Some Perspective About Rioting In America..

Atlanta Race Riot (1906)

When the Civil War end­ed, African-Americans in Atlanta began enter­ing the realm of pol­i­tics, estab­lish­ing busi­ness­es and gain­ing noto­ri­ety as a social class. Increasing ten­sions between Black wage-work­ers and the white élite began to grow and ill-feel­ings were fur­ther exac­er­bat­ed when Blacks gained more civ­il rights, includ­ing the right to vote. The ten­sions explod­ed dur­ing the guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion of 1906 in which M. Hoke Smith and Clark Howell com­pet­ed for the Democratic nom­i­na­tion. Both can­di­dates were look­ing for ways to dis­en­fran­chise African-American vot­ers because they each felt that the Black vote could throw the elec­tion to the oth­er can­di­date. Hoke Smith was a for­mer pub­lish­er of the Atlanta Journal and Clark Howell was the edi­tor of the Atlanta Constitution. Both can­di­dates used their influ­ence to incite white vot­ers and help spread the fear that whites may not be able to main­tain the cur­rent social order. The Atlanta Georgian and the Atlanta News began pub­lish­ing sto­ries about white women being molest­ed and raped by Black men. These alle­ga­tions were report­ed mul­ti­ple times and were large­ly false. On Sept. 22, 1906, Atlanta news­pa­pers report­ed four alleged assaults on local white women. Soon, some 10,000 white men and boys began gath­er­ing, beat­ing, and stab­bing Blacks. It is esti­mat­ed that there were between 25 and 40 African-American deaths; it was con­firmed that there were only two white deaths.

Greenwood , Tulsa, Oklahoma “Black Wall Street” (May 31 – June 1, 1921)

During the oil boom of the 1910s, the area of north­east Oklahoma around Tulsa flour­ished, includ­ing the Greenwood neigh­bor­hood, which came to be known as “the Black Wall Street.” The area was home to sev­er­al lawyers, real­tors, doc­tors, and promi­nent black Businessmen, many of them mul­ti­mil­lion­aires. Greenwood boast­ed a vari­ety of thriv­ing busi­ness­es such as gro­cery stores, cloth­ing stores, bar­ber­shops, banks, hotels, cafes, movie the­aters, two news­pa­pers, and many con­tem­po­rary homes. Greenwood res­i­dents enjoyed many lux­u­ries that their white neigh­bors did not, includ­ing indoor plumb­ing and a remark­able school sys­tem. The dol­lar cir­cu­lat­ed 36 to 100 times, some­times tak­ing a year for cur­ren­cy to leave the com­mu­ni­ty. The neigh­bor­hood was destroyed dur­ing a riot that broke out after a group men from Greenwood attempt­ed to pro­tect a young Black man from a lynch mob. On the night of May 31, 1921, a mob called for the lynch­ing of Dick Rowland, a Black man who shined shoes, after reports spread that on the pre­vi­ous day he had assault­ed Sarah Page, a white woman, in the ele­va­tor she oper­at­ed in a down­town build­ing. In the ear­ly morn­ing hours of June 1, 1921, Black Tulsa was loot­ed, fire­bombed from the air and burned down by white riot­ers. The gov­er­nor declared mar­tial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assist­ed fire­men in putting out fires, removed abduct­ed African-Americans from the hands of white vig­i­lantes, and impris­oned all Black Tulsans, not already con­fined, into a prison camp at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days. In the wake of the vio­lence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 peo­ple were treat­ed for injuries and esti­mat­ed 300 deaths occurred.

Chicago Race Riots (1919)

The “Red Summer” of 1919 marked the cul­mi­na­tion of steadi­ly grow­ing ten­sions sur­round­ing the great migra­tion of African-Americans from the rur­al South to the cities of the North dur­ing World War I. Chicago was one of the north­ern cities that expe­ri­enced vio­lent race riots dur­ing that peri­od. Drawn by the city’s meat­pack­ing hous­es, rail­way com­pa­nies and steel mills, the African-American pop­u­la­tion in Chicago sky­rock­et­ed from 44,000 in 1910 to 235,000 in 1930. When the war end­ed in late 1918, thou­sands of white ser­vice­men returned home from fight­ing in Europe to find that their jobs in fac­to­ries, ware­hous­es and mills had been filled by new­ly arrived Southern Blacks or immi­grants. On July 27, 1919, an African-American teenag­er drowned in Lake Michigan after he chal­lenged the unof­fi­cial seg­re­ga­tion of Chicago’s beach­es and was stoned by a group of white youths. His death, and the police refusal to arrest the men who caused it, sparked a week of race riot­ing between Black and white Chicagoans, with Black neigh­bor­hoods receiv­ing the worst of the dam­age. When the riots end­ed on Aug. 3, 15 whites and 23 Blacks had been killed and more than 500 peo­ple injured. An addi­tion­al 1,000 Black fam­i­lies had lost their homes when they were torched by riot­ers. President Woodrow Wilson cas­ti­gat­ed the “white race” as “the aggres­sor” in the Chicago uprising.

Rosewood Massacre (1923)

Rosewood was a qui­et, self-suf­fi­cient whis­tle-stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway in Florida. By 1900 the pop­u­la­tion in Rosewood had become pre­dom­i­nant­ly African-American. Some peo­ple farmed or worked in local busi­ness­es, includ­ing a sawmill in near­by Sumner, a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white town. In 1920, Rosewood Blacks had three church­es, a school, a large Masonic Hall, tur­pen­tine mill, a sug­ar­cane mill, a base­ball team and a gen­er­al store (a sec­ond one was white owned). The vil­lage had about two dozen plank two-sto­ry homes, some oth­er small hous­es, as well as sev­er­al small unoc­cu­pied plank struc­tures. Spurred by unsup­port­ed accu­sa­tions that a white woman in Sumner had been beat­en and pos­si­bly raped by a Black drifter, white men from a num­ber of near­by towns lynched a Rosewood res­i­dent. When the Black cit­i­zens defend­ed them­selves against fur­ther attack, sev­er­al hun­dred whites combed the coun­try­side hunt­ing Black peo­ple and burn­ing almost every struc­ture in Rosewood. Survivors hid for sev­er­al days in near­by swamps and were evac­u­at­ed by train and car to larg­er towns. Although state and local author­i­ties were aware of the vio­lence, they made no arrests for the activ­i­ties in Rosewood. At least six Blacks and two whites were killed, and the town was aban­doned by Black res­i­dents dur­ing the attacks. None ever returned.
Washington, D.C. Race Riots (1919)

Postwar Washington, D.C., rough­ly 75 per­cent white, was a racial tin­der­box. Housing was in short sup­ply and jobs so scarce that ex-dough­boys in uni­form pan­han­dled along Pennsylvania Avenue. However, Washington’s Black com­mu­ni­ty was then the largest and most pros­per­ous in the coun­try, with a small but impres­sive upper class of teach­ers, min­is­ters, lawyers and busi­ness­men con­cen­trat­ed in the LeDroit Park neigh­bor­hood near Howard University. By the time the “Red Summer” was under­way, unem­ployed whites bit­ter­ly envied the rel­a­tive­ly few blacks who were for­tu­nate enough to pro­cure low-lev­el gov­ern­ment jobs. Many whites also resent­ed the influx of African-Americans into pre­vi­ous­ly seg­re­gat­ed neigh­bor­hoods around Capitol Hill, Foggy Bottom and the old down­town. In July 1919, white men, many in mil­i­tary uni­forms, respond­ed to the rumored arrest of a Black man for rape with four days of mob vio­lence. They riot­ed, ran­dom­ly beat Black peo­ple on the street and pulled oth­ers off street­cars in attacks. When police refused to inter­vene, the Black pop­u­la­tion fought back. Troops tried to restore order as the city closed saloons and the­aters to dis­cour­age assem­blies. When the vio­lence end­ed, 15 peo­ple had died: 10 whites, includ­ing two police offi­cers; and five African-Americans. Fifty peo­ple were seri­ous­ly wound­ed and anoth­er 100 less severe­ly wound­ed. It was one of the few times when white fatal­i­ties out­num­bered those of Blacks.

Knoxville, Tennessee Race Riots (1919)

In August 1919, a race riot in Knoxville, Tenn., broke out after a white mob mobi­lized in response to a Black man accused of mur­der­ing a white woman. The 5,000-strong mob stormed the coun­ty jail search­ing for the pris­on­er. They freed 16 white pris­on­ers, includ­ing sus­pect­ed mur­der­ers. After loot­ing the jail and sheriff’s house, the mob moved on and attacked the African-American busi­ness dis­trict. Many of the city’s Black res­i­dents, aware of the race riots that had occurred across the coun­try that sum­mer, had armed them­selves, and bar­ri­cad­ed the inter­sec­tion of Vine and Central to defend their busi­ness­es. Two pla­toons of the Tennessee National Guard’s 4^th Infantry led by Adjutant General Edward Sweeney arrived, but they were unable to halt the chaos. The mob broke into stores and stole firearms and oth­er weapons on their way to the Black busi­ness dis­trict. Upon their arrival the streets erupt­ed in gun­fire as Black snipers exchanged fire with both the riot­ers and the sol­diers. The Tennessee National Guard at one point fired two machine guns indis­crim­i­nate­ly into the neigh­bor­hood, even­tu­al­ly dis­pers­ing the riot­ers. Shooting con­tin­ued spo­rad­i­cal­ly for sev­er­al hours. Outgunned, the Black defend­ers grad­u­al­ly fled, allow­ing the guards­men to gain con­trol of the area. Newspapers placed the death toll at just two, though eye­wit­ness accounts sug­gest the dead were so many that the bod­ies were dumped into the Tennessee River, while oth­ers were buried in mass graves out­side the city.
New York City Draft Riot (1863)

The Draft Riot of 1863 was a four-day erup­tion of vio­lence in New York City dur­ing the Civil War stem­ming from deep work­er dis­con­tent with the inequities of the first fed­er­al­ly man­dat­ed con­scrip­tion laws. In addi­tion, the white work­ing class feared that eman­ci­pa­tion of enslaved Blacks would cause an influx of African-American work­ers from the South. In many instances, employ­ers used Black work­ers as strike-break­ers dur­ing this peri­od. Thus, the white riot­ers even­tu­al­ly turned their wrath on the homes and busi­ness­es of inno­cent African-Americans and any­thing else sym­bol­ic of their grow­ing polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and social pow­er. On July 13, 1863, orga­nized oppo­si­tion broke out across the city. The protests soon mor­phed into a vio­lent upris­ing against the city’s wealthy élite and its African-American res­i­dents. The four-day draft riot was final­ly quelled by police coop­er­at­ing with the 7^th New York Regiment. Estimates vary great­ly on the num­ber of peo­ple killed, though most his­to­ri­ans believe around 115 peo­ple lost their lives, includ­ing near­ly a dozen Black men who were lynched after they were bru­tal­ly beat­en. Hundreds of build­ings were destroyed caus­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in dam­age. Up to 50 of the dam­aged build­ings had been burned to the ground by riot­ers, includ­ing the Colored Orphan Asylum, which housed more than 230 Black children.
The East St. Louis Massacre (1917)

During spring 1917 Blacks were arriv­ing in St. Louis at the rate of 2,000 per week, with many of them find­ing work at the Aluminum Ore Company and the American Steel Company in East St. Louis. Some whites feared loss of job and wage secu­ri­ty because of the new com­pe­ti­tion, and fur­ther resent­ed new­com­ers arriv­ing from a rur­al, very dif­fer­ent cul­ture. Tensions between the groups ran high and esca­lat­ed when rumors were spread about Black men and white women social­iz­ing at labor meet­ings. In May, 3,000 white men gath­ered in down­town East St. Louis. The rov­ing mob began burn­ing build­ings and attack­ing Black peo­ple. The Illinois gov­er­nor called in the National Guard to pre­vent fur­ther riot­ing and con­di­tions eased some­what for a few weeks. Then on July 1, white men dri­ving a car through a Black neigh­bor­hood began shoot­ing into hous­es, stores, and a church. A group of Black men orga­nized them­selves to defend against the attack­ers. As they gath­ered, they mis­took an approach­ing car for the same one that had ear­li­er dri­ven through the neigh­bor­hood and they shot and killed both men in the car, who were, in fact, police detec­tives sent to calm the sit­u­a­tion. The shoot­ing of the detec­tives incensed a grow­ing crowd of white spec­ta­tors who came the next day to exam­ine the car. The crowd grew and turned into a mob that spent the day and the fol­low­ing night on a spree of vio­lence tar­get­ing Black neigh­bor­hoods of East St. Louis. Again, guards­men were called in but var­i­ous accounts sug­gest they joined in attack­ing Black peo­ple rather than stop­ping the vio­lence. After the riot, vary­ing esti­mates of the death toll cir­cu­lat­ed. The police chief esti­mat­ed that 100 Blacks had been killed. The renowned jour­nal­ist Ida B. Wells report­ed in The Chicago Defender that 40 – 150 black peo­ple were killed in the riot­ing. The NAACP esti­mat­ed deaths at 100 – 200. Six thou­sand African-Americans were left home­less after their neigh­bor­hood was burned.

Sources:
black​wall​street​.freeservers​.com
teach​inghis​to​ry​.org
tul​sahis​to​ry​.org
wash​ing​ton​post​.com
wikipedia​.org
his​to​ry​.com
black​past​.org