Digital Watts Project

The Digital Watts Project (ENGL 5998), a graduate-level English class taught in the summer of 2016, focused on the 1965 “Watts Uprising” that took place in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The class worked with the Southern California Library to make available, through a digital public humanities project, primary sources intended to expand the narrative around the events of 1965 and to situate them in a broader context of the history of race and racism in Los Angeles. The class incorporated literary texts, history, and information science readings, and had a number of speakers with expertise in public history, economics, community archives, and information science based race and gender issues.