Detroit Riots Essay

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

They were also arrested. (Auerbach 1688) That's all it took for this riot to come into play, a few people unhappy about the way the police handled the situation. The next thing you know its a few thousand unhappy people.

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 won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and

B) The arrest by police of a bartender and 82 customers at a "blind pig" in the dilapidated, predominantly black 12th Street area.

The culmination of the riot originated from a car crash that caused African-Americans to start pointing fingers at the Jews and vice versa. After leaving a cemetery to visit the grave of a leader of the Jewish community, Yosef Lifsh started to drive east on President Street when he either ran

Urban Blacks were also encounter with extreme racial violence in neighborhoods and at work. Different ethnic groups of new immigrants obtained power and used conflict as a strategy of diminishing urban Blacks power level. They began blocking Urban Black workers going to work throughout new immigrant’s neighborhoods. Race riots have played a crucial role in the social establishment of race, prejudice, and discrimination across the United States. Race riots uncovered fundamental tensions in societies experiencing swift technological and economic changes. In 1920, there were many race riots and other violence in many places, such as Red Summer Race Riots of 1919 and the St. Louis Riot of 1917 that took place during the segregation in the South and the Black urban migration to the North. These race riots were response to the reality that Urban Blacks were carrying on a powerful struggle against White supremacy. During race riots, Urban Blacks lived through a renewed flow of riots, massacres, and racial terrorism.

The Chicago race riots of 1919 were one of the darkest moments in our nations history. But something so terrible does not just happen over night, in fact the reason for this riot began with the Great Migration around 1910. The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African-Americans from the rural south into the urban north. Of those 6 million African-Americans traveling to the north 500,000 of them went to Chicago 's South Side. The African-American population thought they were going to a better situation by escaping the apartheid practices of Jim Crow. However they were taken advantage of and seen as new competition to the northern white population. Nine years later during the summer of 1919, two years after World War I ended, the American society suffered from a racial tension that it has never seen before. The racial tension brewed from the demobilization of black and white

The Watts riots began in the summer of 1965, in a city in Los Angeles called Watts. It all began with the arrest of a young African American by a white California Highway Patrol officer. Now, it was not because he was arrested for already doing something illegal, it was for the way the police officer treated the individual. According to Lacine Holland, an eyewitness to the arrest, the officer “took him and threw him in the car like a bag of laundry and kicked his feet in and slammed the door.” (Flournoy) This caused lots of unrest among the fellow residents of Watts. This was just the beginning of years of pent up oppression for the minorities, which participated in the event. Similarly, in 1992, the Rodney King riots also arose due to the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers for their brutal beating

The Tulsa Race Riot is considered to be the most deadly and violent race riot of all time. The period of the riot was a time of prosperity in America, not only among whites, but the black population in Tulsa were also living an upper middle class life. The oil boom gave Tulsa a quick boost in the economy and people had money, lots of money. With oil in the ground and money everywhere, it’s hard to imagine that the National Guard was about to be called on its own civilians for the first time and only time in history.

The riots helped bring a change to the community for the African Americans because before the riots they didn't have a voice, any protest or march they did didn't receive attention. When the riots happened, they got the attention that they were searching for. The communities were said to be too "poor" to care about them. In the article Sandy banks publish it said "The devastation was heartbreaking, but I understood the rage behind it. Los Angeles had been building to this moment, with years of protests, meetings, and marches that got little attention outside a black community seemed too wretched and too poor to care about." Los Angeles was going to have a breakout sooner or later due to the little attention put for the communities that were in need. The communities felt that with Rodney King, they finally had a voice. For the community Rodney King was their voice because of him the people

the riots in the first place. Another reason why New York City was overrun with followers of the

According to Harper?s? sources, white sailors begin to join in on the brawl thus further escalating it, while a black man runs to a nearby club and announced that a group of white men had raped and killed a black woman and her daughter. As this rumor spreads, a white group began spreading their own rumors by incorrectly informing others that a white woman had been assaulted. Thus, the destruction that ensues from this riot is simply the product of rumors. According to Baldwin, the same can be stated about the Harlem riot. A rumor is spread of a black soldier being shot in the back and killed, thus incensing the crowds (Baldwin 81). While this is not the truth, it sufficiently ignites the fury of Harlem.The majority of the fighting in the Detroit riot takes place in the valley which is the black

In 1965 riots in L.A. occurred after a routine stop by the police involving drunk driving. This stop occurred very close the driver’s residence where massive crowd began to build. When it was all said and done

The history of African-Americans in the United States is full of many periods of achievements, as well as periods of struggle. The Los Angeles riots of 1992 were the result of many years of systematic racism in the United States following the Civil Rights Movement. The beating and unjust trial of Rodney King exposed the unfair and brutal treatment of African Americans by the police. As well as the shooting of 15 year-old Latasha Harlins 2 weeks after the beating of Rodney King to further ignite hatred within African-Americans in Los Angeles. What came forth was a week long riot not only changed Los Angeles, but the United States. That is why the Los Angeles riots was the most devastating, yet consequential, civil uproar in the history of the United States.

Detroit is a very well-known and diverse city. “Somewhere behind its neglected, graffiti covered skyscrapers are charming reminders of a city that was once among the world’s wealthiest” (Gray). This city has been through a lot. Detroit was first founded by the French in 1701 and then used as a fur trade post. Jumping a little in the future, it has had riots and protest for equal rights among its busy streets. Detroit is also known as the Motor City. “By the mid-twentieth century one in every six working Americans was employed directly or indirectly by the automotive industry” (Sugrue). Yet after everything this city has endured Detroit is thought of as a place of fear. It has a lot of history and has a lot to offer if people would let