Mass racial violence in the United States
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In the broader context of racism against Black Americans and
racism in the United States Racism in the United States comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are related to each other, are held by various people and groups in the United States, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and ...
, mass racial violence in the United States consists of
ethnic conflict An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...
s and
race riots An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...
, along with such events as: * Racially based communal conflicts between
white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
and
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
which took place before the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, often in relation to attempted slave revolts, and racially based communal conflicts between white Americans and African Americans which took place after the war, in relation to tensions which existed during the
Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology * Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
and later efforts to suppress
Black suffrage Black suffrage refers to black people's right to vote and has long been an issue in countries established under conditions of black minorities. United States Suffrage in the United States has had many advances and setbacks. Prior to the Civil ...
and institute
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
* Conflicts between Protestants and recent Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century * Attacks on Native Americans and
white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
which took place during conflicts over the land (see also:
American Indian Wars The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...
,
California Genocide The California genocide was the killing of thousands of indigenous peoples of California by United States government agents and private citizens in the 19th century. It began following the American Conquest of California from Mexico, and the ...
, List of Indian massacres) * Frequent fighting among members of various ethnic groups in major cities, specifically in the
Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
and the
Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the
ethnic violence Ethnic violence is a form of political violence which is expressly motivated by ethnic hatred and ethnic conflict. Forms of ethnic violence which can be argued to have the characteristics of terrorism may be known as ethnic terrorism or ethnica ...
between
Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans ( es, Puertorriqueños; or boricuas) are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred t ...
and
Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...
in New York City *
Anti-immigrant Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
violence, specifically
anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
violence which targeted Catholics in the 19th century * Anti-immigrant violence, specifically Hispanophobic violence which targeted
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
ns during the 20th century * Two concurrent but distinct patterns of disturbances which occurred during the
civil rights era The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
: racial disturbances which occurred during demonstrations and protests, such as the disturbance which occurred at the Marquette Park Illinois march of August 1966 and the disturbance which occurred during the
1969 Greensboro uprising The 1969 Greensboro uprising occurred on and around the campuses of James B. Dudley High School and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T) in Greensboro, North Carolina, when, over the course of May 21 to May 25, gunfir ...
in North Carolina, in conjunction with the Ghetto riots in the United States (1964–1969), a group of
riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...
s which includes the
Long, hot summer of 1967 The long, hot summer of 1967 refers to the more than 150 race riots that erupted across the United States in the summer of 1967. In June there were riots in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Tampa. In July there were riots in Birming ...
and the
King assassination riots 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 wav ...
of 1968, which caused mass violence, looting, and long-lasting damage within
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
communities.


History


Racial and ethnic cleansing

Racial A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
and
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
was committed on a large scale during this period of time in the
history of the United States The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...
, particularly against Native Americans, who were forced off their lands and relocated to reservations. Along with Native Americans,
Chinese Americans Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...
and African Americans throughout the United States were rounded up and expunged from towns under threat of mob rule, the white mobs frequently intended to harm their African American targets.


Genocide of California's Indigenous peoples

Following California's transition to statehood, the California state government, incited, aided and financed miners, settlers, ranchers and people's militias to enslave, kidnap, or murder a major proportion of California Native Americans, who were sometimes contemptuously referred to as "Diggers", for their practice of digging up roots to eat. California governor Peter Burnett predicted 1851: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert." California state forces, private militias, Federal reservations, and sections of the US Army all participated in the campaign that caused the deaths of many California Indians with the state and federal governments paying millions of dollars to militias to murder Indians, while many starved on Federal Reservations because of their caloric distribution reducing from 480–910 to 160–390 and between 1,680 and 3,741 California Indians were killed by the U.S. Army themselves. Between 1850 and 1852 the state appropriated almost one million dollars for the activities of militias, and between 1854 and 1859 the state appropriated another $500,000, almost half of which was reimbursed by the federal government. Guenter Lewy, famous for the phrase "In the end, the sad fate of America's Indians represents not a crime but a tragedy, involving an irreconcilable collision of cultures and values" wrote that what happened in California may constitute genocide: "some of the massacres in California, where both the perpetrators and their supporters openly acknowledged a desire to destroy the Indians as an ethnic entity, might indeed be regarded under the terms of the convention as exhibiting
genocidal intent Genocidal intent is the '' mens rea'' for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent unde ...
." By one estimate, at least 4,500 California Indians were killed between 1849 and 1870. Contemporary historian Benjamin Madley has documented the numbers of California Indians killed between 1846 and 1873; he estimates that during this period at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians. Most of the deaths took place in what he defined as more than 370
massacres A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
(defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise"). Professor Ed Castillo, of
Sonoma State University Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, US. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 Bachelor's ...
, estimates that more were killed: "The handiwork of these well armed death squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in the first two years of the gold rush." Numerous books have been written on the subject of the California Indian genocide, such as ''Genocide and Vendetta: The Round Valley Wars in Northern California'' by Lynwood Carranco and Estle Beard, ''Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846–1873'' by Brendan C. Lindsay, and ''An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873'' by Benjamin Madley among others. Madley's book caused California governor
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
to recognize the genocide. In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June, 2019, California governor
Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California f ...
apologized for the genocide. Newsom said, "That's what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that's the way it needs to be described in the history books."


Anti-immigrant violence

Riots which are defined by " race" have taken place between ethnic groups in the United States since at least the 18th century and they may have also occurred before it. During the early-to-mid- 19th centuries, violent rioting occurred between
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
"
Nativists Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of immigration-restriction measures. In scholarly studies, ''nativism'' is a standa ...
" and recently arrived
Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
immigrants. The San Francisco Vigilance Movements of 1851 and 1856 have been described as responses to rampant crime and government corruption. But, since the late 19th century, historians have noted that the vigilantes had a nativist bias; they systematically attacked Irish immigrants, and later, they attacked
Mexicans Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States. The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Indigenous linguistic groups and other languages brought to Mexi ...
and Chileans who came as miners during the
California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California f ...
, as well as Chinese immigrants. During the early 20th century, whites committed acts of racial or ethnic violence against
Filipinos Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or other ...
, Japanese, and
Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
, all of whom had arrived in California during waves of immigration. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
immigrants were subjected to racial violence. In 1891, eleven Italians were lynched by a mob of thousands in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
. In the 1890s, a total of twenty Italians were lynched in the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
.


Reconstruction era (1863–1877)

As the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, ended, antislavery political forces demanded rights for ex-slaves. This led to the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments, which theoretically granted African-American and other minority males equality and voting rights. Although the federal government originally stationed troops in the South in order to protect these new freedoms, this time of progress was cut short. By 1877, the North had lost its political will in the South and while slavery was gone,
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
erased most of the freedoms which were guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments. Through violent economic tactics and legal technicalities, were gradually removed from the voting process.


Lynching era and race riots (1878–1939)

Lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
, is defined as “a form of violence in which a mob, under the pretext of administering justice without a trial, executes a presumed offender, often after inflicting
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
and corporal mutilation on him or her.” It was a particularly ritualistic form of
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...
, and it frequently involved the majority of the members of the local white community. Lynchings were sometimes announced in advance and they were frequently turned into spectacle lynchings which audiences could witness. The number of lynchings in the United States dropped from the 1880s to the 1920s, but there were still an average of about 30 lynchings per year during the 1920s. A study of 100 lynchings which was conducted from 1929 to 1940 revealed that at least one third of the victims were innocent of the crimes of which they were accused. Labor and immigrant conflicts were sources of tensions that served as catalysts for the
East St. Louis riot The East St. Louis Riots were a series of outbreaks of labor and race-related violence by White Americans who murdered between 39 and 150 African Americans in late May and early July 1917. Another 6,000 black people were left homeless, and t ...
of 1917. White rioters killed an between 39 and 150 Black residents of East St. Louis, after Black residents had killed two white policemen, mistaking the car which they were riding in for another car which was full of white occupants who previously drove through a Black neighborhood and randomly fired their guns into a crowd of Black people. Other White-on-Black race riots included the
Atlanta riots Atlanta riot or Atlanta riots may refer to: * 1906 Atlanta race riot * 1967 Atlanta riots *1987 Atlanta prison riots See also *2020 George Floyd protests in Atlanta *2020 reaction to the killing of Rayshard Brooks On the night of June 12, 2 ...
(1906), the
Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest c ...
and Chicago riots (1919), some of a series of riots which occurred in the volatile post-
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
environment, and the Tulsa massacre (1921). The
Chicago race riot of 1919 The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died (23 black a ...
grew out of tensions which existed on the Southside, where
Irish Americans , image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png , image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state , caption = Notable Irish Americans , population = 36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
and Black residents were crowded into substandard housing and competed with each other for jobs at the stockyards. The Irish Americans had lived in the city for a longer period of time, and they also organized themselves around athletic and political clubs. Violence broke out across the city in late July. White mobs, many of which were organized around Irish athletic clubs, pulled black people off trolley cars, attacked Black businesses, and beat victims. City officials closed the street car system, but the rioting continued. A total of 23 Black people and 15 white people were killed. The 1921
Tulsa race massacre The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long massacre that took place between May 31 – June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deput ...
took place in Greenwood, which was a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to around 10,000 Black residents and frequently called America's Black Wall Street. The race riot was precipitated by 19-year-old
Dick Rowland Dick Rowland or Roland (aka "Diamond Dick Rowland", born c. 1902 — 1960s?) was an African-American teenage shoeshiner whose arrest for assault in May 1921 was the impetus for the Tulsa race massacre. Rowland was 19 years old at the time. The a ...
, a shoeshine accused of attacking 17-year-old white elevator operator Sarah Page at a department store, being arrested on May 31, 1921. On June 1, a confrontation between Black and white groups outside the courthouse led to a shootout which killed 10 whites and 2 Blacks. The Black group then retreated back to the Greenwood District. Subsequently, a white mob attacked Black businesses, homes, and residents in the Greenwood District. The attack left over 35 city blocks burned, over 800 people injured, and between 100 and 300 people were killed. Over 6,000 Black residents were also arrested by the
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...
, and taken to several internment centers.


Civil rights era (1940–1971)

Though the Roosevelt administration, under tremendous pressure, produced anti-racist propaganda and helped push for African-American employment in some cases, African Americans were still experiencing immense violence, particularly in the South. In March 1956, United States Senator
Sam Ervin Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, he liked to call himself a "country lawyer", and often ...
of North Carolina created the
Southern Manifesto The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, during the 84th United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places. The manif ...
, which promised to fight to keep Jim Crow alive by all legal means. This continuation of support for
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
and segregation laws led to protests in which many African-Americans were violently injured out in the open at lunchroom counters, buses, polling places and local public areas. These protests did not eviscerate racism, but they prevented racism from being expressed out in the open and forced it to be expressed in more coded or metaphorical linguistic terms. By the 1960s, decades of racial, economic, and political forces, which generated inner city poverty, resulted in race riots within minority areas in cities across the United States. The beating and rumored death of cab driver John Smith by police, sparked the
1967 Newark riots The 1967 Newark riots were an episode of violent, armed conflict in the streets of Newark, New Jersey, United States. Taking place over a four-day period (between July 12 and July 17, 1967), the Newark riots resulted in at least 26 deaths and ...
. This event became, per capita, one of the deadliest civil disturbances of the 1960s. The long and short term causes of the Newark riots are explored in depth in the documentary film ''
Revolution '67 ''Revolution '67'' is a 2007 documentary film about the black riots of the 1960s. With the philosophy of nonviolence giving way to the Black Power Movement, race riots were breaking out in Jersey City, Harlem, and Watts, Los Angeles. In 1967, bla ...
'' and many news reports of the times. The riots in Newark spread across the United States in most major cities and over 100 deaths were reported. Many inner city neighborhoods in these cities were destroyed. The April 1968
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at ...
in
Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...
and the June
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. He was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. PDT the following day. Kennedy was a senator from New York and a candidate ...
in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
also led to nationwide rioting with similar mass deaths. During the same time period, and since then, numerous violent acts committed against African-American churches have been reported.


Modern era (1972–present)

Today racial violence has changed dramatically, because openly violent acts of racism are less prevalent, but acts of police brutality and the mass incarceration of racial minorities are continuing to be major issues within the United States. The War on Drugs has been noted as a direct cause of the dramatic increase in the number of incarcerations in the nation's prison system, which has risen from 300,000 in 1980 to more than 2,000,000 in 2000, though it does not account for the disproportionately high African American homicide and crime rates, which peaked before the War on Drugs began. During the 1980s and '90s a number of riots occurred that were related to longstanding racial tensions between police and minority communities. The 1980 Miami riots were catalyzed by the killing of an African-American motorist by four white
Miami-Dade Police The Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), formerly known as the Metro-Dade Police Department (1981–1997), Dade County Public Safety Department (1957–1981), and the Dade County Sheriff's Office (1836–1957), is a county police department se ...
officers. They were subsequently acquitted on charges of manslaughter and evidence tampering. Similarly, the six-day
1992 Los Angeles riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in So ...
erupted after the acquittal of four white
LAPD The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
officers who had been filmed beating
Rodney King Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965June 17, 2012) was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers during his arrest after a pursuit for driving whi ...
, an African-American motorist.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad Khalil Gibran Muhammad (born April 27, 1972) is an American academic. He is a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute. He is the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Harlem-based branch ...
, the Director of the Harlem-based
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) ...
has identified more than 100 instances of mass racial violence in the United States since 1935 and has noted that almost every instance was precipitated by a police incident. The
Cincinnati riots of 2001 The 2001 Cincinnati riots were a series of civil disorders which took place in and around the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio from April 9 to 13, 2001. They began with a peaceful protest in the heart of the city on Founta ...
were caused by the killing of 19-year-old African-American Timothy Thomas by white police officer Stephen Roach, who was subsequently acquitted on charges of negligent homicide. The 2014 Ferguson unrest occurred against a backdrop of racial tension between police and the Black community of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the police
shooting of Michael Brown On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brow ...
; similar incidents elsewhere such as the
killing of Trayvon Martin On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of mixed race, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for his ...
sparked smaller and isolated protests. According to the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...
' annual poll of United States news directors and editors, the top news story of 2014 was police killings of unarmed Black people, including Brown, as well as the investigations and the protests afterward. During the 2017
Unite the Right rally The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Kl ...
, an attendee drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the rally, killing 32-year-old Heather D. Heyer and injuring 19 others, and was indicted on federal hate crime charges. In 2020, the police killing of
Breonna Taylor Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020, when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing op ...
and the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and
George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit tw ...
sparked racial unrest over
systemic racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
and
police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to ...
against African Americans. Riots during the summer resulted in destruction of property, mass looting, monument removals, and incidences of violence by counter-protesters and police across the United States. The
Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
condemned violence during the movement and responded by threatening to quell demonstrations, for which it drew criticism. In June, president
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
threatened to use the
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
to disperse protesters by invoking the
Insurrection Act of 1807 The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a United States federal law that empowers the President of the United States to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to suppress ...
. Federal law enforcement agencies were eventually deployed to assist local authorities and protect public property in Washington, D.C.


Timeline of events


Nativist period (1700s–1860)

*1811: German Coast Uprising (
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
) *1814: anti-Hispanic race riot with sailors, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1823: Yankees launch raid on Irish neighborhood, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1824:
Hard Scrabble and Snow Town Hard Scrabble (Addison Hollow) and Snow Town were two African American neighborhoods located in Providence, Rhode Island in the nineteenth century. They were also the sites of race riots in which working-class whites destroyed multiple black h ...
Riots, 1824 & 1831 respectively,
Providence, RI Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Ba ...
*1826: Multiple forays on Irish neighborhoods, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1828: Riot between English/Irish Protestants against Irish Catholics in South Boston, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1829:
Cincinnati riots of 1829 The Cincinnati race riots of 1829 were triggered by competition for jobs between Irish immigrants and native blacks and former slaves, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States but also were related to white fears given the rapid increases of free and f ...
(
Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
). Rioting against African Americans results in thousands leaving for
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
. *1829:
Boston anti-Catholic riots Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...
( Boston, Massachusetts) Attacked homes of Irish Catholics, stoning them for 3 days. *1831:
Nat Turner's slave rebellion Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American He ...
(
Southampton County, Virginia Southampton County is a county located on the southern border of the Commonwealth of Virginia. North Carolina is to the south. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,996. Its county seat is Courtland. History In the early 17th century ...
) *1831: Yankees attack Irish church, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1832: Yankees attack Irish on Merrimack street, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1832: December 31, rioters clash with the watch protecting Irish homes, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1833: November 29, Nativist riot in Charlestown, (
Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins ...
) *1833: December 7–8, Nativist riots in Charlestown, (
Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins ...
) *1834: Ursuline Convent riots (
Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins ...
, near Boston) *1834:
New York anti-abolitionist riots (1834) Beginning July 7, 1834, New York City was torn by a huge antiabolitionist riot (also called Farren Riot or Tappan Riot) that lasted for nearly a week until it was put down by military force. "At times the rioters controlled whole sections of the ...
*1834: Attack on
Canterbury Female Boarding School The Canterbury Female Boarding School, in Canterbury, Connecticut, was operated by its founder, Prudence Crandall, from 1831 to 1834. When townspeople would not allow African-American girls to enroll, Crandall decided to turn it into a school for ...
, Canterbury, Connecticut *1834: Bangor anti-Catholic riot,
Bangor, Maine Bangor ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 31,753, making it the state's 3rd-largest settlement, behind Portland (68,408) and Lewiston (37,121). Modern Bangor ...
*1835: Gentleman's Riot, numerous riots throughout 1835 targeting abolitionists, Boston, Massachusetts *1835: Snow Riot ( Washington, D.C.) *1835:
Five Points Riot 5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 5, five or number 5 may also refer to: * AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era * 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era Literature * ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram * ''5'' (comics), an awar ...
(
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
) *1835: Destruction of
Noyes Academy The Noyes Academy was a racially integrated school, which also admitted women, founded by New England abolitionists in 1835 in Canaan, New Hampshire, near Dartmouth College, whose then-abolitionist president, Nathan Lord, was "the only seated ...
, Canaan, New Hampshire *1836: Cincinnati riots of 1836 (Cincinnati, Ohio) *1837:
Broad Street Riot The Broad Street Riot was a massive brawl that occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1837, between Irish Americans and Yankee firefighters. An estimated 800 people were involved in the actual fighting, with at least 10,000 spectators eg ...
( Boston, Massachusetts) *1837: Montgomery Guards riot ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1837: Murder of
Elijah Lovejoy Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. Following his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery ...
*1838: Burning of Pennsylvania Hall *1841:
Cincinnati riots of 1841 The Cincinnati riots of 1841 occurred after a long drought had created widespread unemployment in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Over a period of several days in September 1841, unemployed whites attacked black residents who defended themselves. ...
(
Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
) *1842:
Lombard Street Riot The Lombard Street riot was a three-day race riot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1842.Gregory, Kia. ''Philadelphia Weekly''Monumental Achievement December 7, 2005; accessed April 30, 2008.Newlin, Heather"The Calm After the Storm", phillyhistor ...
, (a.k.a. the Abolition Riots), August 1, Philadelphia *1842:
Muncy Abolition riot of 1842 The Muncy Abolition riot of 1842 occurred in April 1842 in Muncy, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The riot started as an attack on a schoolhouse where an abolitionist speaker, invited by local Quakers, spoke against slaver ...
*1844:
Philadelphia Nativist Riots The Philadelphia nativist riots (also known as the Philadelphia Prayer Riots, the Bible Riots and the Native American Riots) were a series of riots that took place on May 68 and July 67, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and the ...
(May 6–8/July 5–8) *1844: Brooklyn riot, occurred on April 4 between
nativists Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of immigration-restriction measures. In scholarly studies, ''nativism'' is a standa ...
and Irish immigrants. *1846: Nativist riot, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1849:
Astor Place riot Astor may refer to: People * Astor (surname) * Astor family, a wealthy 18th-century American family who became prominent in 20th-century British politics * Astor Bennett, a character in the Showtime television series ''Dexter'' * Ástor Piazzol ...
, between immigrants and
nativists Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of immigration-restriction measures. In scholarly studies, ''nativism'' is a standa ...
*1851:
Hoboken anti-German riot Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 ...
*1853:
Cincinnati riot of 1853 The Cincinnati riot of 1853 was triggered by the visit of then-Archbishop (later, Cardinal) Gaetano Bedini, the emissary of Pope Pius IX, to Cincinnati, Ohio, on 21 December 1853. The German Liberal population of the city, many of whom had come ...
(
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
, anti-Catholic riot by German Protestants and Liberals) *1854:
Bath, Maine, anti-Catholic riot of 1854 The anti-Catholic riot that occurred in Bath on July 6, 1854 was one of a number that took place in coastal Maine in the 1850s, including the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Father John Bapst in 1854 in the town of Ellsworth. The f ...
(
Bath, Maine Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 8,766 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County, which includes one city and 10 towns. The city is popular with tourists, many drawn by its ...
) *1854: St. Louis Nativist riots ( St. Louis, Missouri, anti-Irish Catholic riot) *1854: May 26, Failed rescue of fugitive slave Anthony Burns with the riot led by abolitionists, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1854: May 7, "Angel Gabriel" Orr nativist riot, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1854: June, Orr's followers brawl with Irish, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1855: Rogue River Massacre; Chinese migrants killed by Native American tribes in connection with
Rogue River Wars The Rogue River Wars were an armed conflict in 1855–1856 between the U.S. Army, local militias and volunteers, and the Native American tribes commonly grouped under the designation of Rogue River Indians, in the Rogue River Valley area ...
, Rogue River, Oregon *1855: Bangor know-nothing/nativist riot; Irish and their taverns were targets of attacks from know nothing party in a combination of anti immigrant and pro temperance attitudes,
Bangor, Maine Bangor ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 31,753, making it the state's 3rd-largest settlement, behind Portland (68,408) and Lewiston (37,121). Modern Bangor ...
*1855:
Bloody Monday Bloody Monday was a series of riots on August 6, 1855, in Louisville, Kentucky, an election day, when Protestant mobs attacked Irish and German Catholic neighborhoods. These riots grew out of the bitter rivalry between the Democrats and the Nat ...
(
Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
, anti-German and Irish riots) *1855:
Lager Beer Riot The Lager Beer Riot occurred on April 21, 1855 in Chicago, Illinois, and was the first major civil disturbance in the city. Mayor Levi Boone, a Nativist politician, renewed enforcement of an old local ordinance mandating that taverns be clos ...
(
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, caused by raising taxes on alcohol for Irish and German immigrants) *1855: Cincinnati Nativist riots (
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
, anti-German riots) *1856:
Battle of Seattle (1856) The Battle of Seattle was a January 26, 1856 attack by Native American tribesmen upon Seattle, Washington. Walt Crowley and David WilmaNative Americans attack Seattle on January 26, 1856 HistoryLink.org, February 15, 2003. Retrieved November 2, ...
, Jan 26, Attack by Native American tribesmen upon
Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...
. *1856: Baltimore Nativist riots (
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...
, anti-Irish Catholic riots) *1856:
San Francisco Vigilance Movement The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a vigilante group formed in 1851. The catalyst for its formation was the criminality of the Sydney Ducks gang. It was revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal govern ...
, San Francisco, California (Nativist overtones) *1857: DC Nativist riot (
District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.), Logan Circle, Jefferson Memoria ...
) *1857: Dead Rabbits riot (
New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, anti-Irish Catholic riots) *1858: New Orleans Nativist riot (, anti-Irish Catholic riots)


Civil War period (1861–1865)

*1862:
Buffalo riot of 1862 (
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
), August 12, riots by German and Irish longshoreman over lack of pay from dock bosses. *1863: Detroit race riot (
Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
), March 6, protests by working class over military draft for Civil War. *1863:
New York City draft riots The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-cla ...
, July 13–16, also known as "Manhattan draft riots" or "Draft Week," violence broke out among the working-class in Lower Manhattan after new draft laws were passed by Congress for the Civil War. White protesters eventually turned their attacks towards Black people.


Post–Civil War and Reconstruction period (1865–1877)

*1866:
New Orleans massacre of 1866 The New Orleans Massacre of 1866 occurred on July 30, when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black Freedmen was set upon by a mob of white rioters, many of whom had been soldiers of the recently defeated Confederate States of America, leading ...
(), July 30 *1866: Owyhee River Massacre; a group of traveling Chinese miners were attacked by a
Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Paiu ...
war party, in which 49 Chinese miners were killed,
Arock, Oregon Arock is an unincorporated rural hamlet in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. Although it has never been visited by Google Maps, it is part of the Ontario, OR– ID Micropolitan Statistical Area. There is a post office and K-8 school i ...
*1866:
Memphis riots of 1866 The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political and social racism following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reco ...
(Memphis, Tennessee), May 1–3, mostly ethnic Irish against African Americans *1868: Pulaski riot (
Pulaski, Tennessee Pulaski is a city in and the county seat of Giles County, which is located on the central-southern border of Tennessee, United States. The population was 8,397 at the 2020 census. It was named after Casimir Pulaski, a noted Polish-born soldier ...
), January 7 * 1868:
St. Bernard Parish massacre St. Bernard Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Bernard; es, Parroquia de San Bernardo) is a List of parishes in Louisiana, parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette, Louisiana, Chalmette. The paris ...
(
St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana St. Bernard Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Bernard; es, Parroquia de San Bernardo) is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette. The parish was formed in 1807. St. Bernard Parish is part of t ...
), October 25 *1868: Opelousas massacre (
Opelousas, Louisiana :''Opelousas is also a common name of the flathead catfish.'' Opelousas (french: Les Opélousas; Spanish: ''Los Opeluzás'') is a small city and the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. Interstate 49 and U.S. Route 190 ...
), September 28 *1868:
Camilla race riot The Camilla massacre took place in Camilla, Georgia, on Saturday, September 19, 1868. African Americans had been given the right to vote in Georgia's 1868 state constitution, which had passed in April, and in the months that followed, whites acros ...
(
Camilla, Georgia Camilla is a city in Mitchell County, Georgia, United States, and is its county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 5,187. History The city was incorporated in 1858. The name Camilla was chosen in honor of the granddaug ...
), September 19 *1868: Wards Island riot, March 5, Irish and German-American indigent immigrants, temporarily interned at
Wards Island Randalls Island (sometimes called Randall's Island) and Wards Island are conjoined islands, collectively called Randalls and Wards Islands, in New York County, New York City,
by the Commissioners of Emigration, begin rioting following an altercation between two residents, resulting in thirty men seriously wounded and around sixty arrested. *1870:
Eutaw massacre The Eutaw riot was an episode of white racial violence in Eutaw, Alabama, the county seat of Greene County, on October 25, 1870,Shapiro 12. during the Reconstruction Era in the United States. It was related to an extended period of campaign vi ...
( Eutaw, Alabama), October 25 *1870:
Mamaroneck riot The Mamaroneck riot was an armed clash between Irish and Italian-American laborers at Grand Park, Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York, on August 13, 1870, resulting in the deaths of several men. One of the early labor riot A riot is a f ...
(
Mamaroneck, New York Mamaroneck ( ) is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 31,758 at the 2020 United States census over 29,156 at the 2010 census. There are two villages contained within the town: Larchmont and the Village of M ...
), August 13 *1870: Laurens, South Carolina, October 20 *1870: Kirk-Holden war: (
Alamance County, North Carolina Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat ...
), July - November, Federal troops, led by Col. Kirk and requested by NC governor Holden, were sent to extinguish racial violence. Holden was eventually impeached because of the offensive. *1870:
New York City orange riot The Orange Riots took place in Manhattan, New York City, in 1870 and 1871, and they involved violent conflict between Irish Protestants who were members of the Orange Order and hence called "Orangemen", and Irish Catholics, along with the New ...
, July 12 *1871:
Meridian race riot of 1871 The Meridian race riot of 1871 was a race riot in Meridian, Mississippi in March 1871. It followed the arrest of freedmen accused of inciting riot in a downtown fire, and blacks' organizing for self-defense. Although the local Ku Klux Klan ( ...
, (
Meridian, Mississippi Meridian is the seventh largest city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, with a population of 41,148 at the 2010 census and an estimated population in 2018 of 36,347. It is the county seat of Lauderdale County and the principal city of the Merid ...
), March *1871: Second New York City orange riot, July 12 *1871: Los Angeles anti-Chinese riot (
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
), October 24, mixed Mexican and white mob killed 17–20 Chinese in the largest mass lynching in U.S. history *1871:
Scranton coal riot Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming ...
, Violence occurs between striking members of a miners' union in
Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...
when Welsh miners attack Irish and German-American miners who chose to leave the union and accept the terms offered by local mining companies. *1872: Pattenburg Massacre, on the Muthockaway Creek, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Black laborers working on the farm of a Mrs Carter are attacked while returning to their shanties after work by Irish laborers who had been working on a nearby tunnel. Three Black men Denis Powel, Oscar Bruce and another older Black man were shot and beaten beyond recognition. Three other Black men from the massacre were arrested, while their assailants remained at large. *1873: Colfax massacre (
Colfax, Louisiana Colfax is a town in, and the parish seat of, Grant Parish, Louisiana, United States, founded in 1869. Colfax is part of the Alexandria, Louisiana metropolitan area. The largely African American population of Colfax counted 1,558 at the 2010 ...
), April 13 *1874:
Vicksburg massacre Vicksburg most commonly refers to: * Vicksburg, Mississippi, a city in western Mississippi, United States * The Vicksburg Campaign, an American Civil War campaign * The Siege of Vicksburg, an American Civil War battle Vicksburg is also the name ...
(
Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vi ...
), December 7, attack on Black citizens, death toll estimates range from 75 to 300 people. *1874:
Battle of Liberty Place The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection and coup d'etat by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans ...
(), September 14, after contested gubernatorial election, Democrats took over state buildings for three days. *1874: Coushatta massacre (
Coushatta, Louisiana Coushatta is a town in, and the parish seat of, rural Red River Parish in north Louisiana, United States. It is situated on the east bank of the Red River. The community is approximately 45 miles south of Shreveport on U.S. Highway 71. The popula ...
), August *1875:
Clinton Riot Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 28,100 at the 2020 United States census. History Founded in 1823, Clint ...
(Massacre) (
Clinton, Mississippi Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 28,100 at the 2020 United States census. History Founded in 1823, Clin ...
), September *1876: Statewide violence in South Carolina (Hamburg, South Carolina, Hamburg, Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston, Ellenton, South Carolina, Ellenton, Cainhoy, Edgefield, South Carolina, Edgefield, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Mt. Pleasant, and Beaufort, South Carolina, Beaufort, South Carolina), July - November *1876: Hamburg massacre, (Hamburg, South Carolina), July *1876: Ellenton riot, (Ellenton, South Carolina), September *1877: San Francisco riot of 1877, (San Francisco, San Francisco, California), July 23–25, a three-day pogrom waged against Chinese immigrants.


Jim Crow period (1877–1914)

*1877: Group of white men burn down Chinese workers bunkhouse, robs and murders them, (Chico, California) *1878: Reno Chinatown burnt to the ground, Reno, Nevada *1880: Denver riot; a mob of Democratic voters rioted against Chinese residents in which one was killed, Denver, Colorado *1881: Mass lynching of three Mexicans charged with murder, (Los Lunas, New Mexico, Los Lunas, Valencia County, New Mexico) *1882: Mass killing of Chinese miners by white miners who were trying to rob them, in which 4 were killed, Hamer, Idaho *1885: Rock Springs Massacre, Rock Springs massacre (Rock Springs, Wyoming), September 2, massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by white immigrant miners *1885: Mass lynching of five Chinese miners, Pierce, Idaho *1885: Eureka Chinese expulsion, Eureka, California *1885: Attack on Squak Valley Chinese laborers, Issaquah, Washington *1885: Coal creek anti-Chinese riot, Newcastle, Washington *1885: Tacoma riot of 1885 (Tacoma, Washington), November 3, forceful expulsion of the Chinese population *1885: Chinatown and 25 other buildings totaling 35,000 dollars got burned down causing Chinese to be forced out, (Tulare, California) *1885: Chinatown burnt to the ground, (Pasadena, California) *1885: Mob attempts to burn Chinatown down, (Modesto, California) *1885: Black Diamond anti-Chinese purge, Black Diamond, Washington *1886: Seattle riot of 1886 (Seattle, Seattle, Washington), February 6–9 *1886: Anti-Chinese riot, Olympia, Washington *1886: Mob burns houses of Chinese and expels them, (Marysville, California) *1886: Forced expulsion of Chinese ranchers, (Nicolaus, California) *1886: Redding Chinese expulsion, Redding, California *1886: Red Bluff Chinese expulsion, Red Bluff, California *1886: Pittsburgh riot (Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), September 19 *1886: Albina and East Portland anti-Chinese purge, Portland, Oregon *1886: Oregon City anti-Chinese expulsion, Oregon City, Oregon *1886: Two are killed in forced expulsion of Chinese miners out to sea, (Juneau, Alaska) *1887: Denver riot of 1887 (Denver, Denver, Colorado), April 10, fighting between Swedish Americans, Swedish, Hungarian Americans, Hungarian and Poles, Polish immigrants resulted in the shooting death of one man and several others were injured before it was broken up by police. *1887: Chinatown burnt to the ground, (Dutch Flat, California) *1887: Hells Canyon Massacre (or Snake River Massacre) (Chinese Massacre Cove, Chinese Massacre Cove, Wallowa County, Oregon), May 27–28, massacre of thirty-four Chinese goldminers. *1887: Thibodaux massacre (Thibodaux, Louisiana), November 23, strike of 10,000 sugar-cane workers was opposed by local white paramilitary forces, who rioted and killed an estimated 50 African Americans. *1887: Chinatown burnt down, (San Jose, California) *1889: 1889 Forrest City riot, May 18, Forrest City, Arkansas *1889: 1889 Jesup riot, December 25, Jesup, Georgia *1891: March 14, 1891 lynchings, New Orleans lynchings (New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana) March 14, a lynch mob stormed a local jail and hanged 11 Italians following the acquittal of several Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy. *1891: Joe Coe, Lynching of Joe Coe (Omaha, Nebraska), October 10, a mob lynched Joe Coe, a Black worker who was suspected of attacking a young white woman from South Omaha. Approximately 10,000 white people, mostly ethnic immigrants from South Omaha, reportedly swarmed the Douglas County Courthouse (Omaha), courthouse, setting it on fire. They took Coe from his jail cell, beat him, and then lynched him. Reportedly, 6,000 people viewed Coe's corpse during a public exhibition, at which pieces of the lynching rope were sold as souvenirs. *1893: Napa Valley riot; white laborer’s union formed and forcibly remove Chinese workers from working in plum orchards, (Napa, California) *1893: Fresno riot; white mob attacked Chinese grape pickers and left one worker in critical condition, (Fresno, California) *1893: Redlands riot; ordered Chinese to leave by nighttime, later white mob formed and burned and looted Chinatown, (Redlands, California) *1894: Buffalo, New York riot of 1894 (
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
), March 18, two groups of Irish and Italian-Americans were arrested by police after fighting following a barroom brawl. After the mob was dispersed by police, five Italians were arrested while two others were sent to a local hospital. *1894: Bituminous coal miners' strike of 1894, Bituminous coal miners' strike (Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia), April–June, Much of the violence in this national strike was not specifically racial. In Iowa, where employees of Consolidation Coal Company (Iowa) refused to join the strike, armed confrontation between strikers and strike breakers took on racial overtones because the majority of Consolidation's employees were African American. The National Guard was mobilized to avert open warfare. *1895: 1895 New Orleans dockworkers riot (New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana), March 11–12 *1895: Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895 *1895: July 4, riot of Orangemen vs Irish Catholics, ( Boston, Massachusetts) *1896: Newmarket Textile Mill riots of 1896, Americans vs. French immigrant workers; July 18-October 21, 1896; 10% of the buildings in Newmarket, New Hampshire have been burnt down. *1896: Mass lynching of Italians, (Hahnville, Louisiana) *1897: Lattimer massacre, September 1897, near Hazleton, Pennsylvania *1898: Lynching of Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker (Lake City, South Carolina), February 22 *1898: Phoenix election riot (near Greenwood County, South Carolina), November 8 *1898: Wilmington race riot, Wilmington insurrection (Wilmington, North Carolina), November 10, a group of Democrats sought to remove African Americans from the political scene, and went about this by launching a campaign of accusing African American men of sexually assaulting white women. About five hundred white men attacked and burned Alex Manly's office, a newspaper editor who suggested African American men and white women had consensual relationships. Fourteen African Americans were killed. *1899: Pana riot, April 10, Coal mine labor conflict; 7 killed, 6 wounded, Pana, Illinois *1899: Newburg, New York riot, Newburg, New York race riot (Newburgh, New York, Newburg, New York), July 28, angered about hiring of African American workers, a group of 80-100 Arab laborers attack African Americans near the Freeman & Hammond brick yard, with numerous men injured on both sides. *1899: Mass lynching of Italians, (Tallulah, Louisiana) *1900: New York City Race Riot of 1900, New York City Race Riot, occurred August 15 through 17th after the death of a white undercover police officer, Robert J. Thorpe caused by Arthur Harris, a black man. *1900: Robert Charles riots (New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana), July 24–27 *1900: Tenderloin, Manhattan#Race riot, Tenderloin race riot (Manhattan, Manhattan, New York) August *1902: Jacob Joseph#Death, Rabbi Joseph Funeral Riot (New York City, New York City, New York), July 30, Anti-Semitic riots initiated by German factory workers and city policemen against thousands of Jews attending Jacob Joseph's funeral. *1903: Evansville race riot, Evansville Race Riot, Evansville, Indiana *1904: Springfield, OH – Springfield race riot of 1904 *1906: Springfield, OH – Springfield race riot of 1906 *1906: Brownsville affair (Brownsville raid) (Brownsville, Texas), August 12–13 *1906: Atlanta massacre of 1906 (Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia), September 22–24, after two newspapers printed stories about African American men allegedly assaulting white women anti-African American, violence broke out. Roughly 10,000 white men and boys took the street, resulting in the deaths of 25 to 100 African Americans, along with hundreds injured and many businesses destroyed. *1906: Argenta Race Riot (Little Rock, Arkansas), October 6–9, began when a white police officer in Argenta (North Little Rock) killed a Black musician, and another Black person was killed; racial tensions rose with exchange of gunfire, resulting in half a block of buildings burned down; whites rioted and some Black people fled the city. *1906: (Wahalak, Mississippi, Wahalak & Scooba, Mississippi), December *1907: (Yazoo City, Mississippi), June 8 *1907: Bellingham riots (Bellingham, Washington), September 4 *1907: Pacific Coast race riots of 1907, Anti-Japanese San Francisco race riot, May 20 *1908: Springfield race riot of 1908 (Springfield, Illinois), August 14–16 *1909: Greek Town riot (South Omaha, Nebraska), February 21, a successful Greek immigrant community was burnt to the ground by ethnic whites and its residents were forced to leave town. *1910: Nationwide riots following the The Johnson–Jeffries Fight, heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson (boxer)#Riots and aftermath, Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries, Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada on July 4. *1910 Slocum massacre (around Slocum, Texas), July 29–30, between eight and two hundred Black residents were killed by hundreds of armed white men. Eleven white men were arrested, none went to trial. *1912: 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County, Georgia#Aftermath: racial expulsion, lynching and racial expulsion in Forsyth County, Georgia, October and following months *1913: Mass lynching of 9 Mexican bandits, (El Paso, Texas)


World wars, interwar period and post war period (1914–1954)

*1915: Leyden riot. Anti-Protestant riots; Catholics riot over ministers criticizing parochial schools. *1915: Mass lynching of 11 supposed Mexican bandits, (Lyford, Texas) *1915: Mass lynching of 10 Mexican Americans, (Olmito, Texas) *1915: Mass lynching of 5 Mexicans, (Culberson County, Texas) *1915: Mass lynching of 6 Mexicans, (Brownsville, Texas) *1915: Mass lynching of 4 Mexicans, (Douglas, Arizona) *1917: Anti-Greek riots occurred in Salt Lake City which "almost resulted" in lynching of a Greek immigrant. *1917: El Paso, Texas. The 1917 Bath riots took place over a two-day period from January 28–30. The riot started after a 17-year-old woman by the name Carmelita Torres was ordered to be disembark and submit to the disinfection process but she refused to, having heard reports that nude women were being photographed while in the baths. She requested permission to enter without submitting to bathing and was refused. She then demanded a refund of her fare and upon refusal of a refund convinced the other women on her cable car to protest. The women began shouting and hurling stones at health and immigration officials, sentries and civilians, who had gathered to watch the disturbance. As the rioting went on, men began joining in on the rioting. *1917: East St. Louis riots. On July 1 in East St. Louis, Illinois, an African-American man was rumored to have killed a white man. Violence against African-Americans continued for a week, resulting in estimations of 40 to 200 dead African-Americans. In addition, almost 6,000 African-Americans lost their homes during the riots then fled East St. Louis. *1917: Chester, Pennsylvania. The 1917 Chester race riot took place over four days in July. White hostility toward southern Blacks moving to Chester for wartime economy jobs erupted into a four-day melee sparked by the stabbing of a white man by a Black man. Mobs of hundreds of people fought throughout the city and the violence resulted in 7 deaths, 28 gunshot wounds, 360 arrests and hundreds of hospitalizations. *1917: Lexington, Kentucky. Tensions already existed between Black and white populations over the lack of affordable housing in the city during the Great Migration (African American), Great Migration. On the day of the riot, September 1, the Colored A.&M. Fair (one of the largest African American fairs in the South) on Georgetown Pike attracted more African Americans from the surrounding area into the city. Also during this time, some
National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...
troops were camping on the edge of the city. Three troops passed in front of an African American restaurant and shoved some people on the sidewalk. A fight broke out, reinforcements for the troops and citizens both appeared, and soon a riot had begun. The Kentucky National Guard was summoned, and once the riot had ended, armed soldiers on foot and mount and police patrolled the streets. All other National Guard troops were barred from the city streets until the fair ended. *1917: Houston riot (1917), Houston, Texas *1918: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *1918: Porvenir massacre (1918), Porvenir, Texas *Red Summer of 1919. Tension in the summer of 1919 stemmed significantly from white soldiers returning from World War I and finding that their jobs had been taken by African-American veterans. **1919: Elaine Race Riot (Elaine, Arkansas) **1919: Washington race riot of 1919 **1919: Jenkins County, Georgia, riot of 1919 **1919: Macon, Mississippi, race riot **1919: Chicago Race Riot of 1919 **1919: Baltimore riot of 1919 **1919: Omaha Race Riot of 1919 **1919: Charleston riot of 1919 **1919: Longview, Texas **1919: Knoxville Riot of 1919 (Knoxville, Tennessee) *1920: Ocoee Massacre (Ocoee, Florida) To stop African Americans from voting; Ocoee ended up almost all white. *1920: West Frankfort, Illinois *1921: Springfield, OH – Springfield race riot of 1921 *1921:
Tulsa race massacre The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long massacre that took place between May 31 – June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deput ...
(Tulsa, Oklahoma) :Between May 31st and June 1st, a young white woman accused an African American man of grabbing her arm in an elevator. The man, Dick Rowland, was arrested and police launched an investigation. A mob of armed white men gathered outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, where gunfire ensued. During the violence, 1,250 homes were destroyed and roughly 6,000 African-Americans were imprisoned after the Oklahoma National Guard was called in. The state of Oklahoma reports that twenty-six African-Americans died along with 10 whites. *1922 Perry massacre (Perry, Florida) *1923: Rosewood Massacre (Rosewood, Florida) *1926: Harlem Riots of July 1926. between unemployed Jews and Puerto Ricans over jobs and housing. This riot started on One Hundred and Fifteenth Street (115th), between Lenox and Park Avenues. Reserves from four Police precincts struggled for nearly half an hour before they dispersed a crowd estimated at more than 2,000 and brought temporary peace to the neighborhood. *1926: Mass lynching of 4 Mexican Americans and an Austrian, (Raymondville, Texas) *1927: Little Rock, Arkansas: Lynching of John Carter, a suspect in a murder, was followed by rioting by 5,000 whites in the city, who destroyed a Black business area *1927 Poughkeepsie, New York :A wave of civil unrest, violence, and vandalism by local White mobs against Blacks, as well Greek, Jewish, Chinese and Puerto Rican targets in the community. *1927: Yakima Valley, WA — Yakima Valley riots (anti-Filipino) * 1928: Wenatchee Valley — Wenatchee Valley anti-Filipino riot * 1929: Exeter, NH — Exeter anti-Filipino riot *1930: Watsonville Riots, Watsonville, California *1931: Arthur and Edith Lee House incident. *1931: 1931 Chicago housing protests, The Housing Protests, August 3,
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
*1931: Hawaii Riot, Hawaii *1933: December 17,
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, Several hundred communists attacked a march organized by Ukrainian immigrants to protest the policies of the Soviet Union towards Ukraine. Over 100 people were injured as the communists threw bricks, rocks and beat people with clubs. *1935: list of Cincinnati riots, Cincinnati race riot *1935: Harlem Riot of 1935, Harlem, Manhattan, New York *1939: 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, U.S. Nazi Riot, New York City *1943: Detroit Race Riot (1943), Detroit, Michigan :In late June a fistfight broke out between an African-American man and a white man at an amusement park on Belle Isle. The violence escalated from there and led to three days of intense fighting, in which 6,000 United States Army troops were brought in. This resulted in twenty-five African-Americans dying, along with nine white deaths and a total of seven hundred injured persons. *1942: Sojourner Truth Project#Sojourner Truth riot, Sojourner Truth Homes Riot, February 28, Detroit, Michigan *1943: Beaumont race riot of 1943 *1943: Harlem Riot of 1943, Harlem, Manhattan, New York *1943: Zoot Suit Riots, Los Angeles, California *1944: Agana race riot, Guam *1946: Columbia race riot of 1946, February 25–26, Columbia, Tennessee *1946: Airport Homes race riots,
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
*1947: Fernwood Park race riot, mid-August, Fernwood, Chicago, IL *1947: July 25–28,
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, about 2,000 whites gathered outside a house at 7153 South Saint Lawrence Avenue after a black postal worker named Roscoe Johnson bought it. The house was firebombed and nearly destroyed and disturbances occurred in the neighborhood for three days after the initial violence. *1949: Fairground Park riot, June 21, St. Louis Missouri *1949: Anacostia Pool Riot, June 29, Anacostia, Washington, D.C. *1949: Peekskill riots, Peekskill, New York *1949: Englewood race riot, November 8–12, Englewood, Chicago, IL *1951: Cicero race riot of 1951, July 12, Cicero, Illinois *1953: White residents of the Trumbull Park Homes rioted for weeks after a black family was moved into the project. More riots occurred after 10 more black families were moved in.


Civil rights movement (1955–1973)

*1956: Mansfield School Integration Incident 400 pro-segregationists brandishing weapons and racist signage prevent 12 black children from entering Mansfield High School Mansfield, TX *1958: Battle of Hayes Pond, January 18, Maxton, North Carolina, Armed confrontation between members of the NC Lumbee tribe and the KKK. *1960: Ax Handle Saturday, August 27, Jacksonville, Florida *Ole Miss riot of 1962, September 30–October 1; Oxford, Mississippi *Birmingham riot of 1963; Birmingham, Alabama – May *Cambridge riot of 1963; Cambridge, Maryland – June *Chester school protests, Chester school protests of 1964; Chester, Pennsylvania - April *Rochester 1964 race riot; Rochester, New York – July *Harlem riot of 1964, New York City 1964 riot;
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
– July *Philadelphia 1964 race riot; Philadelphia – August *Jersey City 1964 race riot, August 2–4, Jersey City, New Jersey *Paterson 1964 race riot, August 11–13, Paterson, New Jersey *Elizabeth 1964 race riot, August 11–13, Elizabeth, New Jersey *Chicago 1964 race riot, Dixmoor race riot, August 16–17, Chicago *Watts riots, Watts riot of 1965; Watts, Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, California – August: This predominately African-American neighborhood exploded with violence from August 11 to August 17 after the arrest of 21-year old Marquette Frye, a Black motorist who was arrested by a white highway patrolman. During his arrest a crowd had gathered and a fight broke out between the crowd and the police, escalating to the point in which rocks and concrete were thrown at police. 30,000 people were recorded participating in the riots and fights with police, which left thirty four people dead, 1,000 injured and 4,000 arrested. *1966: Timeline of racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska#1950 to 2000, Omaha riot of 1966, July 2, Omaha, Nebraska *1966: 1966 Chicago West Side Riots, 1966 Chicago West-Side riots, July 12–15, Chicago, Illinois *1966: 1966 New York City riots, July 14–20,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, New York (state), New York, A riot broke out following a dispute between white and black youths. One person was killed and 53 injured. There were three arson incidents and 82 arrests. *1966: Perth Amboy riots, August 2–5, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a riot broke out following the arrest of a Hispanic man for loitering. Hispanic residents also disliked being treated negatively by the police and being ignored by the community. 26 injuries were reported (15 from law enforcement officers and 11 from civilians) and 43 arrests were made. Interference with firefighters occurred. *1966: Waukegan Riot of 1966, Waukegan riot, August 27, Waukegan, Illinois *1966: Benton Harbor riots, August 30 – September 4, Benton Harbor, Michigan *1966: Summerhill and Vine City Riots, September 6–8 Atlanta, Georgia *1966: 1966 Clearwater riot, October 31, Clearwater, Florida *Hough riots; Cleveland,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
– July 1966 *Division Street riots; Chicago, Illinois – June 1966 *1966: July 31,
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, white residents attacked 550 civil rights protesters who marched into their neighborhood. *Marquette Park rallies#Chicago Freedom movement, Marquette Park riot; Chicago, Illinois – August 1966 *1966 Dayton race riot; Dayton, Ohio – September *Hunters Point social uprising (1966), Hunters Point riot 1966; San Francisco, California, San Francisco – September *
1967 Newark riots The 1967 Newark riots were an episode of violent, armed conflict in the streets of Newark, New Jersey, United States. Taking place over a four-day period (between July 12 and July 17, 1967), the Newark riots resulted in at least 26 deaths and ...
; Newark, New Jersey – July *1967 Plainfield riots; Plainfield, New Jersey – July *1967 Detroit riot, 12th Street riot; Detroit, Michigan – July *1967 New York City riot; Harlem,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
– July *Cambridge riot of 1967; Cambridge, Maryland – July *1967 Rochester riot; Rochester, New York – July *1967 Pontiac riot; Pontiac, Michigan – July *1967 Toledo Riot; Toledo, Ohio – July *1967 Flint riot; Flint, Michigan – July *1967 Grand Rapids riot; Grand Rapids, Michigan – July *1967 Houston riot; Houston, Texas – July *1967 Englewood riot; Englewood, New Jersey – July *1967 Tucson riot; Tucson, Arizona – July *1967 Milwaukee riots, 1967 Milwaukee riot; Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – July *1967 Minneapolis Riot, 1967 Minneapolis North Side riots; Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota – August *Albina Riot of 1967, 1967 Albina Riot Portland, Oregon – August 30 *Orangeburg massacre; Orangeburg, South Carolina – February 1968 *
King assassination riots 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 wav ...
: 125 cities in April and May, in response to the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at ...
, including: **Baltimore riot of 1968; Baltimore Maryland **1968 Washington, D.C. riots; Washington, D.C. **1968 New York City riot; New York City **1968 Chicago riots, West Side Riots; Chicago **1968 Detroit riot; Detroit, Michigan **Louisville riots of 1968;
Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
**1968 Pittsburgh riots, Hill District MLK riots; Pittsburgh, PA **Wilmington riot of 1968, 1968 Wilmington riots (Wilmington, DE) **Summit, Illinois, race riot at Argo High School, September 1968 *1968: Glenville shootout, Glenville shootout and riot *1968 Miami riot *1968 Democratic National Convention *1969 York race riot; York, Pennsylvania – July *1969 Hartford Riots, September 1–4, Hartford, Connecticut *1970 Augusta riot, Augusta riot; Augusta, Georgia – May *Jackson State killings, Jackson State killings of 1970; Jackson, Mississippi – May *1970 Asbury Park race riots, Asbury Park riots; Asbury Park, New Jersey – July *Chicano Moratorium, Chicano Moratorium of 1970, an anti Vietnam War protest turned riot in East Los Angeles, California, East Los Angeles – August * East LA Riots, January 31, 1971 East Los Angeles, California * Bridgeport Riots, May 20–21, 1971 Bridgeport, Connecticut * Chattanooga riot, May 21–24, 1971 Chattanooga, Tennessee * Oxnard Riots, July 19, 1971 Oxnard, California * Riverside Riots, August 8–9, 1971 Riverside, California *Camden Riots of 1971, Camden riots, August 19–22, Camden, New Jersey *Escambia High School riots; Pensacola, Florida * Blackstone Park Riots, July 16–18, 1972, Boston, Massachusetts * 1972: Coast of North Vietnam — USS Kitty Hawk riot, USS Kitty Hawk Riot (October 12–13) *Dallas Police Department#Murder of Santos Rodriguez, Santos Rodriguez riot of 1973, Dallas, Texas July 28, 1973


Post-civil rights era (1974–1989)

*1974: SLA Shootout, May 17, Los Angeles, California *1974-76: Boston busing crisis *1975: Livernois–Fenkell riot, July 1975, Detroit, Michigan *1976: Escambia High School riots, February 5, Pensacola, Florida *1976: Marquette Park rallies, Racial violence in Marquette Park, Chicago *1977: Humboldt Park riot, June 5–6, Chicago, Illinois *1978: Murder of Joe Campos Torres#Moody Park Riot, Moody Park riots; Houston, Texas *1979: Worcester, MA — Great Brook Valley Projects Riots (Puerto Ricans rioted) * 1980 Miami riots – following the acquittal of four Miami-Dade Police officers in the death of Arthur McDuffie. McDuffie, an African-American, died from injuries sustained at the hands of four white officers trying to arrest him after a high-speed chase. *Miami riot 1982, December 28, rioting broke out after police shot and killed a black man in video game arcade. Another man was killed in the riots, more than 25 people were injured and 40 arrested. Overtown (Miami), Overtown section of Miami. Miami, Florida *1984: Lawrence race riot (Lawrence, Massachusetts), a small scale riot was centered at the intersection of Haverhill and railroad streets between working class whites and Hispanics; several buildings were destroyed by Molotov cocktails; August 8, 1984. *Miami riot 1984 *1985: 1985 MOVE bombing, MOVE Bombing - May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia Police bombed a residential home occupied by the Black militant Anarcho-primitivism, anarcho-primitivist group MOVE (Philadelphia organization), MOVE. *1989 Miami riot - was sparked after police officer William Lozano shot Clement Lloyd, who was fleeing another officer and trying to run over Officer Lozano on his motorcycle.


Since 1990

*1990: 1990 Wynwood riot, Wynwood riot (Puerto Ricans rioted after a jury acquitted six officers accused of beating a Puerto Rican drug dealer to death) *1991: Crown Heights riot – between West Indian immigrants and the area's large Hasidic Jewish community, over the accidental killing of a Guyanese immigrant child by an Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish motorist. In its wake, several Jews were seriously injured; one Orthodox Jewish man, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed; and a non-Jewish man, allegedly mistaken for a Jew by the rioters, was killed by a group of African-American men. *1991: Overtown, Miami – In the heavily Black section against Cuban Americans, like earlier riots which occurred there in 1982 and 1984. *1991: 1991 Washington, D.C. riot – Riots following the shooting of a Salvadoran Americans, Salvadoran man by a police officer in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, aggravated by grievances which were felt by Hispanics and Latinos in Washington, D.C., Latinos in the district. *1992:
1992 Los Angeles riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in So ...
– April 29 to May 4 – a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding the assault of
Rodney King Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965June 17, 2012) was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers during his arrest after a pursuit for driving whi ...
. *1992: West Las Vegas riots, April 29, Las Vegas, Nevada *1992: 1992 Washington Heights riots, July 4–7, Manhattan, New York, Dominican community *1996: St. Petersburg, Florida riot of 1996, caused by protests against racial profiling and police brutality. *2001: 2001 Cincinnati riots – April – in the African-American section of Over-the-Rhine. *2009: Oakland, California, Oakland, CA – BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant#Aftermath, Riots following the BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant. *2012: Anaheim, California Riot—followed the shooting of two Hispanic males *2014: 2014 Ferguson unrest, Ferguson, MO riots – Riots following the Shooting of Michael Brown#Aftermath, Shooting of Michael Brown *2015: 2015 Baltimore riots – Riots following the Killing of Freddie Gray, death of Freddie Gray *2015: Ferguson unrest – Riots following the anniversary of the
shooting of Michael Brown On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brow ...
*2016: 2016 Milwaukee riots – Riots following the fatal shooting of 23 year old Sylville Smith. *2016: 2016 Charlotte riot, Charlotte riot, September 20–21 – Riots started in response to the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by police *2017: Assault of DeAndre Harris, August 12 – Far-right politics, Far-right extremists cause the assault of DeAndre Harris during the
Unite the Right rally The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Kl ...
in Charlottesville, Virginia *2020–2022: 2020–2022 United States racial unrest – Ongoing protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, numerous disturbances broke out in other cities. *2021: May 9 – June 2021, amid the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the United States saw a rise in antisemitism and violence against Jews, as both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters took to the streets of major U.S. cities. On May 20, in Midtown Manhattan, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters both took to the streets; the two groups collided and fights broke out. At least 26 people were arrested during the protests on various charges, including obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to police. During the violence, anti-semitic attackers beat a Jewish man. Also on May 20 in Bal Harbour, Florida, an SUV carrying four supporters of Palestine drove by a synagogue and threw garbage at a Jewish family. A nearby driver, armed with a gun, witnessed the incident and jumped to the family's defense, chasing the men away. In a separate incident, a man in Miami drove a van painted with Nazi symbolism, Nazi symbols past a pro-Israel demonstration and shouted antisemitic slurs; the man was subsequently arrested and later released.


See also

* African-American history * Anti-Catholicism in the United States * Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States * Anti-Irish sentiment * Anti-Italianism * Antisemitism in the United States * Anti-Polish sentiment * Anti-Slavic sentiment * Black Codes (United States) * Civil rights movement * Discrimination in the United States * Domestic terrorism in the United States * Ghetto riots * Hate crime laws in the United States * Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States * History of antisemitism in the United States * History of Chinese Americans * History of immigration to the United States *
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
* List of ethnic cleansing campaigns * List of ethnic riots#United States * List of expulsions of African Americans * List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States * List of massacres in the United States * List of mass shootings in the United States * List of right-wing terrorist attacks * Lynching in the United States * Nadir of American race relations * Racism against Black Americans * Racism in the United States * Radical right (United States) * Reconstruction era * Slavery in the United States * Terrorism in the United States * Timeline of riots and civil unrest in Omaha, Nebraska * Timeline of terrorist attacks in the United States


References


Further reading

* Bloombaum, M. "The conditions underlying race riots as portrayed by multidimensional scalogram analysis: A reanalysis of Lieberson and Silverman's data" ''American Sociological Review'' 1968, 33#1: 76–91. * Brophy, A.L. ''Reconstructing the dreamland: The Tulsa race riot of 1921'' (2002) * Brubaker, Rogers, and David D. Laitin. "Ethnic and nationalist violence." ''Annual Review of sociology'' 24.1 (1998): 423-452
online
* Chicago Commission on Race Relations. ''The Negro in Chicago: A study of race relations and a race riot'' (1922
online
* Philip Dray, Dray, Philip. ''At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America'', (Random House, 2002). * Gilje, Paul A. ''Rioting in America'' (1996), examines 4000 American riots. * Graham, Hugh D. and Ted R Gurr, eds. ''The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives'' (1969) (A Report Submitted to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
online
* Grimshaw, Allen D. ''Racial violence in the United States'' (1969
online
* Grimshaw, Allen D. "Lawlessness and violence in America and their special manifestations in changing negro-white relationships." ''Journal of Negro History'' 44.1 (1959): 52–72
online
* Grimshaw, Allen, ed. ''A social history of racial violence'' (2017). * Grimshaw, Allen D. "Changing patterns of racial violence in the United States." ''Notre Dame Law Review''. 40 (1964): 534+
online
* Gottesman, Ronald, ed. ''Violence in America: An Encyclopedia'' (3 vol 1999) * Hall, Patricia Wong, and Victor M. Hwang, eds. ''Anti-Asian Violence in North America: Asian American and Asian Canadian Reflections on Hate, Healing and Resistance'' (2001) * Hofstadter, Richard, and Michael Wallace, eds. ''American violence: A documentary history'' (1970). * Howell, Frank M., et al. "When faith, race, and hate collide: Religious ecology, local hate cultures, and church burnings." ''Review of Religious Research'' 60.2 (2018): 223-245. * Ifill, Sherrilyn A. ''On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century'' (Beacon Press, 2007) * Rable, George C. '' But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction'' (1984) * Rapoport, David C. "Before the bombs there were the mobs: American experiences with terror." ''Terrorism and Political Violence'' 20.2 (2008): 167–194.
online
* Smith McKoy, Sheila. ''When whites riot : writing race and violence in American and South African cultures'' (2001
online
* Soule, Sarah A., and Nella Van Dyke. "Black church arson in the United States, 1989-1996." ''Ethnic and Racial Studies'' 22.4 (1999): 724-742. * Williams, John A. "The Long Hot the Summers of Yesteryear," ''History Teacher'' 1.3 (1968): 9–23
online


External links



– Documentary about the Newark, New Jersey, race riots of 1967
Uprisings
Urban riots of the 1960s.
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture

Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882–1968
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mass Racial Violence In The United States Ethnic conflict Race riots in the United States