In the broader context of racism against Black Americans and racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America. Lindsay served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 1959 to December 1965 and as mayor of New York City from January 1966 to December 1973.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a leading African-American civil rights activist, on April 4, 1968, Washington, D.C., experienced a four-day period of violent civil unrest and rioting. Part of the broader riots that affected at least 110 U.S. cities, those in Washington, D.C.—along with those in Chicago and in Baltimore—were among those with the greatest numbers of participants. President Lyndon B. Johnson called in the National Guard to the city on April 5, 1968, to assist the police department in quelling the unrest. Ultimately, 13 people were killed, with approximately 1,000 people injured and over 6,100 arrested.
The Division Street riots were episodes of rioting and civil unrest, which started on June 12 and continued through June 14, 1966. These riots are remembered as a turning point in Puerto Rican civic involvement in Chicago. This was the first riot in the United States attributed to Puerto Ricans.
Riots often occur in reaction to a perceived grievance or out of dissent. Riots may be the outcome of a sporting event, although many riots have occurred due to poor working or living conditions, government oppression, conflicts between races or religions.
The Harlem riot of 1964 occurred between July 16 and 22, 1964. It began after James Powell, a 15-year-old African American, was shot and killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan in front of Powell's friends and about a dozen other witnesses. Immediately after the shooting, about 300 students from Powell's school who were informed by the principal rallied. The shooting set off six consecutive nights of rioting that affected the New York City neighborhoods of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In total, 4,000 New Yorkers participated in the riots which led to attacks on the New York City Police Department (NYPD), vandalism, and looting in stores. Several protesters were severely beaten by NYPD officers. At the end of the conflict, reports counted one dead rioter, 118 injured, and 465 arrested.
Paseo Boricua is a section of Division Street in the Humboldt Park community of the West Side of Chicago, Illinois.
The Harlem riot of 1935 took place on March 19, 1935 in New York City, New York, in the United States. It has been described as the first "modern" race riot in Harlem, because it was committed primarily against property rather than persons. Harlem is a northern neighborhood on Manhattan Island in New York City whose population at the time was predominantly African American.
Riots in Detroit, Michigan, have occurred since the city was founded in 1701. This area was settled by various ethnicities following thousands of years of indigenous history. During the colonial period, it was nominally ruled by France and Great Britain before the border was set in the early 19th century and it became part of the United States. The first riot, social unrest related to enabling fugitive slaves to escape to Canada, was recorded in 1833. Other riots were related to business protests, unions, and other issues.
The King assassination riots, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, were a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Many believe them to be the greatest wave of social unrest the United States had experienced since the Civil War. Some of the biggest riots took place in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City.
The 1966 Chicago West Side riots was a public disorder that occurred between July 12 and 15 in Chicago, Illinois. After police arrested a man that was wanted for armed robbery, black residents took to the streets in anger and looted and burned various stores throughout the West Side until the arrival of 1,200 National Guardsmen on July 15. Violence quickly subsided and most of the troops were sent home on July 20.
Waukegan riot of 1966 was a period of conflict between police and some residents of the town's predominantly African-American and Puerto Rican neighborhoods on the south side that occurred in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Humboldt Park riot was the second major conflict between Puerto Ricans in Chicago and the Chicago Police Department. The riot began on June 4, 1977 and lasted a day and a half. Following the shooting deaths of two Puerto Rican men, locals battled Chicago police officers in Humboldt Park and in the streets surrounding. The riot led the community to hold the Division Street Puerto Rican Day Parade, which started in 1978.
The term ghetto riots, also termed ghetto rebellions, race riots, or negro riots refers to summer social unrest across the United States in the 1960s, characterized by African American groups using violent tactics.
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts" is a phrase originally used by Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, in response to an outbreak of violent crime during the 1967 Christmas holiday season. He accused "young hoodlums, from 15 to 21", of taking "advantage of the civil rights campaign" that was then sweeping the United States. Having ordered his officers to combat the violence with shotguns, he told the press that "we don't mind being accused of police brutality". The quote may have been borrowed from a 1963 comment from Birmingham, Alabama police chief Bull Connor. It was featured in Headley's 1968 obituary published by the Miami Herald.
Local protests over the murder of George Floyd began on May 26, 2020, and quickly inspired a global protest movement against police brutality and racial inequality. The initial events were a reaction to a video filmed the day before and circulated widely in the media of police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Floyd struggled to breathe, begged for help, lost consciousness, and died. Public outrage over the content of the video gave way to widespread civil disorder in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and other cities in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area in the five-day period of May 26 to 30 after Floyd's murder.
The 1967 New York City riot was one of many riots that occurred during the long, hot summer of 1967. The riot began after an off-duty police officer, Patrolman Anthony Cinquemani, while trying to break up a fight, shot and killed a Puerto Rican man named Renaldo Rodriquez who he claimed was carrying a knife.
