The Zoot Suit Riots, a series of breakouts of mob violence in Los Angeles, broke out on this day in 1943. The participants: Young Latino and Black residents of L.A., off-duty police officers, and other civilians. Zoot suits were sets of big, flappy trousers and jackets with big lapels built to accentuate dance moves; they arose in dance halls during the 1930s.
The suits were especially popular among Black, Mexican American, and other minority communities. To local affluent people, they became seen as a kind of symbol of delinquency worn by gang members and teenagers up to no good. People also resented the amount of cloth that went into the suits, as World War II rationing measures limited the amount of fabric anyone could buy as it was reserved for military use.
A sailor was beaten during a fight between servicemen and Mexican American teens on May 31. Three days later a group of sailors and zoot-suited teens got into an argument that both groups claimed were started by the other group. Things escalated from there; later, 200 sailors gathered and headed to East L.A. and beat teens wearing zoot suits with clubs, also tearing off their suits and burning them.
Thousands more people would join the riots in the coming days, with many Mexican Americans beaten. Police were instructed not to arrest white rioters but did arrest Mexican American rioters. Newspapers backed the riots, encouraging them as a form of vigilante justice. Finally, Navy and Marine leadership pulled all service members out of L.A. and confined them to nearby barracks, cutting off the conflict.
For more on the Zoot Suit Riots, read this article on the website of the National World War II Museum.
