Harlem Race Riot of 1964 was one of the most violent riot of American history. The riots started on July 16, 1964 when an African American student James Powell was shot and killed by a white, off-duty Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan (Samuel). The riot lasted six days from July 16 to the night of July 22. The race riots “highlighted the racial injustice and growing civil unrest” in the country (Civil rights digital library).
The incident happened when some African-American teenagers were loitering around the East 70th Street and a superintendent of one of the buildings hosed the loitering teenagers while insulting them. Angry students then started throwing bottles and garbage cans at the superintendent. The ruckus caught the attention of
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three other boys, among them was James Powell, a ninth grader from the Bronx who was attending summer school at the Robert F. Wagner, Sr., Junior High School on East 76th Street (Gutenberg). According the the teen’s neighbors, after his father’s death Powell had become “a little wild” and “had four minor altercations with the law” (Gutenberg). Fifteen-year-old James Powell then chased the superintendent into the apartment and the commotion drew the attention of Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan. James Powell and Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan came in direct contact when Powell wielded his knife at Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan, “slashing [the Lieutenant] on the forearm” (NYCdata). James Powell was shot and killed by Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan in front of his friends and roughly a dozen other witnesses. This “tragedy that sparked the momentous Harlem [Race] Riot of 1964” (New York Natives). The mayhem and violence rapidly spread to other neighborhoods. On July 18 1964, James Powell’s funeral was held where 250 people were in attendance. Later that day of the funeral, Reverend Nelson Duke urged the crowd of angry people to go and protest in front of the New York City Police - 28th Precinct, on the corner of Frederick Douglass Blvd and W 123th St. The protesters marched to the 28th Police Precinct in Harlem and were met with the barriers of police force already stationed there (Finkel). The public couldn’t understand why it was necessary for the Lieutenant to shoot the teen (NYCdata). “The senior officer tried to pacify the crowd explaining that the event was being investigated by the district attorney” and told the crowd of demonstrators to go back home (NYCdata). However, the rioters did not disband. Suddenly, the rioters started attacking the police and throwing bottles and bricks at them. Some rioters climbed on the rooftop and continued throwing bottles and bricks at the police. The police fought back and fired 2000 gunshots not towards the crowd but into the air to scare the demonstrators away (NYCdata). According to Inspector Pandergast's announcement, one rioter died, 12 policemen and 19 civilians were injured and 30 were arrested. Over 22 stores had been looted. The report of Pandergast was hotly contested by the hospital that counted 7 gunshot wounds and 110 persons who considered their injuries worth intensive care (Gutenberg). This was the most violent day out of the six days, which resulted in the only death during the entire six-day riot.
On the September of 1964, a grand jury declared Lieutenant not guilty and cleared him of all charges (NYCdata). “Throughout his trial, Thomas Gilligan maintained that Powell was wielding a knife” (NYCdata). After the riots, Lloyd Sealy, an African American was titled commander of the 28th Police Precinct. He was the first African-American to become the commander (Finkel). The statistics on the damage of the riots vary, “but it is estimated that 500 persons were injured, one man died and 465 men and women arrested. [And the] property damage was estimated to be between $500,000 and $1 million” (Gutenberg).
The tragedy took place during a very vulnerable time when the racial injustice was on high and the African-American population was fighting to stop racial inequality. The incident occurred soon after the Civil Rights Act was passed on July 2, 1964 which “ended” the segregation. Although the legislation was passed, people were still hesitant to accept African-Americans as equal. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Jim Crow laws, considered segregation constitutional, were concluded unconstitutional. The Jim Crow law had blossomed under the Plessey v. Ferguson case, where the court coined the “separate but equal” and dubbed it constitutional under the 14th
amendment. This racial inequality has been prevalent since a long time. Just by looking at the Plessy V. Ferguson case, one can see the desire of the white Americans to differentiate themselves from the minorities. On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. While Homer Plessy looked “White”, but under the Louisiana law he was considered “Black” due to his mixed heritage. Therefore, when he was traveling in the “White” car of the East Louisiana Railroad, he was asked to move to the “Black” car (PBS). When he refused, he was arrested and “the case went all the way to the supreme court.” “Plessy's lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution” (PBS). However, the Supreme Court argued that the separation of “white” and “colored” train cars did not violate the constitution. The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools (PBS). The Harlem Race Riot of 1964 brought to public attention the police brutality towards the African-American population that was happening all over the country “and served as a powerful indicator of the urgent need for social and economic reforms for African American communities outside of the South” (Civil rights digital library).
If I were to ask you what you knew about W.E.B. Du Bois and the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, what would your answer be? You might state the obvious and say that there was a race war in Atlanta that affected many people including Du Bois but do you know the depth of the matter? The 1900’s was a powerful and intriguing time period in history that included events from the assassination of William McKinley to the infamous World Wars. While events such as these took the nation by storm there were other affairs that were rattling the people of America, specifically those in the South, that became known as the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. The Atlanta Race riot began on September 22 and ended on September 24, 1906. American history students should read this
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the author of the article “School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson,” (2014) writes about how the Normandy school district in which Ferguson students attend, ranked at the very bottom of all Missouri schools for performance. As relayed by Hannah-Jones (2014), the Normandy school district is “among the poorest and most segregated in Missouri” (p. 2). The August 2014 shooting death of a young African-American, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, spurred riots not only in St. Louis, but also in other cities nationwide. Black and white children in the St. Louis region remain educationally divided, and the state Board of Education knows what needs to change in order for black children to gain a better
An adequate, detailed description of the setting in ay novel is essential to the reader’s experience. The reader is not provided with any visual cues (unless it is a rare case and the book is illustrated) and must rely solely on the author’s writing ability to achieve a sense of full emersion into the storyline. When the reader is provided with vague detail it is easy for the individual to become frustrated and quickly lose interest. In Chester Himes novel “A Rage in Harlem”, Himes does an excellent job of putting the reader directly in the center of twentieth century Harlem. At times his descriptive writing style border on the extreme, perhaps even making the reader in an emotionally uncomfortable situation. However, with his unique writing style was able to bring the city of Harlem to life for many individuals, who if not to Himes, would have never been exposed to the reality of Harlem and individuals who “lived” Harlem every single day of their lives.
There is some history that explains why the incident on that Chicago beach escalated to the point where 23 blacks and 15 whites were killed, 500 more were injured and 1,000 blacks were left homeless (96). When the local police were summoned to the scene, they refused to arrest the white man identified as the one who instigated the attack. It was generally acknowledged that the state should “look the other way” as long as private violence stayed at a low level (Waskow 265). This police indifference, viewed by most blacks as racial bias, played a major role in enraging the black population. In the wake of the Chica...
...series of meeting set up by, U.S. Attorney David M. Satz. According to police the riots took 26 lives, 24 of them were African American. The two white victims were a police detective, who was reportedly shot by a sniper, and a fireman, who was killed by gunfire while responding to an alarm on Central Avenue. Eighteen of the 26 people killed during the riot were shot by police or National Guard troops. Several people, like Eloise Spellman, and Elizabeth Artis, were fatally wounded in their own homes by a combination of National Guard/Police bullets aimed at suspected snipers. According to New Jersey state police reported 725 injuries (according to Newark City Hospital over 1000), 1500 arrest, and $10 million in property damage. After the riots Newark tried to encourage racial equality. However, today, housing, employment, and education are remaining huge problems.
The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great
They arrested Plessy, who claimed that the law violated his thirteenth and fourteenth amendment rights. When found guilty, he brought the case to the Louisiana State Supreme Court, but they confirmed the court's decision. Plessy then took the case “Plessy v. Ferguson” to the United States Supreme Court; however, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ferguson because they found that the laws attempted to enforce equality before the law, and not in social situations (Harlan 1). This famous case started the official acceptance of separate but equal laws, but what happened because of this? In the first twenty years of the separate Equal Laws being in effect, the various minorities suffered multiple consequences.
A Look Into the Chicago Race Riots The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights.
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
The Supreme Court ruled, against President Eisenhower’s wishes, in favour of Brown, which set a precedent in education, that schools should no longer be segregated. This was the case which completely overturned the Jim Crow Laws by overturning Plessy vs. Ferguson. Up until 1955, many of the Northern, white Americans were unaware of the extent of the racism in the ‘Southern States’. One instance in 1955 changed that greatly. The death of Emmet Till became a vital incident in the civil rights movement due to the horrific pictures of the young boy that circulated throughout America.... ...
Ferguson(1896) which was an incident when a black man in New Orleans tried to sit in a whites only railway car but was unsuccessful. He would be arrested and the court would eventually make it to the Supreme Court. The Jim Crow Laws lasted from 1877-1954 which was the civil rights movement really started to take effect. We had felt we had made a major accomplishment as people once we resolved that situation that was until the “New Jim Crow Laws” took effect. They found a new to work the system and limit African Americans particularly men in this case. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is a book written by Michelle Alexander who talks about the legal system which is basically against black men. Once you’re arrested you basically lose all your rights for the most part but in our case we lose the rights that we fought many years for. Once you receive a felony you lose your ability to vote which is what they want and also limit job opportunities to a place like a fast food restaurant which is one of a few establishments that will hire felons. Even though the “New Jim Crows” is unofficial it is still something that as been proven by the author of the
The Roaring Twenties a period when a dramatic social and political change happened. Researching about Harlem was learning about how the people contributed more the music to America’s New Urban Culture. The Harlem Renaissance was a significant movement during the 1920s were African American artists were brought together, explored what it means to be an artist, what it is to create art and literature, as well as what it means to be a proud African American in a community, that influence each to stand-up together in a white-dominant culture, furthermore Harlem was a hotbed of political, cultural and social activity. While researching about the 1920’s, I found out so
How do musicians during the Harlem Renaissance relate to musicians in today’s society and how do they influence them? Musicians relate and influence musicians in today’s society for many different reasons. However, not only do musicians during the Harlem Renaissance relate to musicians in today’s society and influence them but artists, actors, painters and poets in the Harlem Renaissance did also. During the 1920s is when the Harlem Renaissance blossomed in the African American culture, particularly in creative arts and influential movement in African American literary history. Without the Harlem Renaissance eminent people today such as Beyoncé Knowles, Jay-Z, Morris Chestnut, Maya Angelou and Gabrielle Union would not be relevant.
The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York in the 1920s. The renaissance was more than just a literary movement, it involved racial pride. This was a time for cultural explosion, after African Americans had dealt with years of slavery and the fight or abolition. The encounters with music art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance impacted American society by bringing light to artists, such as writers, musicians and painters that challenged the white society’s ideas about African Americans.