Honors Final Paper

Los Angeles in the 1960’s

For my 2012 Senior project for English class, the goal was to create a ‘Literary Atlas’, that detailed a specific time and place. What I chose to research was Los Angeles in the 1960’s – I felt that it would be a momentous and interesting decade, and I was right. To further my knowledge of this subject, I read four books; “Listen to the Lambs” by Johnny Otis, “Helter Skelter” by Vincent Bugliosi, “Blue Jean Baby : One Girl’s Trip Through the 1960’s LA Music Scene” by Sally Parmer, and “The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy : The Conspiracy and Coverup” by William Turner and Jonn Christian. Some of the books focused on crime and facts, while others centered on adventures and anecdotes. All of these novels, however, were written in or about the 1960’s, and – read together – they gave a decent impression of what living in the Los Angeles during the 1960’s was like. Based on my research up until this point, it seems to me that, while 1960’s brought revolution and innovation to Los Angeles, it also brought fear.

The fear wasn’t obvious, though – at least not at first. In fact, the first thing you’d probably notice about the sixties was the fashion. Styles such as mod (coming from Britain, along with The Beatles) and hippie (including psychedelic colors and crazy patterns) became increasingly popular, and items such as the bikinis, stilettos, and miniskirts became trendy. The trendsetters of the time era included Jacqueline Kennedy, who was largely responsible for the popularization of the pillbox hat, and Audrey Hepburn, who made skinny jeans popular. Of course, you’d also see quintessential sixties gear, such as tie-dye, bellbottom jeans, and go-go boots. During this time period, men’s hats went out of fashion, and long hair (and afros) became the popular and common hairstyles. For women, beehives and pageboy cuts were among the popular ‘dos. Parmer’s book, “Blue Jean Baby”, gives a good look at the fashions of the 1960’s in saying, “I now drew a heavy black line over green eyes, wore Erace ccover-up like lipstick, and ironed my hair stick-straight on the ironing board, often laying the iron down on my hand. (It was painfully obvious who ironed their hair; we sported blisters on the tops of our left-hand fingers.) …  I analyzed the completed image in the hallway mirror and compared it to a Vogue magazine photo of Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s girlfriend.”

The 1960’s were a revolutionary time, regardless of where you lived.  The energy of this time period could be felt everywhere. Movements were endless; everyone found something to fight for. Feminism, anti-war (because the Vietnam War went right through the sixties), gay rights, and Hispanic rights were all, among many others, spoken for during this time. Not to mention African American rights – Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech took place in 1963. Hippies were born, and became an example of the social, sexual, and musical revolutions happening across America – Woodstock took place in 1969, and drugs became much more common. Groupies were a big part of the music culture, in pursuit of up-and-coming bands at the time, such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

While all of this excitement and advancement was felt in Los Angeles, there was something else mixed in with it – that aforementioned ‘fear’. Every single one of the books that I read, in some way or another, dealt with fear. Fear of not fitting in, fear of being rejected, fear of discrimination, or just fear for your life. This abundance of fear in Los Angeles during the 1960s made for more dramatic revolutions, and came about from more vicious happenings. It appears that, despite the new fashions and music and advances, the fear was still there. If you were living in Los Angeles in the sixties, I believe that fear would be a part of your life.

Chronologically speaking, it seems that one of the first apparent fears being realized during the 1960’s in Los Angeles was the fear of revolt, and revolt they did. In the summer of 1965, the city of Watts broke out in riots, resulting in 34 deaths, and over 3,000 arrests. Johnny Otis’ novel, “Listen to the Lambs”, spoke on this subject, in saying, “Like any other spot on earth whose inhabitants are perpetually locked in mortal combat with poverty and affliction, Watts is shot through with visual evidence of its plight. And even when the blemishes and the squalor cannot be readily picked up by the eye, they can be felt. You can almost cut with a knife the rage that this imposed ugliness generates. In the more densely populated and consequently shabbier neighborhoods, this grim and unlovely emotion pervades the atmosphere like a noxious gas. But, on the other hand, in Watts, as in any other spot on the earth where the human spirit refuses to yield, there is a deep and startling beauty.” I really enjoyed this quote, from the second I read it in the book. I felt it not only gave an explanation to why the riots started, and analyzed them, but was put forth in a really beautifully worded way. The Watts riots fit in perfectly with the feel of the sixties – fight against the system, and change what you don’t like. However, they were the worst that Los Angeles city had seen (up until the mid-90’s), and what mainly resulted was a lingering fear.

More fear was inflicted upon the area with the murder of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy was in town campaigning, when he was assassinated. Paul Schrade, a friend of Robert Kennedy’s, who was also shot during the incident, stated, "He knew it was life or death politically that night, and it became a death." While this may have been the only one in Los Angeles during the 1960s, there were certainly other assassinations around the country, and around the world. Malcolm X was killed in 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, not to mention the assassination of Robert Kennedy’s older brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. While I’m sure all of these murders shook up the country, it’s easy to imagine that Robert Kennedy’s murder especially put fear into Los Angeles. Not only was the assassination in their town, but it was also an assassination filled with conspiracy theories and plots. It’s much easier to be afraid of something when you’re not exactly sure what happened.

Of the events I read about and researched over the course of this project, the one that probably instilled the most fear into Los Angeles was the Manson Murders. In Vincent Bugliosi’s novel, “Helter Skelter”, he directly talks about the fear resulting from these murders – “Sometimes fear can be measured. Among the barometers: In two days one Beverly Hills sporting goods store sold 200 firearms; prior to the murders, they averaged three of four a day. Some of the private security forces doubled, then tripled, their personnel. Guard dogs, once priced at $200, now sold for $1,500; those who supplied them soon ran out. Locksmiths quoted two-week delays on orders. Accidental shootings, suspicious persons reports – all suddenly increased.” I thought that this quote was an especially powerful one; both interesting and filled with information. Murders weren’t commonplace in the sixties – no more common than they are now – and that’s why the Manson murders continue to stand out today as horrific crimes. At the time of them, at the end of the 1960’s, in 1969, I can only imagine the ripple it sent through the Los Angeles community, and I feel that this quote from “Helter Skelter” illustrated it very well.

There’s no doubt that the 1960’s were a unique and revolutionary time – it’s easy to look back, today, and see the fashions and popular culture that were abundant then. In the center that is Los Angeles, however, an unseen component was added to the mix. Through the texts I’ve read, and the research I’ve done, the invisible element was fear – if you lived in Los Angeles in the 1960’s, you would have experienced, in some way or another, fear. 

Works Cited

Almendrala, Anna. "Robert F. Kennedy's Assassination Remembered By Paul Schrade." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 June 2011. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/04/robert-f-kennedys-assassination-anniversary_n_871407.html>.

Bugliosi, Vincent, and Curt Gentry. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. New York: Norton, 1974. Print.

Otis, Johnny. Listen to the Lambs. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. Print.

Parmer, Sally. Blue Jean Baby: One Girl's Trip through the 1960s L.A. Music Scene. Charleston, SC: urge, 2009. Print.

Turner, William W., and Jonn G. Christian. The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: A Searching Look at the Conspiracy and Cover-up, 1968-1978. New York: Random House, 1978. Print.