Many civil disorders have erupted across the United States. Racial tensions were at a highpoint in the 1960’s with riots and looting throughout the major cities in the United States. This was not such a problem in the rural areas but the urban areas had serious racial problems between black and white people. Throughout the 1960’s blacks and whites clearly demonstrated that they had many problems living segregated in the urban areas. It was a civil explosion that you can clearly see from the Detroit riots in 1967. Detroit experienced the worst civil disorder of any American city in the 20th century. Prior to July 23, 1967 Detroit had managed to avoid riots that had erupted in other major cities such as Harlem, Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Day 1
At 3:45 a.m. on Sunday July 23, 1967 twelve officers did a routine raid in a Blind Pig on 12th street. There were 82 people arrested. As the last squad car was loading with prisoners, a crowd of about 200 people gathered. They made threats towards the police and incited the crowd that had gathered. The squad car began to leave and the crowd began to throw bottles and rocks, which shattered the back window of the squad car. This started off the worst riot of the 20th century.
Shortly after 5 a.m. stores were being broken into, rocks and bricks were smashing through windows. By 11 a.m. a crowd of about a thousand people were surrounding a smaller crowd of about a hundred or so people that were swarming the streets taunting the police and firemen. After that the looting began to take off in different spots all over the entire city.
Day 2
In the second day of rioting the Mayor issued a curfew. All people had to be off the streets between 9 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. and no alcoholic beverages were to be sold or possessed which was not followed the rioters. At 12:25 the first death was reported. A 45 year-old white male life was claimed when he was shot by a white store owner who claimed the man was looting his store. This was only the beginning for the many more fatalities that continued throughout the riots.
The burning and looting continued throughout the night. An entire block was reported on fire in the area of Dexter and Davison. This was just one of the some 1,680 fires that would be set during the riots and looting.
Even though many of the protesters were severely beaten, they still stood their stance and got the message out. What is a Riot? According to Encyclopedia.gov a riot “is a social occasion involving relatively spontaneous collective violence directed at property, persons, or authority.” There are five main
...series of meeting set up by, U.S. Attorney David M. Satz. According to police the riots took 26 lives, 24 of them were African American. The two white victims were a police detective, who was reportedly shot by a sniper, and a fireman, who was killed by gunfire while responding to an alarm on Central Avenue. Eighteen of the 26 people killed during the riot were shot by police or National Guard troops. Several people, like Eloise Spellman, and Elizabeth Artis, were fatally wounded in their own homes by a combination of National Guard/Police bullets aimed at suspected snipers. According to New Jersey state police reported 725 injuries (according to Newark City Hospital over 1000), 1500 arrest, and $10 million in property damage. After the riots Newark tried to encourage racial equality. However, today, housing, employment, and education are remaining huge problems.
A Look Into the Chicago Race Riots The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights.
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
“April 26th, 1992, there was a riot on the streets, tell me where were you!? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV, while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “First spot we hit it was my liquor store. I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford. With red lights flashin' time to retire, And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some justice. A video tape of four L.A.P.D police officers brutally beating a male (Rodney King) without any sympathy was made public, which started the bomb track. “Let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna wanna let it burn,” says the song when describing the riots. Throughout these days there was an estimate of more than 50 killed, over 4 thousand injured, and 12,000 people arrested. The damage caused in the city was about one billion dollars, damage that is believed was never fully repaired. The riots and destruction that went on for about a week that showed the people’s rage and that they were not going to tolerate the injustices committed by the authorities.
It was in till night fell upon the city of Oakland, when the protests against the sentence turn violent. There were reports from the Oakland PD that a car hit an officer, another officers gun holster was taken from him, and many windows were broken.
The Watts riots is one of the most important riots in the many important riots that have occurred in the United States. Thousands of African-Americans, fed up with the horrible police brutality at the time, reacted by battling the police in the streets along with the looting and burning of White-owned stores. The riot was unprecedented, but not unexpected, during a time of great racial tension, with the Civil Rights Movement having become an ever-increasing strain on the country. Police brutality was not the only factor in causing the riot, as there were economic problems in the Black community at the time that also contributed to the unrest. The Watts riot, also known as the Watts Rebellion, influenced riots to come in the decades following
Cincinnati riots were precipitated by a wide range of events that saw massive discrimination of blacks in a manner that reflected flashbacks of slavery. Between 1995 and 2001, Lan (2009) report that about fifteen people were executed by police or lost their lives in the hands of the security agents. As a result, the black community became alarmed about being targeted by security agents and ultimately being executed or dying in their hands. With the fifteenth execution of Thomas Timothy taking place in the streets of Cincinnati, David (200...
During the Civil War, there was a draft put up in the north. During this time New York City wanted to break away and become an independent city. The New York draft riot consisted of mainly immigrant Irish men in NY. These men had low paying jobs and did not feel they should go to war. On July 12th a draft was posted, and a predominately Irish mob attacked and lashed out. This mob lynched blacks and set buildings on fire. This riot lasted three days, mainly in Manhattan. On the third day, troops from Gettysburg can and stopped this riot.
Later on in the year, around August, the first of many large-scale riots began to break out. The first one was in Los Angeles, California and lasted for a little over three weeks. This single riot killed 39 people during its wrath of burning block after block. This riot was in a sense a sign of the new revolution to come, due to the song “Burn, Baby Burn” by the Creators, being played...
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots was a series of riots and civil disturbances that include lootings, arsons, and racial attacks. The acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Deparment officers who excessively beat an African-American male on film and the murder of a teenage African-American girl ignited the riots. The aftermath of the Los Angeles Riots resulted in 55 deaths and approximately $1 billion in property damage.1
The mob rushed into the prison’s courtyard. Some individuals were not as ruthless as others. "...Those who came in first treated the conquered enemy humanely and embraced the staff officers to show there was no ill-feeling..." However, several of the protestors were hurt as they attacked soldiers from the army. "....The people, transformed with rage, threw themselves on the sodiers..." Fierce fighting followed and carried on into the evening. Finally the mob got their hands on some cannons.
On the morning of October 3, four people were shot within a span of approximately 2 hours in Aspen Hill, and other nearby areas in Montgomery County. Another was killed that evening in the District of Columbia, just over the border of Silver Spring. In each shooting, the victims were killed by a single bullet fired from some distance. The pattern was not detected until after the shootings occurred on October 3. Fear quickly spread throughout the community as news of the shootings circulated. Many parents went to pick up their children at school early, not allowing them to take a school bus or walk home alone. Montgomery County and District of Columbia schools declared a lockdown, wit...
The Tulsa race riot changed the course of American history by actively expressing African American views on white supremacy. Before the events of the Tulsa race riot African Americans saw the white community taking justice into their own hands. Black citizens of Tulsa stood up against this sort of white mob. This escaladed into the Tulsa race riot. The Tulsa race riot and its effects weighed heavily upon the African Americans of this era.
There were several causes which led to this riot and the immediate cause was racial tension. Racism tends to persist most readily when there are obvious physical differences among groups e.g. “Black” and “white” differences. This no doubt results in attempts to limit economic opportunities, to preserve status, to deny equal protection under law and to maintain cheap labor. Discrimination was represented ...