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The Detroit Riots of 1967
The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(1968) argued that the racial turmoil of the 1960's was caused by deep-seated
prejudice and discrimination. Turmoil is defined as: relatively spontaneous,
unorganized political violence with substantial popular participation, including
violent political strikes, riots, political clashes and localized rebellions (Gurr,
Why Men Rebel, p. 11). In my opinion, the "turmoil" of the 1960's went much
deeper, as evidenced by the immense hatred and violence that erupted during
the decade of the 1960's. Most violence tended to be concentrated in the South,
however the city of Detroit, Michigan was the site of considerable racial
turmoil in 1967.
Profile of a Riot: Detroit, 1967 (Eldridge, Images of Conflict, p. 59)
Some people called it a disturbance, others a riot, a few even referred to
it as a rebellion. During the summer of 1967, the undercurrent of racial
discrimination that had long separated blacks and whites surfaced in Detroit
with a series of violent racial disorders. The primary causal sequence in
political violence is first the development of discontent, second the
politicization of that discontent and finally its actualization in violent action
against political objects and actors (Gurr, Why Men Rebel, p. 13). Political
violence in this case, refers to all collective attacks within a political
community against the political regime, its actors - including competing
political groups as well as incumbents - or its policies. It also includes guerrilla
wars, coup d'etat, rebellions and riots. Political violence is in turn subsumed
under "force" the use of threat of violence by any party or institution to atta...
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...normative predispositions toward violence. There is
considerable variation in such attitudes within most cultures; evidence also
suggests that modal dispositions toward violence vary significantly from one
nation to another and from one subculture to another within nations. These
underlying attitudes are separable from the doctrines that men accept in the
course of their lives which provide them with specific justifications for
violence in response to their immediate political circumstances. Such doctrines
conventionally are categorized as "ideologies," which in their most elaborate
form can serve to stimulate mutual awareness among the discontented, provide
them with elaborate explanations about the causes of their discontent, give
normative sanction to violent action against political objects and identify
utopian objectives to be attained by so acting.
On March 17, 1955, more than 10,000 crazed hockey fans from inside the Montreal Forum and from the streets outside gathered together to protest the suspension of Maurice "The Rocket" Richard. An outraged fan slapped and punched the president of the National Hockey League, Clarence Campbell who was quietly sitting among the spectators. This "seven-hour rampage of destruction and looting" was a result of this attack that occurred during the game that opposed the Montreal Canadians and the Detroit Red Wings (Zacharias, 2000). During this riot, there were many people who were injured and over 100 fans were arrest.
Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Geanne Harwood, interviewed on an National Public Radio Broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, said that “being gay before Stonewall was a very difficult proposition … we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and as manly as possibly to get by in a society that was really very much against us.” The age of communist threats, and of Joseph McCarthy’s insistence that homosexuals were treacherous, gave credence to the feeling of most society members that homosexuality was a perversion, and that one inflicted was one to not be trusted.
Comparing the Books, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties and The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
The 1960s were turbulent years. The United States was unpopularly involved in the war in Vietnam, and political unrest ran high at colleges and universities across the country.
Chicago Riots Have you ever felt as if your government is doing the wrong thing? During the Democratic National Convention in 1968, an estimate of 5-7K protesters were not happy with the results on what was happening in the government. So a group called Yippies started an organized protest. They started to have riots in places like Chicago, where soon after the police came in and started to relentlessly beat the protesters with billy clubs.
There have been traces of racism throughout America since the country was founded. Blacks, along with other races, were constantly fighting to be treated equally. Even though the slaves were freed in 1863, they still faced many racial and prejudice issues. However, in the early 1900s, it seemed as if African Americans were flourishing in the town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The thought of African Americans prospering disgusted most whites to the point they wanted to do something about it. These thoughts and actions caused a horrific event known as Tulsa Race Riots that not only affected everyone in the time period, but will continue to affect us and live in our memory.
The Newark riots of 1967 were very extreme and terrible time in Newark, New Jersey, one of the worst in U.S. history. The riots were between African-Americans and white residents, police officers and the National Guard. The riots were not unexpected. The tension between the city grew tremendously during the 1960's, due to lack of employment for Blacks, inadequate housing, police brutality and political exclusion of blacks from government.
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
- First explain the historical significance of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Then describe one other form of transgender activism discussed in the chapter and explain how it was related to larger political and social developments of the era.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
On July 27, 1919, a young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an invisible line of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several white bystanders, knocked unconscious and drowned, and his death set off one of the bloodiest riots in Chicago’s history (Shogun 96). The Chicago race riot was not the result of the incident alone. Several factors, including the economic, social and political differences between blacks and whites, the post-war atmosphere and the psychology of race relations in 1919, combined to make Chicago a prime target for this event. Although the riot was a catalyst for several short-term solutions to the racial tensions, it did little to improve race relations in the long run. It was many years before the nation truly addressed the underlying conflicts that sparked the riot of 1919. This observation is reflected in many of author James Baldwin’s essays in which he emphasizes that positive change can only occur when both races recognize the Negro as an equal among men politically, economically and socially.
On June 28, 1969, an event occurred that was to be the start of one of the most powerful movements in US history. On that Friday in June, the New York police force raided a popular bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn because it was suspected of operating without a liquor license. Raids usually went on undisturbed by people involved, but during this raid the area around the inn exploded into fierce protest. The repercussions and multiple disputes that resulted from the initial raid would come to be known as the Stonewall Riots.
The Tulsa race riot changed the course of American history by actively expressing African American views on white supremacy. Before the events of the Tulsa race riot African Americans saw the white community taking justice into their own hands. Black citizens of Tulsa stood up against this sort of white mob. This escaladed into the Tulsa race riot. The Tulsa race riot and its effects weighed heavily upon the African Americans of this era.
In the 1960s the world was hitting a peak of all different kinds of conflicts although, the
The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.