Rioting Across the Century Part 1: U.S.A 1965-68

Having now experienced a small taste of a city exploding into riots firsthand, it seems a good time to take a look back at some other riots that dwarfed what has happened in England over the past week. In the first of two posts on the topic, I am going to look at the riots in American cities that occurred during the 1960s, whilst in another post soon to follow, Jack Ovens will be looking at the French riots of 2005.

Although it makes sense to draw some comparison between the two sets of riots, this is a history blog, not a politics one, so I will try to keep comments on the current events to a minimum. In addition, the historian can only fulfil his role when he is impartial; when he can seeks to understand why something has happened, and not respond to events emotionally. Having seen people destroy the neighbourhood I have lived in almost all my entire life a few days ago, I would probably question the impartiality of my own views on the London riots, and respectfully deem myself a dubious source.

Riots often come to be understood in terms of the sobriquet that is given to them. So when we think of the 1960s race riots, we naturally think that they were caused by racism. This made up part of the explanation provided by the liberal Kerner Report, commissioned by President Johnson to investigate the cause of the riots of the previous two years in 1967, which presented its findings to him the following year. The report concluded that deep seated white racism (what Stokely Carmichael would call ‘institutional racism’) manifested in racist housing laws, glass ceilings in employment and in the most outright form in police forces, was largely responsible for causing the riots.

This explanation might well explain a good deal of the rioting, particularly the pitched battles between rioters and police or the National Guard. It is also lent credence by the fact the ‘spark’ which ignited the riots was almost invariably some accusation of police brutality, which would build upon smouldering resentments against racism in the force. The situation often then deteriorated as further rumours about the heavy-handed tactics of police spread. Clearly trust of the police, an institution which was indeed blighted by endemic racism, was minimal.

Part of the issue was also frustration with a lack of positive social change – the riots were a cry for attention from a group who heard of bills being passed on Capitol Hill to deal with racism but saw no changes in their own levels of poverty in the Northern Cities. When Martin Luther King toured the streets of L.A. after the riot, one rioter told him excitedly, ‘we won’. Confused, King replied, ‘your neighbourhood is destroyed, people have been killed and you’ve lost the goodwill of the whites. How did you win?’ The young man replied, ‘because we got them to take notice of us’

But there were also elements of the riots that resembled very strongly the basic looting has occurred in the UK . If we ignore this there is a danger of romanticising the American race rioter of the 1960s. Too easily can he be morphed into a revolutionary protester against the evils of American Capitalism, the black hero finally standing up to the white oppressor. There were certainly people at the time who had this illusion, only to see it swiftly shattered. One black man, referred to in the Kerner Report as ‘E.G.’, recalled being told about the riot on 12^th street in Detroit that started on July 23, 1967, and hurrying down excitedly hoping to see a ‘true revolt’. ‘I wanted to see the people really rise up in revolt,’ said E.G., ‘When I saw the first person coming out of the store with things in his arms, I really got sick to my stomach and wanted to go home. Rebellion against the white suppressors is one thing, but one measly pair of shoes or some food completely ruins the whole concept.”

To drive home the point, let us consider the case of the ‘soul brothers’. During many of the American riots, including the Detroit one, some black shopowners would spray ‘soul brothers’ over the front of their businesses to alert the rioters that this was a shop belonging to one of their own, and should be left alone. The Kerner Report showed that in Detroit, these messages were ignored and the rioters indiscriminately looted white and ‘soul brothers’ stores alike.

Why…? And why would rioters in London destroy family–run furniture businesses where there is nothing to steal or steal armfuls of goods from ‘Poundland’ where the risk clearly outlines the benefit? Woe betide the analyst who falls back on the conclusion that this is ‘mindless’ violence and does not need to be understood. In both sets of riots, the seemingly illogical nature tells you that the looting isn’t just about money, or hitting back at whites, it’s a subconscious statement: this society has nothing invested in me and I have nothing invested in it. I owe it nothing.

With all riots, one’s ‘explanation’ depends on what question one is actually asking. How deep into the issue of why do you want to go? Do you take the line that people are responsible for their own actions, and no amount of detrimental life circumstances can justify looting and the destruction of others’ property? Or do you accept that yes, there is no excuse for such behaviour, but that does not prevent us from examining what conditions creates the mindset within people that says they owe nothing to society and can take at will? Hopefully there will come a time when historians can do the latter for the London riots, as they have done for the American riots of the 1960s, otherwise we might end up with our own equivalent of the 1994 L.A. riots somewhere down the line…

References/ Further Reading:

Banfield, 'The Unheavenly City Revisited' – Controversial analysis of riots which played extent of racism

National Advisory committee on Civil Disorders (Kerner Report) ­- exhaustive report on the riots.

Goveneor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots: Violence in the City, an End or a Beginning? – ‘McCone Report’ Unsympathetic to the rioters.

Thomas F Jackson, 'From Civil Rights to Human Rights' MLK and the Struggle for Economic Justice

Nathan Right Jr., 'Black Power and Urban Unrest'