Ghetto riots | |
---|---|
Part of political violence in the United States during the Cold War | |
![]() Man arrested during the Watts riots | |
Date | 16 July 1964 – 29 July 1969 |
Location | |
Caused by | |
Methods | Widespread rioting, looting, assault, arson, property damage |
Casualties | |
Death(s) | 200+ |
Arrested | 20,000+ |
The term ghetto riots, also termed ghetto rebellions, race riots, or negro riots refers to summer social unrest across the United States in the mid-to-late 1960s, characterized by African American groups using violent tactics. [1] [2]
The six days of unrest throughout New York City during the Harlem riot of 1964 is viewed as the first of clusters of riots, uncoordinated with each other, evidently unplanned, most often in cities during the summer months. The pattern caused 159 separate incidents of violence and unrest over the long, hot summer of 1967 (the most destructive riots taking place in Detroit and Newark), came to a climax during the national wave of King assassination riots in over 100 American cities in 1968, and relented in 1969.
Before the ghetto riots of the 1960s, African American violent resistance to challenge white dominance was much more limited, including only small slave rebellions and armed defenses in the early 1900s. Most of these actions were defensive in nature rather than retaliatory, it was not until the Harlem riots of 1935 and 1943 that African Americans seemed to take initiative in violent conflicts. By the 1950s and 1960s significant societal changes had taken place which fostered conditions for much more open rebellion. [2] Recent urban decay caused by white flight and middle-class Black flight from city centers also antagonized lower-class minority populations who had struggled to migrate to cities. [3]
The Harlem riot in 1964 is seen as the beginning of a wave of civil unrest that would engulf New York City and begin to be seen in cities throughout the country until calming in 1968 with the last being the King assassination riots. These urban riots were unplanned and mostly attacked property of white owned businesses rather than people. Before this, most American riots involved brutal attacks against minorities. The riots resulted in over 150 deaths and over 20,000 arrests. [3] [4]
The momentum for the advancement of civil rights came to a sudden halt with riots in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965. After 34 people were killed and $35 million (equivalent to $338.39 million in 2023) in property was damaged, the public feared an expansion of the violence to other cities, and so the appetite for additional programs in President Lyndon Johnson's agenda was lost. [5] [6]
In what is known as the "Long hot summer of 1967," more than 150 riots erupted across the United States. [7] The Boston Globe called it "a revolution of black Americans against white Americans, a violent petition for the redress of long-standing grievances." The Globe asserted that Great Society legislation had affected little fundamental improvement. [8] The Newark riots left 26 dead and 1,500 injured. [8] The Detroit riot resulted in 43 deaths, 2250 injuries, 4,000 arrests, and millions of dollars' worth of property damage. Governor George Romney sent in 7,400 national guard troops to quell fire bombings, looting, and attacks on businesses and police. Johnson finally sent in federal troops with tanks and machine guns. [9] Whites and blacks took part in the riots, but most of the rioters were African Americans who objected to discrimination in housing, employment, and education. [10] At an August 2, 1967 cabinet meeting, Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned that untrained and undisciplined local police forces and National Guardsmen might trigger a "guerrilla war in the streets," as evidenced by the climate of sniper fire in Newark and Detroit. [11] [12] [13] [14]
The April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sparked another wave of violent protests in more than 130 cities across the country. [15] A few days later, in a candid comment made to press secretary George Christian concerning the endemic social unrest in the nation's cities, President Johnson remarked, "What did you expect? I don't know why we're so surprised. When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off." [16] Congress, meanwhile, passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which increased funding for law enforcement agencies and authorized wiretapping in certain situations. Johnson considered vetoing the bill, but the apparent popularity of the bill convinced him to sign it. [17] In August 1969, federal officials considered the period of large-scale riots to be over. [18]
The riots confounded many civil rights activists of both races due to the recent passage of major civil rights legislation. They also caused a backlash among Northern whites, many of whom stopped supporting civil rights causes. [19] President Johnson formed an advisory commission, informally known as the Kerner Commission, on July 28, 1967 to explore the causes behind the recurring outbreaks of urban civil disorder. [20] [21] The commission's scope included the 164 disorders occurring in the first nine months of 1967. The president had directed them, in simple words, to document what happened, find out why it happened, and find out how to prevent it. [22]
The commission's 1968 report identified police practices, unemployment and underemployment, and lack of adequate housing as the most significant grievances motivating the rage. [23] It suggested legislative measures to promote racial integration and alleviate poverty and concluded that the nation was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal." [24] The president, fixated on the Vietnam War and keenly aware of budgetary constraints, barely acknowledged the report. [9]
Conservative elements of American society regarded the riots as evidence for the need of law and order. Richard Nixon made social order a prime issue in his campaign for president. [25]
The mayor of Jersey City (Thomas J. Whelan) instead saw the riots as an indicator that more social programs were needed for the city and in 1964 asked for federal funds to provide "new recreational, housing, educational and sanitary facilities for low‐income groups". [26]
Federal grants for "urban renewal and antipoverty efforts", as in New Haven, were also discussed in relation to the riots. [27] In August 1968, over $4 million were offered by the Justice Department to the states in what was described as "the first Federal money designated to prepare for and help avert rioting in the cities". [28] In April 1969, John Lindsay asked to increase federal funds [29] but as of November 1969 the $200 million promised to restore 20 cities had not yet come to fruition. [30]
Many rioters can be seen as disillusioned African Americans whose families may have moved to cities to find better living conditions but after generations remained stuck in urban ghettos with little economic mobility. [31] Local troubles with access to decent housing and work along with other factors like police harassment made urban areas ripe for violence. [3]
Immediate causes were often aggressive confrontations between African Americans and whites or police officers that drew a crowd and began to spiral into violence and chaos. [31]
In July 1963, demonstrations in Brooklyn for better working conditions in the construction industry had reportedly risked escalating to riots. [32]
Rioters often acted collectively, destroying property they viewed as being owned by those exploiting them. Police officers often were antagonists to rioters and their actions and racist language became symbols of the oppressive conditions faced by African Americans. [31]
The U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence was formed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in Executive Order 11412 on June 10, 1968, after the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the June 5 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member Presidential Commission established in July 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson in Executive Order 11365 to investigate the causes of over 150 riots throughout the country in 1967 and to provide recommendations that would prevent them from reoccurring.
Jerome Patrick Cavanagh was an American politician who served as the mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 1962 to 1970. Initially a popular figure, his reputation was seriously damaged by the city's 1967 riots, the most destructive of any U.S. city that decade. He was the first mayor to reside at the Manoogian Mansion, donated to the city by the industrial baron Alex Manoogian.
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street Riot, and the Detroit Uprising, was the bloodiest of the urban riots in the United States during the "long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan.
The 1967 Newark riots were an episode of violent, armed conflict in the streets of Newark, New Jersey. Taking place over a four-day period, the Newark riots resulted in at least 26 deaths and hundreds more serious injuries. Serious property damage, including shattered storefronts and fires caused by arson, left many of the city's buildings damaged or destroyed. At the height of the conflict, the National Guard was called upon to occupy the city with tanks and other military equipment, leading to iconic media depictions that were considered particularly shocking when shared in the national press. In the aftermath of the riots, Newark was quite rapidly abandoned by many of its remaining middle-class and affluent residents, as well as much of its white working-class population. This accelerated flight led to a decades-long period of disinvestment and urban blight, including soaring crime rates and gang activity.
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 Plainfield riots was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the "Long Hot Summer of 1967". This riot was a series of racially charged violent disturbances that occurred in Plainfield, New Jersey, which mirrored the 1967 Newark riots in nearby Newark.
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 Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation is a non-governmental organization in the United States, established in 1981 to continue the work of two Presidential Commissions. These commissions were the bipartisan National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and the bipartisan National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. The Eisenhower Foundation carries forward the objectives and initiatives of these commissions in the private sector.
The long, hot summer of 1967 refers to the more than 150 race riots that erupted across major cities in the United States during the summer of 1967. In June there were riots in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, and Tampa. In July there were riots in Birmingham, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Newark, New Britain, New York City, Plainfield, Rochester, and Toledo.
Charles David Ginsburg was an American political advisor and lawyer who was among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action and served as executive director of the Kerner Commission, which concluded that the rioting of 1967 was caused not by radicals or riffraff, but was instead a response to decades of pervasive discrimination and segregation, and which warned that the U.S. was "moving toward two societies—one Black, one white, separate and unequal."
The King assassination riots, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, were a wave of civil disturbance which swept across the United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Some of the biggest riots took place in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City.
The Ghetto Informant Program (GIP) was an intelligence-gathering operation run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1967 to 1973. Its official purpose was to collect information pertaining to riots and civil unrest. Through GIP, the FBI used more than 7000 people to infiltrate poor black communities in the United States.
The Cambridge riot of 1967 was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the "Long Hot Summer of 1967". This riot occurred on July 24, 1967 in Cambridge, Maryland, a county seat on the Eastern Shore. For years racial tension had been high in Cambridge, where black people had been limited to second-class status. Activists had conducted protests since 1961, and there was a riot in June 1963 after the governor imposed martial law. "The Treaty of Cambridge" was negotiated among federal, state, and local leaders in July 1963, initiating integration in the city prior to passage of federal civil rights laws.
The 1967 Milwaukee riot was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the "Long Hot Summer of 1967". In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, African American residents, outraged by the slow pace in ending housing discrimination and police brutality, began to riot on the evening of July 30, 1967. The inciting incident was a fight between teenagers, which escalated into full-fledged rioting with the arrival of police. Within minutes, arson, looting, and sniping were occurring in the north side of the city, primarily the 3rd Street Corridor.
Locked in the Poorhouse: Cities, Race, and Poverty in the United States is a 30-year update of the final report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, co-authored by former Kerner Commissioner, Senator and Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation Chairman Fred R. Harris and Eisenhower Foundation President Alan Curtis. The book was released in 1998 with a companion volume, The Millennium Breach.
Colored People's Time (CPT) was an American Black Public Affairs Television program that emerged in October 1968 as a response for broadcasters to serve the public interest and public identity, an identity which included the large African American population. Airing on Detroit's public broadcasting station WTVS, Colored People's Time was produced by Gil Maddox and Tony Brown who created the program to fill the lack of representation of the Black community as detailed by the Kerner Commission Report set in place by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Kerner Commission Report attributed the social insurrections in places such as Detroit and Newark primarily to racism, which was particularly reinforced through the media. As a direct result, broadcasters were then required to increase the accessibility and opportunity of media content which reflected the African American experiences and lifestyle.
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 had a knife and lunged toward him.
Federal officials believe that the era of large-scale urban rioting of the kind seen in Los Angeles, Detroit and Newark in recent years has come to a close.
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: CS1 maint: others (link)Mayor Lindsay prodded the Nixon Administration yesterday to come up with "far more" than the millions of dollars promised earlier this week to repair riot-wrecked neighborhoods.
Seven months after President Nixon announced that $200million had been earmarked for a special effort to begin cleaning and refurbishing riot-damaged areas in 20 cities, the target areas appear pretty much as they were then -- firescarred, boarded up buildings and rubble-strewn lots and streets.
A riot was narrowly averted in Brooklyn yesterday as civil rights demonstrators continued to press for more jobs for Negroes and Puerto Ricans in the construction industry.