people want to raise? No, I don't think so. I think you have to discuss issues as issues. And I think we're young people who don't understand that they're being manipulated by subversive forces. I think when you bring it out in the open and they know it, then they have a better chance
themselves to put the whole thing in perspective, now. It seems to me that simply characterizing these movements as Communists, or on the first minute, I want to stop you right there because I haven't done that. And this is the old tactic that they used against Senator McCarthy because he went to such extremes. I want to put this in absolute perspective. I said that Communists were infiltrating these groups and that they were trying to use them and manipulate them. And I think that is true, and I named the people, and I used their pictures, and I showed pictures of them at various agitational type meetings. Yeah, I don't think anybody would question that, especially the way you phrased it, trying to manipulate them. But, as I recall, you made one statement about the Century Plaza demonstration, and there's something like 10,000 people there, that day protesting President Johnson's video. Oh, I don't know how many people have forgotten the number, but they weren't all there protesting President Johnson's video. No, there were a lot of number of different reasons, the warriotic seekers.
We have pictures of identified Communists at that meeting, and we know that some of them did planning in advance, and of course they want a confrontation using it. Well, those few. But the one is, I think you specified that 17 were identified, wasn't that the number you used? I don't remember the exact numbers, probably true. If that's what I said in the statement, it was carefully researched and it was true. Mayor Alioto of San Francisco has said that, for example, he believes in using firmness when there's violence or law breaking, but at the same time too, that the city and police should go out of their way to give a platform for dissidents to air their views. And, for example, in issues like issuing permits for marches and demonstrations, that the city should be lenient to the point almost of permissiveness. So that does give you a close attention to the Lindsey image, or the Lindsey image. I don't try to compare my method of administration with any other mayor, I have a own problem. And I think Los Angeles is the governmental machinery is running smoothly. I would say much more smoothly in Saint New York.
But, and these things don't happen accidentally. We have certain labor programs and other matters that we think are working, at least we hope so. As far as contact with the black community ever since I've been mayor, I've had not only important commissioners from the black community who are in contact, but also on my own staff, I have people. And, for instance, in the not too long ago, we had a police raid on a Muslim temple. And this was reminiscent of the conflict several years ago that you mentioned, doctor. I had a member of my staff in contact with the Muslim minister. And he had agreed that the police could come into the temple the next morning. And so, they went on in at night, and they didn't find the arms cash that was supposed
to be there. But, myself, somebody gave us malicious information for our purpose. Because I had contact with the Muslim minister, I simply called up and apologized to him. And he accepted the apology, and that settled that. So this is the way I operate. I do have contact. I don't try to be flamboyant and make a grandstand play out of everything. Because I think that soon wears itself out and wears off. But I think you have to do, keep working all the time now. In my look at urban problems, I try not to concentrate on the dramatic incidents. That's right. But to try to find out what are some of the underlying problems that occasionally erupt in these dramatic incidents, we've already talked a little about housing. But it is interesting to me that in the Los Angeles area, one of the differences, which any knowledgeable observer immediately sees, is that there are not the large public housing
projects. We've got a new plan in Los Angeles, it's very novel. And I wouldn't want to claim great success for it because it's experimental. But we have a plan to build townhouses, which would mean that there will not be over 10 units, perhaps 12 on two lots, which would roughly be 100 feet front each by about 150 feet in depth. And these will not be all in one place. They'll be only as a matter of fact, one in a block. And even people on welfare under certain circumstances can own their own townhouse. They do it by paying 20% of their income no matter how they get their income. And they will have a place to live that is suitable for them. They will have, for instance, enough bedrooms and accommodations. But they will be in areas where the schools are established, where the church is in parks and so forth.
They won't be brought by themselves. And the children will play with the children in the area who are not all on welfare and who are not all frustrated in suffering these miserable conditions. Now I don't know if this will work. But we call it as another or well novel approach. And I tell you what I'm praying it will work on. My idea has always been, and as you mentioned earlier about the problem I had before, Senator Ribbockoff and when Senator Kennedy was present, actually Senator Kennedy got too much blame for that. The meanest things were said by Senator Ribbockoff, who said Los Angeles doesn't amount to a darn all that. That wasn't Senator Kennedy. He said that all the people think it was, it was Ribbockoff. But I had said to them that I thought one of the problems in housing was that in the white communities, they don't fear what I would call integration. They fear inundation. They've been told and they believe that if one Negro family comes in, that the whole area is going to go black right away and they feel threatened by it.
Do they feel the same way about a Mexican-American family? Some would, yes. But I feel the answer is what I call the salt and pepper thing. I think we should, for instance, I recommended that committee that if an apartment owner would say rent 10% or 20% of his apartments to minority people, then he couldn't be charged with unfair practices. And I felt in this way that an apartment owner, a man of good faith, who does not believe in segregation and discrimination, could then say to his other tenants, now I'm going to rent a certain number of apartments to minority people, but that's all. So don't move out, stay here and see if we can't make this work. But I didn't get that across to them at all. Because then the extremists would say, well, that's not fair. I should rent 100%. You see, and they make a political issue out of it. This recently come to my attention that you have been interested in not only urban affairs, but foreign affairs, and one specific bit of information which I received that I'd like
to check with you, is that you were interested in the post, in the Nixon administration, specifically the Department of Defense, is it correct? Well, I certainly would like the Secretary of Defense, but I'm a Democrat and I did not support Nixon. Oh, I supported that. No, I didn't take any stand in the race. So he couldn't put a Democrat who didn't support him into that position. But this was just speculates, people asked me what I would take, and I said if I had a choice which I don't have, and I'm not going to have, I would take that because I have been interested in foreign affairs and defense, all of my adult life. It is interesting that we're exploring areas of foreign affairs and matters of defense with the mayor of the city, and it is unusual that a mayor would have been as much involved in. So a mayor comes out completely for the doves, as for instance, I think Mr. Lindsay did, I know he made a statement that the young people should join the resistance of the draft
or something. In most of the press, that's very acceptable. But if you take a different point of view, then they say, well, what's he know about an American, stay out of foreign affairs, so it's most of them judged by their own point of view. The Los Angeles Times seem to be one of your most vigorous and persistent political adversaries. What's happening in that area? Well, they fought me for years, and they did endorse me for re-election in 1965, I think because the business community found the other candidate Jimmy Roosevelt completely unacceptable. But with that exception, they have fought me ever since 1936 when I first ran for office. Do you think that the Los Angeles Times attack on you has, in any way, influenced your political success in the future? Well, it has hurt because I've had the problem with a few commissioners who a couple were actually convicted of accepting some used furniture seven months after they voted on a contract.
It was a very good contract from the city. But this sort of thing has been blown up out of all proportion. We have, it is nothing like happening in New York, for instance, where one of Lindsay's close friends was appointed to a job and took a pay off from the Matthew and so forth. We haven't had that kind of thing. I've had some commissioners I've appointed who have been disappointments and I fired them. I had one who was convicted of bribery and I said it was a legal lynching, he shouldn't even have been indicted. Is that about what? I'm not about what? Commissioner? Very unfair, and the judge after the man had been through the trial after the judge refused to dismiss the case after the prosecution completed its case, after all that, and the judge granted a new trial and dismissed it. There's a serious trial of a councilman and a commissioner that I appointed but who kind of began to work with the council instead of with the mayor and I started that inquiry
myself that resulted from my call to the police department and the district attorney and the times hasn't point this out. I would say that the young publisher of the Times is there, not on merit, he's there because his family owns a newspaper and he not only wants to run the paper because of his great wealth, I think he would also like to run the city and they did have a mayor in the past that was cow-tow to them but I would rather not be an office that would be a stooge for the Los Angeles Times. Well, of course there's nobody here to present the Times as a side of that argument, actually less than they presented every day and they don't present my side. One of your very well publicized views was with the Kennedys, particularly Bobby Kennedy. How is that in regard to say the President's senator? Do you have any kind of relations with Ted Kennedy? No, I don't really, I'd have to say I really don't know Ted Kennedy.
People seem to have a little different attitude to him, toward him than they do the senator Robert Kennedy. I think he's probably less abrasive and moves more smoothly in the Senate than perhaps among the population. I didn't really know Senator Robert Kennedy very well, we had met each other and I think at the Senate hearing some of the young people running, passing him notes caused him to say some things that he probably wouldn't have said if he'd had time to think about it. And actually from then on we began to sort of joke about each other and it was sort of a good nature thing and I used to kid about him and I enjoyed his quips about me. In Los Angeles we would have liked to supply him with much more protection than his staff would let us give him. This is a policy of theirs, they didn't want a lot of policemen around and they'd had trouble in Fresno over the same matter. We wanted to give him more protection.
He would not, I don't say that he but his staff did not accept it, but about the last thing Senator Kennedy said was a joke about me, you know, he said that I think we should go now. Marjority thinks we've been here too long already. Marjority and I'm sure Marie Ellison will join me in trying to extract from you as much as you would want to tell us about your own political future. We know that you are going to run for mayor again and I assume that you will be making some special efforts to get the kind of packing from the minority communities which you had in your first, what do you see beyond this in terms of your own political aspirations in the future? Well, I really don't know, I first have to get the morality race over with and I expect to have considerable backing in the minority communities this time. I was defeated by Governor Pat Brown in the Democratic primary for governor mainly by
the minority people who voted ten to one against me at that time, although I would say and I wish Pat were here to defend his own record that I've done much more for minority people than he has, but I have to run a police department and we had real problems and there was great agitation against Chief William Parker and this reflected on me, but I believe that has changed. But as a matter of fact, when you were elected for the first time in 1961, you had very strong support in the minority groups. Well, as a matter of fact, not just in 1965, on my life, on my life I've had strong minority support. You must remember that I represented the Negro area of Los Angeles in Congress, and that's why I say I was involved in voter registration in the Hawkins Donald represents. Yes, it's been changed and garamandered, but it was the Hawkins area, he was an assembly money in my congressional district, and then the district was garamandered and it became
the district where Jimmy Roosevelt ran and got elected when I didn't run for re-election. So I've had strong minority support all my life and the only time that I know if I've ever had a real defeat in the minority area was in that gubernatorial. But of course, in 1965, the support dropped, and the 40 percent you mentioned was a decline in support in the minority. Well, I wouldn't say that it was because after all, the Rose Felt name among the black population is a pretty big name. And I felt I did pretty well against Jimmy who was their own congressman, their own area with the problems that I had with the police department, of course, in law and everything. I thought that 40 percent showed quite an awareness on the part of the Negro citizens of the fact that I had always been a friend. Given your unusual closeness with the Republican Nixon administration for being a Democrat,
what do you expect from the Nixon administration in the area of urban affairs, health, education and welfare? Well, I have a feeling that Mr. Romney will do all right there. I think he has been a good administrator and that is an extremely important department. And I expect to get help from, at least I certainly hope so. As far as health education, welfare, Mr. Finch, even before taking office, he has said that he thinks welfare payments must be uniformed throughout the nation. So this is a hopeful sign for a city like Clinton. I tend to give support to Larry's belief that some seemingly daring or imaginative proposals which one in a stereotyped notion of Republican conservatism would not expect to come from this administration might.
But Dr. again, you know, really people in public office, most of them, confront a problem and do what they have to do. And it doesn't make much difference what they've said during the campaign. As for instance, our governor in California, Ronald Reagan, I'm sure that he thought he could cut taxes. And yet after he got elected, he gave us the biggest tax increase in history of any state in the Union. And I'm sure he didn't want to do that. But he was confronted with facts. And sometimes I think- You seem very compassionate for Republicans. Well, I'm compassionate for all people in public office because I know what the problems are. And you're faced with facts, not theories. And you have to find solutions to them. And I think sometimes if you haven't had much experience in government, and you don't know a great deal about it, it's probably easier for you in the campaign because you've been make outrageous promises. And you think you can keep them. I think that's an excellent note in which we would thank you for a very enlightening discussion. Thank you very much, Larry.
Alison. Thank you. On this program, Dr. Kenneth Clark, host and Larry Allison, talked with Mayor Sam Yorty of Los Angeles, California. This program was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Martin Weiner Distinguished Lectureship Fund, Brandeis University. Citymakers was produced for National Educational Television by WGBHTV Boston. This is NET, the public television network.
Series
City Makers
Episode Number
3
Episode
Mayor Sam Yorty
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/512-w08w951s1s
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Description
Episode Description
This is the third episode in an eight-part series on contemporary urban problems. Samuel Yorty, 59, is preparing this year to seek a third four-year term as mayor of Los Angeles, the nation's third largest city. He is questioned on "City Makers" by Larry Allison, former city editor of the Long Beach (Calif.) Independent-Press-Telegram, who is on a leave of absence from the paper while studying as a Niemen Fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, host for "City Makers," join in questioning Yorty. The black community of Watts is a major topic of conversation. Yorty refers to the area as "a ghetto problem, not a slum problem" and tries to draw a distinction between the riots in Watts and those that have taken place in the black neighborhoods of other major cities. Yorty concedes there is a serious public transportation problem for the residents of Watts, many of whom have no access to good jobs elsewhere in the Los Angeles area. However, he puts much of the blame for the 1965 civil disorders there on television news coverage, which he says inflamed Negroes by showing them acts of brutality against civil rights demonstrators. Yorty decries what he calls the communist "strategy of moving in on anything that they classify as a struggle," and asserts that radical youth movements, both black and white, have been infiltrated and are being exploited by communists. The mayor also discusses his on-going dispute with the Los Angeles Times and his relationship with Robert Kennedy, including their 1966 feud in which the late senator accused Yorty of neglecting ghetto problems. "City Makers" is produced for National Educational Television by NET's Boston affiliate station, WGBH, on the campus of Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. Producer: Henry Morgenthau. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Series Description
In City Makers, an 8-part series, Dr. Kenneth Clark conducts half-hour interviews with important figures discussing the troubles plaguing American cities. Dr. Clark was a professor of psychology at City College of the City University of New York, and was also visiting professor at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., when he hosted this series, which was recorded in color.
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:29:28
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Credits
Producer: Morgenthau, Henry, 1917-
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2087820-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 2 inch videotape: Quad
Duration: 0:29:22
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2087820-3 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: Color
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2087820-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Master
Color: Color
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Citations
Chicago: “City Makers; 3; Mayor Sam Yorty,” Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-w08w951s1s.
MLA: “City Makers; 3; Mayor Sam Yorty.” Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-w08w951s1s>.
APA: City Makers; 3; Mayor Sam Yorty. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-w08w951s1s