Victims of Riots Honored : Memorial: This year’s Watts Summer Festival begins with a service remembering both the 1965 and the 1992 civil unrest and those who died.

Homer Ellis, Ronald Ludlow, George Adams Jr. and 31 others who died during the Watts riots of 1965 have not been forgotten.

And a group of Watts residents gathered Wednesday near the flash point of that historic uprising to ensure that DeAndre Harrison, Vivian Austin and 49 other victims of the city’s second round of rioting are remembered forever as well.

In a tradition that began soon after the smoke settled along Charcoal Alley, the annual Watts Summer Festival got under way Wednesday with a memorial service that honored victims of two civil disturbances 27 years apart.

“They definitely didn’t die in vain,” said community activist Malaika Tawasufi. “It was a sacrifice, not necessarily because they knew they were going to die, but because of the context they found themselves in.”

The first summer festival--held in August, 1966, to honor the 34 Watts riot victims--drew tens of thousands of celebrants to a six-block stretch of 103rd Street, where a year earlier fires raged and gunfire filled the air.

“Some people back in 1966 wondered why we were celebrating a riot,” said West Gale, 70, the festival’s art director and historian. “But really we were just saying that we want to be seen and heard. The Watts revolt made that happen--for a time.”

But as the years passed, the once-proud tradition fell on hard times, a victim of gang violence, apathy and a lack of funding.

The festival was revived in a scaled-back version in 1990. This year’s event will run from Friday through Sunday at the African American Community Unity Center, 53rd Street and Vermont Avenue, with free concerts, a fashion show and a marketplace of cultural items. Carnival rides will be offered all three days at the corner of Vermont and Slauson avenues.

Tommy Jacquette, who wore a flowing yellow dashiki to the memorial service at Will Rogers Memorial Park, has been working on the event since its inception. This year, he said, he feels a sense of deja vu as another post-riot festival gears up.

“I was a participant during the last revolt,” he said. “This time I was a spectator. The ethnic mix was different, and there may have been less political consciousness this time, but in both cases, 1965 and 1992, the violence was brought on by a lack of justice.”

Jacquette said he lost a neighbor, George Adams Jr., to the Watts riots. The 45-year-old was shot by police at Manchester Boulevard and Broadway on Aug. 13, 1965, as the officers returned snipers’ fire.

“I didn’t personally know any of the folks who died this time,” Jacquette said. “But I don’t want to forget them either.”