On Aug. 11, more than a half century ago, the nearly all-Black community of Watts in South Central Los Angeles was simmering in a California heatwave. But before the day was done, Watts exploded into violence and flames after an abusive White patrolman arrested a young Black man for driving drunk. The incident touched off the Watts Rebellion, one of the largest urban uprisings in the nation’s history.
Watts erupted in 1965. For years it had been a tinderbox for Black rage. Then, like now, widespread racial disparities, which ignited the uprising, were roiling America. Health disparities. Poverty. Police brutality. Crime. Poor housing. High unemployment and underemployment. Underfunded and racially segregated schools.
In the aftermath of the Watts Rebellion came the historically Black Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU), founded in 1966, in Los Angeles. Today, the institution named for the pioneering Black physician who developed blood banks is thriving. Located in the Watts-Willowbrook neighborhood of South Los Angeles, CDU is a healthcare bridge to a resource desert that some say is still in recovery decades after Watts erupted.
The million people, largely Black and Hispanic, who live in South Los Angeles have some of the worst health outcomes in Los Angeles County. That’s particularly troubling today as the burden of the coronavirus pandemic gets layered on top of those still smoldering embers, says Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, dean and professor of medicine at CDU.
As she looks deeper, Prothrow-Stith suggests that scars left by the decades-old unrest are deeply linked to the racial and health disparities the pandemic has exposed in the most vulnerable populations served by CDU. Mounting reports, like a recent report from APM Research Lab, indicate that Black people, more than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, continue to be the hardest hit, with higher rates of COVID-19 infections, deaths and hospitalizations.
COVID-19 testing in communities of color
