Imagine being born in a place where people don't mix with one another and keep to their own kind. Imagine not being able to walk into a store because it is white owned. How would it feel if you were black, lived in a city that was run by a white government, where poverty, unemployment and lack of education were all problems of everyday life? If everyone were treated equally, then it would not be a problem. But for inner city African Americans that isn't the case. As humans, there is only so much we can take when it comes to segregation before we act out. There is only so much hate a person can take before letting it be known, once a person is pushed over that threshold there is no holding back. Overwhelming hate and anger with revenge takes hold and all thoughts of consequences rushes out of a person's body. The only thought remaining is violence, which is where rioting comes into play. All it takes are a few people to start protesting and yelling then the next thing you know you have a group of people then a mob. People are like sheep. When a person sees another person doing it, then they are more inclined to join in. Someone then throws a rock, then a bottle, and then all of a sudden here comes an array of Molctov Cocktails and guns. You then have a mob of people with built up tension and anger, ready to crush and destroy whatever stands in their way of their demonstration.
Central Los Angeles, California was blown away by one of those demonstrations. "It was the worst urban riot since the 1943 disturbance in Detroit" (Bradley 896). According to reports, the Los Angeles riot all started on the evening of August 11, 1965: Two white California Highway Patrol Officers pursued a weaving automobile for
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...nt Bush sent one thousand lawmen and four thousand soldiers to Southern California to try and contain the problem. Astonishingly, the most heartfelt call for peace and calm came from Rodney King himself: "Can we all get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? Rioting is just not right. It's not going to change anything. We'll all get our justice (Duffy 23).
Works Cited
Daniel, Clifton. Chronicle of the Twentieth Century. Mount Kisco, N.Y: Chronicle, 1987.
Dodson, Angela. "Twenty Five Years After Kerner." The Quill April 1993:pg.16-21.
Duffy, Brain. "Days of Rage." U.S New and World Report May 11, 1992:pg.20-27.
Magill, Frank. Great Events From History. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1975.
"Watts Riots." Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. 1998ed.
"Watts Riots." Encyclopedia of Multiculturism. 1994ed.
Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Geanne Harwood, interviewed on an National Public Radio Broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, said that “being gay before Stonewall was a very difficult proposition … we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and as manly as possibly to get by in a society that was really very much against us.” The age of communist threats, and of Joseph McCarthy’s insistence that homosexuals were treacherous, gave credence to the feeling of most society members that homosexuality was a perversion, and that one inflicted was one to not be trusted.
To accomplish this, the Kerner Commission visited riot cities, spoke with witnesses and sought out help from other professionals. According to this documentary, 126 cities were hit and broken by these major race riots. The two main cities were Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey. 82% of the deaths and over half of the injuries occurred in these two cities. Towards the end, as the tension and conflict really thicken, the president even had to send in the army to put a halt to this violence that was corrupting our cities and nation. Yet, this riots were not your “typical” riots, they were described as unusual, unpredictable, irregular and complex. According to a study, most rioters were young black men, between the ages of 15-24 and about 74% were brought up from the south. In context to the documentary and the report, these riots were brought on by actions and responses of police force, local officials and the National Guard. This idea was brought about because some black people thought of the police as just a sign of white privilege and power. However, according to citizens in Milwaukee, Wisconsin they were “protests because of the loss of jobs.” But the youngest commission chair, who was featured in the documentary, Fred Harris, disagrees and says that they were not protests, there was no planning with a clear goal in
Chicago Riots Have you ever felt as if your government is doing the wrong thing? During the Democratic National Convention in 1968, an estimate of 5-7K protesters were not happy with the results on what was happening in the government. So a group called Yippies started an organized protest. They started to have riots in places like Chicago, where soon after the police came in and started to relentlessly beat the protesters with billy clubs.
What were the causes of the prison riots in the 1990`s and how effective was the government response?
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
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
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
Even though whites and blacks protested together, not all of them got punished in the same ways. Even though it wasn’t folderol committed by either race, racists saw it as this and would do anything to keep segregation intact. Sometimes, the whites would be shunned, by society, and not hurt physically. While the blacks, on the other hand, were brutally kille...
The problem in the black community is its inability to be united and stay united. This is not the fault of the people but instead the system that fosters them. Many attempts have been made to assimilate to the system as well as to change the system. In the end neither has worked for the black community, that is why I propose that the United States Government declare complete Anarchy. That being the last resort and complete extream theory I do believe that civil disobedience whether violent or nonviolent has proven itself successful but has not got the results that are really
America has had plenty of racial unrest, and what 's shocking is how we continue to ignore its side effects. Many people believe white privilege does not exist or it’s not a real thing even though America was built by white people, with a foundation for whites. White privilege is prevalent in America. They believe there is no way the color of someone’s skin, gives them a privilege. In reality, it does. No matter how much we ignore the fact, that the color of your skin can change the way you live, it’s true. It’s not fair, but it’s true.
An analysis of the first 5,000 arrests from all over the city revealed that 52 percent were poor Latinos, 10 percent whites and only 38 percent blacks. They also know that the nation's first multiracial riot was as much about empty bellies and broken hearts as it was about police batons and Rodney King (Urban).
On July 27, 1919, a young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an invisible line of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several white bystanders, knocked unconscious and drowned, and his death set off one of the bloodiest riots in Chicago’s history (Shogun 96). The Chicago race riot was not the result of the incident alone. Several factors, including the economic, social and political differences between blacks and whites, the post-war atmosphere and the psychology of race relations in 1919, combined to make Chicago a prime target for this event. Although the riot was a catalyst for several short-term solutions to the racial tensions, it did little to improve race relations in the long run. It was many years before the nation truly addressed the underlying conflicts that sparked the riot of 1919. This observation is reflected in many of author James Baldwin’s essays in which he emphasizes that positive change can only occur when both races recognize the Negro as an equal among men politically, economically and socially.
.After the shooting of MLK and no justice being brought riots soon broke out and very harsh meaningful protests did erupt as well. After the shooting of Mike Brown the people of St.Louis began to loot and policeman were forced to use tear gas. In the year of 2016 the riots have become ten times worse in my opinion, in 1968 they didn't loot and jump on top of police cars. During the period of 1968 the point of the protests went by the name of blackpower a movement in support of rights and political power for black people, especially prominent in the US in the 1960s and 1970s”(US-History.org ). Similarly in 2016 the people came up with the slogan for their protests ‘black lives matter” when they felt as if black people were still being treated
The 54 mile march went through downtown Selma all the way to Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama. The marchers walked two by two to Edmund Pettus Bridge, the connector between Selma and Montgomery where the police were waiting to stop them. There was an unnecessary amount of racism in this march. On the roads to the side, whites jeered and shouted at the marchers. The police were equipped with gas, batons, and guns. The marchers armed with nothing but their beliefs. The officers put on their gas masks and reached for their batons, warning the marchers, who stood 50 feet away that they had 2 minutes to “go home or go to your church.” After a minute and 5 seconds, the police began their attack. They threw gas canisters straight into the crowd of marchers. Since they had gas masks, they walked right in there and just started swinging their clubs. Whether they were on the ground or standing, the marchers were clubbed, punched, or shoved ruthlessly. March leader John Lewis’s skull was cracked while trying to defend himself. Clouds of gas surrounded the marchers, forcing them to the ground until the gas rose. “From the hospital came a report that the victims had suffered fractures of ribs, heads, arms and legs, in addition to cuts and bruises.” learning.blogs.nytimes.com Some people were to slow to get to the ground, their lungs imploding. The most common injuries were lacerations