The embers of Watts had cooled as Ronald Reagan raced toward his first election as California's governor, a year after riots scarred southern Los Angeles.
Yet Watts remained an ominous political presence.
As Reagan took on two-term incumbent Pat Brown in what was then an overwhelmingly white and culturally conservative state, Watts and other emblems of the era — civil rights battles, Vietnam War protests and counterculture elbow-throwing — contributed to a frightening sense that California was spinning out of control.
Voters reacted to the chaos by embracing a new wave of conservatism that swept Reagan into the governor's office and paved his way to the White House.