Arts & Culture The Leimert Park Book Fair is around the corner
July 23, 2015
LAWT News Service
The LPVBF will recognize the significance of the 1965 Watts Rebellion with a panel discussion. Noted community leaders, educators, elected officials and more will gather for a conversation on the 50th Anniversary of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Panelists will discuss the underlying causes that led to an unprecedented loss of lives, injuries and millions in property damage; highlighting growing racial tensions and socioeconomic disparities in the LA’s predominantly black communities.
The discussion culminates with a special screening of the acclaimed documentary, “The Angry Voices of Watts” (1965). Although decades earlier, the events and outcomes of the Rebellion mirror many of the same such events as the 1992 LA Riots and the recent protests in Baltimore. The objective will be to share with participants and attendees where we are as a city (and a nation) since the riots - the progression in the midst of setbacks.
Featured Spotlight Authors
Attica Locke, Author of “Black Water Rising” and co-producer/ writer of Fox’s “Empire” (11:00 am and 2:00 pm)
Attica Locke’s first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK. Her second book, The Cutting Season, published by Dennis Lehane books, is a national bestseller, and is the 2013 winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A graduate of Northwestern University, Locke was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab and worked as a screenwriter for years. She is a writer and producer on the Fox drama, Empire. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.