A Los Angeles mob once massacred 18 Chinese people. Now, a push to never forget
- A spasm of violence by largely a white mob on October 24, 1871, left at least 18 Chinese people dead in Los Angeles
- Officials have put out public call for ideas to memorialise the most lethal example of racial violence in the city
It happened in the early days of Los Angeles, when the city was a dusty, violent, frontier town.
An eruption of gunfire around 4pm on October 24, 1871, spurred what’s believed to be the most lethal example of racial violence ever recorded in the city – the Los Angeles Chinese massacre.
Hundreds made up the largely white mob that descended upon what’s now downtown Los Angeles. They indiscriminately beat, shot or hanged any Chinese person they saw.
“Then, every rickety shanty in Chinatown was looted. ‘Boys, help yourselves,’ was the cry,” according to an account of the lynchings published by The Los Angeles Times in 1999.
The spasm of violence left at least 18 Chinese people, an estimated 9 per cent of Los Angeles’ Chinese population, dead at a time when the city barely registered 5,700 people. The victims included the Chinese community’s only doctor, Dr Gene Tong.
The news made national headlines, marking the City of Angels as a frontier town rife with violence and lawlessness. Embarrassed city leaders built up the police department and tried to restore the rule of law. Eight of the attackers were tried but eventually released, and a small sum was paid to the Chinese government as an apology.
