race riots in the 20th century

Red Summer of 1919

Black americans saw the removal of their civil rights by the white dominated state governments of the Old South by the 1880s. Denial of civil rights was also associated with an escalating incidence of random violence against black americans in the form of lynching. Mob justice became a permanent feature of life for black americans living in the old south. Matters were made worse from 1915 with the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Violence and intimidation against black americans reinforced legal segregation. However, violence against black americans was not confined to the areas of legal segregation. Wherever black americans migrated, they faced similar levels of discrimination occasionally linked to extreme violence. Such a period was the red summer of 1919. In that year, 26 race riots took place across the USA, both north and south. In July 1917, the Red Summer was preceded by a major race riot in East St Louis, Illinois, where black workers were being used to break a strike by white workers in an aluminium plant. 48 black americans were killed and hundreds were injured.

Newark riot, 1967

In 1967, two years after the Watts riot, riots occurred in Detroit and Newark. At the time, the outbreak of rioting was party blamed on the hot weather - however, Newark was an area where housing segregation between black and white americans had caused racial tension. In 1967, Newark had the highest percentage of substandard housing and the second highest percentage of crime and infant mortality. A report from the national advisory commission into civil disorders (the kerner comission) said that the nation was moving toward two societies - one black, one white, seperate and unequal. Two further issues fuelled racial resentment in Newark - one was the mayor's selection of secretary to the Newark School Board, which caused fighting between black and white americans. The other was the plan to build the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry on a 50 acre site that the African American community believed should go to relieve the housing problem. By July 1967, the social situation was made worse by outbreaks of what the black community saw as police brutality towards them. In July, the arrest of a black taxi driver charged with assaulting a policeman plunged Newark into four days of rioting. The governor of New Jersey decided to restore law and order through the deployment of the National Guard. On the third day of the riot, the national guard opened fire on the rioters. By the end of the riot, 26 black people had been killed, including ten year old Edward Moses, and 1000 black americans had been injured. In response to the Newark riot and similar riots across the US, president Johnson set up the Kerner Comission to report on the causes of the riots.

Chicago riots - 1919

Of the 26 race riots affecting the USA in the hot summer, Chicago was the worst. The riot erupted on the 27th of July, when the summer temperature rose to above 30 degrees celsius. The riot was ignited when a black 17 year old, Eugene Williams, entered a public beach on Lake Michigan usually reserved for white people. Several white bathers attacked him, resulting in his death by drowning. When a black american was arrested, a group of black americans attacked the police. The ensuing rioting was mainly confined to the south side of Chicago where 90 percent of the black american population lived. The race riot lasted for 5 days, and resulted in the deaths of 38 people, 23 of whom were black, and 537 were wounded. The riot was finally put to an end by the intervention of the Illinois national guard, and a large thunderstorm that dispersed the rioters. The underlying cause of the race riot was typical of race riots across the USA that summer - drawn north by the promise of employment, the black american population of chicago had doubled in the years 1916-18. Black americans were discouraged from joining white dominated trade unions. The competition for housing and the creation of black-dominated areas, like the south side, helped divide the city of chicago on clear racial lines. As black americans moved in, white people moved out. The resulting tension sparked the riot.

Watts riot of 1965

The Watts riot, in south central Los Angeles, took place between the 11th and 15th of August, 1965. Over 3500 black rioters participated. They were protesting against the poor housing and poor unemployment prospects in the Watts district, as well as police harassment. The Watts riot was one of 239 outbreaks of racial violence in over 200 American cities in the period 1964-68. Other cities facing serious racial violence were: Cleveland, Ohio, in 1966 and 1968 Oakland, California, in 1965 and 1966 Detroit, Michigan, in 1967 Chicago, Illinois, in 1967 and 1968 The watts riot started following an incident on 11 August 1965, when Marquette Frye, a young black American motorist, was arrested by Lee W. Minikus, a white California highway patrolman, on suspicion of drunk driving. As a crowd of onlookers gathered at the scene of Frye's arrest, tension between police officers and the crowd erupted into a violent exchange. The outbreak of violence that followed Frye's arrest immediately sparked a large scale riot centred in the commercial section of Watts, a deeply impoverished black american neighbourhood in south central Los Angeles. 34 people were killed and 1032 people injured.

background to riots in the 60s

The circumstances surrounding the riots of the 60s were very different from those at the time of the Chicago and Tulsa riots - the civil rights movements had made substantial gains in achieving civil equality for black americans. In 1954, the US supreme court had declared the idea of "seperate but equal" treatment for black americans constitutional in terms of public education. This had been followed by a wide variety of initiatives by both president and congress to ensure greater equality. Beginning with president JFK, affirmative action was introduced in federal employment and through federal contracts guaranteeing black Americans a proportion of jobs. More significantly, under president Lyndon Johnson, Congress passed the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965, which together gave black Americans civil equality with white americans. Although black americans may have achieved civil equality, they continued to face major social and economic problems, which formed the background for more racial unrest in the period 1964-68. The inner city areas of the north and west were largely untouched by the gains achieved by the civil rights movement. These areas were characterised by high unemployment, crime, and poor housing.

Tulsa race riots, 1921

Two years after the Red Summer, an even greater attack occured on black americans in the Oklahoma city of Tulsa. It was a "boom town" due to the discovery and exploitation of its oil, and the city attracted a large number of migrants, both black and white. On the 30th of may, 1921, a young black American, Dick Rowland, was accused of sexually assaulting a white american girl in a lift and was subsequently arrested. On the following day, the local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, published a fictitious story claiming that Rowland had scratched the hands and face of the white girl in an alleged assault. By 10:30 pm, nearly 2000 white people had surrounded the gaol where Rowland was held and attempted to lynch him. Some black sympathisers went to the gaol to try and protect Rowland - they had come from Greenwood, a predominantly black American area of Tulsa. By the end of that night, Greenwood had been attacked by white mobs. The intensity of the attacks led to half of Tulsa's black population leaving. The race riots of 1917-21 took place against a background of increasing discrimination against black americans. The creation of legal segregation in the old south, supported by violence and intimidation by white supremacist groups like the KKK, witnessed a major deterioration in black American civil rights. The gains in rights at the rights at the end of the Civil War of 1861-65 had all but disappeared. Ironically, discrimination against black americans increased after the first world war, partly in response to the fear of thousands of returning black American servicemen who had served their country fighting.