Race riots happened in the sixties. “Watts” ring a bell with you?
As to what happened ... the fifties and sixties happened. This riot is the legacy of the so-called “civil” “rights” “movement”.
Of course I remember the Watts riots. My (Lilly White) family lived in Watts on 110th street - in the fifties. I don't really remember but apparently there was no problem at all back then. My parents bought a house in the San Gabriel Valley in 1960. That area has changed dramatically as well and is no longer safe.
I graduated from HS and enlisted in the Army a year after the riots and have not called California "Home" since.