In the same room where Los Angeles City Council members once debated banning zoot suits, city leaders formally apologized Friday for the city government’s role in fueling the brutal attacks on young Latino, Filipino and black Angelenos who eight decades ago in the city. .

The apology comes exactly 80 years after the dark chapter in the city’s history, when gangs of white military, accompanied by police officers and civilians, roamed the city inciting brutal attacks on minority youth. The indiscriminate violence was dubbed the Zoot Suit Riots, named after the baggy suits popular among the youth at the time.

The city of LA can finally take responsibility and apologize for its role in effectively punishing the violence that continued eight decades ago, said Councilman Kevin de Len, who introduced a council resolution last month condemning the riots.

The council celebrated the historic apology this Friday with zoot-suited dancers and comments from De Len and community leaders, who hailed the apology as a necessary step in highlighting the role the city played in the week-long riots.

“You had young boys as young as 12 who were violently beaten, stripped of their clothes,” De Len said. “Acts that exposed deep-seated racism against Latinos. And just as outrageous in the past were the actions of our police, the LAPD, and the city council.”

When De Len started his comments, a few people in the back harassed him and called him a racist. Others urged them to show respect.

According to reports at the time, in the first week of June 1943, minority youths were beaten, harassed and their clothes ripped off in the streets. Some were urinated on in public, De Len said.

I remember my mother clearly telling me when I was a kid how angry and upset she looked at young Mexican kids running naked down the street because their suits had been ripped off, said Miguel Lopez of the Chicano Moratorium Committee, who was sitting in the front of the jail . council chamber by a few dozen people dressed in Pachuco style.

As the speakers stood at the front of the council chambers, black-and-white historical footage, old newspaper clippings, and recent footage of lowriders riding the 6th Street Viaduct flashed on two TV screens above the council horseshoe. The newspaper clipping highlighted the outlets at the time, namely The Times, who supported the cause of the white gangs rather than the victims. Zoot suiters learn lessons in military combat, read a headline like that.

Manny Alcaraz, described as a Pachuco culture buff, said he hoped the city’s apology would educate young generations about both the riots and the long list of famous Zoot Suiters who wore the clothes the Los Angeles City Council had tried to ban : Cesar Chavez, Cab Calloway and Malcolm X, just to name a few.

“This week, tonight, the Zoot Suit riots were going on,” he said. “This is what I want the younger generation to know.

Racial tensions at the time had been exacerbated by the now infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder case. After a young Latino man was murdered in Southeast LA, 300 suspects, most of them Latino, were rounded up. Twenty-two boys were charged, fueling anti-Mexican sentiment.

Through the resolution, the city formally apologized for exercising their power over the

wide-eared white-legged

pants and billowing jackets instead of taking on the white gangs who perpetrate the violence.

The Los Angeles City Council and the City of Los Angeles should apologize for responding to these racial attacks by attempting to pass an ordinance to ban the wearing of Zoot Suits rather than trying to protect the community that was directly targeted of this brutal multi-day attack, the resolution said.

The celebration came on the heels of a similar apology by Los Angeles County. Last month, the province voted unanimously to condemn the attacks and to fight racial discrimination.

Times staff writer Julia Wick contributed to this report.