Watts riot hospital named after MLK closing
Born out of affliction and neglect, [Martin Luther] King-Harbor in the end became a symbol of both.
“The most mystifying element here,” said Joe Hicks, who grew up in Watts and who is the vice president of Community Advocates Inc., a group in downtown Los Angeles that focuses on race relations, “is that instead of demanding to keep an incompetent hospital open, why didn’t community activists take the opposite position that black people and poor folks deserve the same kind of care as other people in L.A.?”
The hospital, in spite of its myriad and often tragedy-inducing flaws, has been revered by much of Watts and Willowbrook simply by virtue of existing.
“Nobody likes to see people die,” said Allen Lee, another longtime Watts resident. “But I just hate to see them close it down.”
After explosive disturbances in 1965, sparked by a confrontation between a highway patrolman and a black motorist, a study of the community found its greatest need was for nearby medical care. But Los Angeles County commissioners at the time refused to pay for a hospital.
So Kenneth Hahn, the one commissioner who supported the center and whose daughter is now the Los Angeles City Council member representing the hospital’s district, created a special financing agency to get it off the ground.
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“The most mystifying element here,” said Joe Hicks, who grew up in Watts and who is the vice president of Community Advocates Inc., a group in downtown Los Angeles that focuses on race relations, “is that instead of demanding to keep an incompetent hospital open, why didn’t community activists take the opposite position that black people and poor folks deserve the same kind of care as other people in L.A.?”
The hospital, in spite of its myriad and often tragedy-inducing flaws, has been revered by much of Watts and Willowbrook simply by virtue of existing.
“Nobody likes to see people die,” said Allen Lee, another longtime Watts resident. “But I just hate to see them close it down.”
After explosive disturbances in 1965, sparked by a confrontation between a highway patrolman and a black motorist, a study of the community found its greatest need was for nearby medical care. But Los Angeles County commissioners at the time refused to pay for a hospital.
So Kenneth Hahn, the one commissioner who supported the center and whose daughter is now the Los Angeles City Council member representing the hospital’s district, created a special financing agency to get it off the ground.