The Time to Hesitate Is Through

"At epic moments in the long decade–the United Civil Rights campaign in 1963, the Watts uprising in 1965, and the wave of high school revolts from 1966 to 1969–the movement tried mightily to break through to the other side, only to face the batons and drawn guns of the LAPD. By 1973, repression had dug nearly 100 graves and put more than 10,000 protesters in jail or prison. An enormous effort has been made to trivialize the 60s and to bury its dreams in a pauper's grave. But its unruly ghost, like that of the 1930s, still shakes its chains in the nightmares of elites."

The Guardian runs an excerpt of Mike Davis and Jon Wierner's Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.