Part 3
1960s: The Fucking Hippies
The Ole Miss riot of 1962 was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 29, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi (known affectionately as Ole Miss) at Oxford, Mississippi. Two civilians were killed during the night, including a French journalist, and over 300 people were injured, including one third of the US Marshals deployed.
The Cambridge riot of 1963, was a race riot that occurred on June 14, 1963 in Cambridge, Maryland, a small town on the Eastern Shore. It emerged from the campaign for civil rights led by Gloria Richardson and the local chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, along with the violent repression by pro-segregationist civilians and police.
On Thursday, July 16, 1964, James Powell was shot and killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan. The second bullet of three fired by Lieutenant Gilligan killed the 15-year-old African American in front of his friends and about a dozen other witnesses. The incident immediately rallied about 300 students from a nearby school who were informed by the principal. This incident set off six consecutive nights of rioting that affected the New York City neighborhoods of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In total, 4,000 New Yorkers participated in the riots which led to attacks on the New York City Police Department, vandalism, and looting in stores. At the end of the conflict, reports counted one dead rioter, 118 injured, and 465 arrested. It is said that the Harlem race riot of 1964 is the precipitating event for riots in July and August in cities such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Jersey City, New Jersey; Paterson, New Jersey; and Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The Rochester 1964 race riot was a riot that occurred in 1964 in Rochester, New York, in the United States. In the early evening of Friday, July 24, 1964, the Rochester Police Department attempted to arrest a 19-year-old intoxicated black male at a street block party and dance. A member of the group "Mothers Improvement Association of the Eighth Ward" concerned with the male's behavior was the first to contact the Rochester Police Department.
The Philadelphia race riot took place in the predominantly black neighborhoods of North Philadelphia from August 28 to August 30, 1964. Tensions between black residents of the city and police had been escalating for several months over several well-publicized allegations of police brutality.
The Watts riots (or, collectively, Watts rebellion) were race riots that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. During World War II, the defense industries in Los Angeles had attracted many African-Americans, who became increasingly unemployed after the war. The maintaining of all-white suburbs had concentrated the blacks in certain zones, where there was little opportunity for advancement. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was adopting a more military culture, largely approved by the public. On August 11, 1965, a black motorist was arrested for drunk-driving, and a minor roadside argument suddenly turned into a riot. There followed six days of looting and arson, especially of white-owned businesses, and police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard. There were 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on unemployment, although a later investigation also highlighted police racism. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.
The Division Street riots were episodes of rioting and civil unrest, which started during the first downtown Puerto Rican Parade in Chicago, Illinois on June 12, continuing through June 14, 1966 in the United States.
The Hough riots were race riots in the predominantly African-American community of Hough (pronounced "Huff") in Cleveland, Ohio that took place over a six-night period from July 18 to July 23, 1966. During the riots, four African Americans were killed and 30 people were critically injured. In addition, there were 275 arrests, while more than 240 fires were reported. They shared underlying causes of social problems with other racial riots. The riots caused more people (and jobs) to leave the area, which suffered decades of disinvestment. Since the late 1990s, there has been some redevelopment.
The Compton's Cafeteria Riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded transgender riots in United States history, preceding the more infamous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City.
On August 30, 1966, due to a fatal shooting in Benton Harbor, Michigan residents rioted for six days. Governor George W. Romney dispatched troops from the Michigan National Guard, who stood down on September 5.
The Sunset Strip curfew riots, also known as the "hippie riots," were a series of early counterculture-era clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, beginning in the summer of 1966 and continuing on and off through the early 1970s. In 1966, annoyed residents and business owners in the district had encouraged the passage of strict (10:00pm) curfew and loitering laws to reduce the traffic congestion resulting from crowds of young club patrons. This was perceived by young, local rock music fans as an infringement on their civil rights, and on Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate later that day. Hours before the protest one of L.A's rock 'n' roll radio stations announced there would be a rally at Pandora's Box, a club at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights, and cautioned people to tread carefully. The Times reported that as many as 1,000 youthful demonstrators, including such celebrities as Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda (who was afterward handcuffed by police), erupted in protest against the perceived repressive enforcement of these recently invoked curfew laws.
The Buffalo riot of 1967 references the race riots that occurred on the East Side of Buffalo, New York, from June 26 to July 1, 1967. On the afternoon of June 27, 1967, small groups of African American teenagers cruised the neighborhood of William Street and Jefferson Avenue breaking car and store windows. By night nearly 200 riot-protected police were summoned and a battle ensued. Many African Americans, three policemen and one fire fighter were injured. Although the riot dispersed that night, it began again the next afternoon with fires set, cars over-turned, and stores looted whether or not they had "soul brother" written on them. This time 400 police were summoned. Forty blacks were injured, nearly half from bullet wounds. The riots virtually shut down the city. During the night of June 28, over 40 people were hurt, 14 with gunshot wounds. On June 30, Jackie Robinson, then serving as Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Special Assistant for Urban Affairs, met with Mayor Frank Sedita about the riots. It was the first move by the Governor to intervene in the violence. On November 10, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King visited Buffalo and in a speech titled "The Future of Integration" at Kleinhans Music Hall before about 2,500 persons sponsored by the Graduate Student Association at the University at Buffalo proclaimed: "We are moving toward the day when we will judge a man by his character and ability instead of by the color of his skin."
The Plainfield riots were a series of racially charged violent disturbances that occurred in Plainfield, New Jersey during the summer of 1967, which mirrored the 1967 Newark riots in nearby Newark, New Jersey.
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began on a Saturday night in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city's Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot.To help end the disturbance, Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in Army troops. The result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed. The scale of the riot was surpassed in the US only by the New York City draft riots, during the U.S. Civil War, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The riot was prominently featured in the news media, with live television coverage, extensive newspaper reporting, and extensive stories in Time and Life magazines. The Detroit Free Press won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage.
Six days of race riots erupted in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of the Civil Rights Movement-leader Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968. A wave of civil disorder affected at least 110 U.S. cities; Washington, along with Chicago and Baltimore, were among the most affected.
The Baltimore riot of 1968 was composed of black Baltimoreans lasting from April 6 to April 14. The riot included crowds filling the streets, burning and looting local businesses, and confronting the police and national guard. The immediate cause of the rioting was the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, which triggered riots in 125 cities across the United States. These events are sometimes described as the Holy Week Uprising.[1] Spiro T. Agnew, the Governor of Maryland, called out thousands of National Guard troops and 500 Maryland State Police to quell the disturbance. When it was determined that the state forces could not control the riot, Agnew requested Federal troops from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The 1968 Chicago riots, in the U.S., were sparked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was shot while standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 at 6:01 pm. Violence and chaos followed, with blacks flooding out onto the streets of major cities. Soon riots began, primarily in black urban areas. Over 100 major U.S. cities experienced disturbances, resulting in roughly $50 million in damages. Rioters and police in Chicago, Illinois were particularly aggressive, and the damage was severe. Of the 39 people who died, 34 were black. Chicago, Illinois, Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. experienced some of the worst riots. In Chicago, more than 48 hours of rioting left 11 Chicago citizens dead, 48 wounded by police gunfire, 90 policemen injured, and 2,150 people arrested. Two miles of Austin on West Madison Street were left in a state of rubble.
The 1968 Kansas City riot was a riot that occurred in Kansas City, Missouri in April 1968. Kansas City became one of thirty-seven cities in the United States to be the subject of rioting after the assassination Martin Luther King, Jr.. The rioting in Kansas City did not erupt on April 4, like other cities of the United States affected directly by the assassination of King, but rather on April 9
The Louisville riots of 1968 refers to riots in Louisville, Kentucky in May 1968. As in many other cities around the country, there were unrest and riots partially in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On May 27, 1968, a group of 400 people, mostly blacks, gathered at Twenty-Eight and Greenwood Streets, in the Parkland neighborhood. The intersection, and Parkland in general, had recently become an important location for Louisville's black community, as the local NAACP branch had moved its office there. The crowd was protesting the possible reinstatement of a white officer who had been suspended for beating a black man some weeks earlier. Several community leaders arrived and told the crowd that no decision had been reached, and alluded to disturbances in the future if the officer was reinstated. By 8:30, the crowd began to disperse. However, rumors (which turned out to be untrue) were spread that Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee speaker Stokely Carmichael's plane to Louisville was being intentionally delayed by whites. After bottles were thrown by the crowd, the crowd became unruly and police were called. However the small and unprepared police response simply upset the crowd more, which continued to grow. The police, including a captain who was hit in the face by a bottle, retreated, leaving behind a patrol car, which was turned over and burned. By midnight, rioters had looted stores as far east as Fourth Street, overturned cars and started fires. Within an hour, Mayor Kenneth A. Schmied requested 700 Kentucky National Guard troops and established a city-wide curfew. Violence and vandalism continued to rage the next day, but had subdued somewhat by May 29. Business owners began to return, although troops remained until June 4. Police made 472 arrests related to the riots. Two black teenage rioters had died, and $200,000 in damage had been done. The disturbances had a longer-lasting effect. Most white business owners quickly pulled out or were forced, by the threat of racial violence, out of Parkland and surrounding areas. Most white residents also left the West End, which had been almost entirely white north of Broadway, from subdivision until the 1960s. The riot would have effects that shaped the image which whites would hold of Louisville's West End, that it was predominantly black.
The Glenville shootout was a series of violent events which occurred in the Glenville section of Cleveland, Ohio, United States, beginning on the evening of July 23 and continuing through July 28, 1968. By the end of the conflict, seven people were killed: three policemen, three suspects, and a bystander. Fifteen others were wounded.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, the purpose of the convention was to select a new presidential nominee to run as the Democratic Party's candidate for the office. The keynote speaker was Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, were nominated for President and Vice President, respectively. The convention was held during a year of violence, political turbulence, and civil unrest, particularly riots in more than 100 cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The convention also followed the assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, on June 5. Both Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had been running against the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. Gay Americans in the 1950s and 1960s faced an anti-homosexual legal system. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. At the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of the transgender community, effeminate young men, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn. They attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested. After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, race, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.
The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of direct actions taken over a course of three days in October 1969 in Chicago, and organized by the Weatherman faction of the counterculture-era group Students for a Democratic Society. The group planned the October 8–11 event as a "National Action" built around John Jacobs' slogan, "bring the war home". The National Action grew out of a resolution drafted by Jacobs and introduced at the October 1968 SDS National Council meeting in Boulder, Colorado. The resolution, which read "The Elections Don't Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street", was adopted by the council; it had been prompted by the success of the Democratic National Convention protests in August 1968 and reflected Jacobs' strong advocacy of direct action as political strategy. Such direct actions included vandalizing homes, businesses, and automobiles as well as assaulting police officers. Dozens were injured, and more than 280 members of the Weather Underground were arrested.
The Berkeley riots were a series of protests at the University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley, California, in the 1960s. Many of these protests were a small part of the larger Free Speech Movement, which had national implications and constituted the onset of the counterculture era. These riots were headed under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Jack Weinberg, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others.
