The Elaine Race Riots '

My great-great-great grandfather, Captain Bill Strong, was a brute, well known throughout Breathitt County, Kentucky at first by his Civil War fame, but also his terrible feudal era. In Spring of 1870, Amis and his sons went to Strong’s field and began firing at him while Strong was plowing. Captain Strong then ran to his house, grabbed his gun and shot JOhn Amis through both thighs. Once John recovered him, his father and brothers started warfare with Captain Strong. The next day the Amis family set out to Strong’s house and began firing at it, killing Strong’s negro; Captain Strong called for reinforcements because he was not well armed to fight them off.

In the chilly morning of April 5, 1976, many white American teenagers boycotted their classes to go with their parents to protest against the desegregation ruling at the City Hall (Desmond). The White Americans, predominantly teenagers, wanted to forcibly segregate students of a different race on a separate bus. As the protesters walked around the plaza, an African American lawyer, Ted Landsmark, who works in the City Hall at the Contracts Association happens to be going towards the direction of the protest to attend a meeting as part of his daily routine. This time would be different. When the protesters see Landsmark coming towards them, hell would break loose. Stanley Forman arrives.

The Detroit race riot of 1967 was one the most destructive and violent riots of the 159 race riots that occurred during the “Long Hot Summer.” For five straight days civilians fought the police, resulting in 43 deaths, 1,189 injuries, 7,200 arrests, and over 2,500 lootings. Fifty years later there are still visible results of the riot, and the event remains a source of reflection for Detroit citizens. Asides from the building damage and violence, the riots affected various aspects of Detroit's culture, including the Motown enterprise, which was producing chart-topping music that influenced listeners across the globe. As a genre of music that was known as “The Sound of Young America” in the 1960s, studying the Motown sound before and after the riots can provide insight into Detroit citizens’ mindset.

story of how a white man risked his life to defend a man of color to make sure he was treated

The Chicago Race Riots of 1919 helped to further show how African Americans are looked as inferior, not just within the citizens of the United States, but the Congress and criminal justice system. White and black beaches were separated by an invisible line; the black beach on 25th street and whites on 29th street. The story of Eugene Williams swimming on the beach worsened after a white police officer, Dan Callahan, refused to intervene or arrest the group of white men responsible for his death, in turn starting the deadliest racial violence in Chicago history. The riot lasted a week with protestors full of rage mostly on the South side with white gangs attacking isolated blacks and blacks attacking isolated whites.

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 Tulsa Race Riot is an event that is quite possibly the most unknown and misconstrued piece of history in the United States of America. When and if it is discussed, it’s taken as a single event that happened in Tulsa and was deadly and very destructive. The many theories of what occurred and how it came to the extreme mob like violence taken on Tulsa’s own civilians. The evidence found suggest there were alternative motives in Tulsa for acquiring land that the black civilians held.

This paper explains a very important moment in the history of our government that took place in Illinois in 1917. As World War I was beginning for the United States things were heating up in East St. Louis, Illinois. Anti-black riots killed or injured over one hundred black civilians. Then a Silent Parade of over ten thousand black citizens from New York broke out. Civil rights have always been an issue in our government, and according to www.kidzworld.com, after these anti black riots, things eventually led to the development of the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and from that, Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on the bus. The creation of the NAACP also influenced the Little Rock, Arkansas incident, Martin L. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, and many other things which eventually led to equal rights for everyone with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This paper will explain the riots and how it shaped our government into providing equal jobs for all races.

On March 31, 1931 nine boys by the names of; Charles Weems, Clarence Norris, Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Andy Wright and youngest of them all, Roy Wright rode a train heading toward Alabama, they got into a fight with a group of white men that allegedly lead them to push the white men off of the train (An American Tragedy). The train stopped at a small town where an angry mob was waiting to find a group of troubled black men. As they got off the train, two young white women by the names of; Ruby Bates and Victoria Price claimed, “these boys raped us" (An American Tragedy). The public

Robert would hold debates with well-known Civil Rights pacifists such as Martin Luther King, A.J. Muste and others. Williams would argue, “Nonviolence is a very potent weapon when the opponent is civilized, but nonviolence is no repellent for a sadist.” (26) In Dixie African Americans were faced with a choice: to either defend themselves or be killed. To describe why being armed was vital he recounts an instance when the KKK rode into town to terrorize the community, “White people started driving through our community, shouting and screaming… colored people started arming…” (47) Klansman were firing at African Americans who were trying to flee the town and once the community heard of this they sprang into action. When some white people eventually drove into town the community grew furious and dealt with the situation in a way that showed they meant business but without firing.

On 1 May 1866 in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, an altercation between black Union soldiers and Memphis police officers started a chain reaction that eventually brought about what has come to be known as the Memphis Riots of 1866. The group of amicably intoxicated soldiers reacted negatively when told by a small group of officers to break up their party, and although no one was seriously injured, the situation quickly escalated to the point where shots were fired on both sides (Carden 2). This incident, however, was not the cause of the Memphis Riots. Instead, I will argue that the altercation merely served as the spark to set a fire to a whole mess of kindling made of economic, political, and social twigs and branches, which was already in place long before the actual events of the Memphis Riots.

In July 23, 1967, the Detroit Police department busted a bar with a prominent number of African Americans. They arrested every person in the bar. More and more people started to gather on 12th street to watch the proceedings. That is when the rioting started. The crowd began to get more violent as more people joined.

In another short story called “A Georgia Negro Peon,” an anonymous writer describes his life as a laborer on a farm “with twenty or thirty other negroes – men, women, and children,” (Anonymous 170). The man he was hired to from his uncle at the age of ten, whom he referrers to as “Captain,” owned the land he and the other laborers worked on. Each week, he was paid $3. All of his earnings went to his uncle, whom gave very little of it back to him to

The working conditions were very difficult, tiring, and dangerous but the workers were fine with that considering they were getting paid three times more than they were in the south. Female migrants also searched for work but found it much more of a challenge due to competition for domestic labor positions.

During this time there was a lot of racism in the south. The blacks didn’t have any of the rights that the white people had. “We was just mindin' our own business, when one of them said, 'This is a white man's train. All you Nigger bastards unload.” When the black people got onto the train the white people didn’t want them to ride on the train because it is a white people train. When the black people tried to get on the train they had a fight with the white people. The reason why they had a fight with the white people was because they were sitting still and they didn’t want them to get on the train. “They beat on us with their fists, they kicked and trampled on our legs. The sheriff said to me: 'see that gallows, nigger. If