17: Civil Rights Movement

“There is only one solution in the event segregation is banned by the Supreme Court,” Mr. Talmadge declared on December 18, 1952, anticipating how the justices would rule in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. “And that is abolition of the public school system.”

“The mixing of races in the schools will mark the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it,”

Even before Brown II was announced, voters in Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi had approved constitutional amendments authorizing their legislatures to abolish public education if they were ordered to integrate.

Boston in 1773,

90,000 pounds of tea, worth about $1.7 million today.

May 1849

25 people were killed and more than 120 injured in a struggle over which Shakespearean actor was better:

The Astor Place Riot

At least 120 people died and another 2000 were injured. Rioters destroyed between 1 and 5 million dollars in property, about fifty buildings, including two churches and an orphan asylum for African American children. In today’s dollars, that would be between $20 million and about $96 million in damage.

Cincinnati

March 1884

50 people dead (but not the prisoner, who had temporarily escaped) and more than 300 wounded

Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914,

killing between 20 and 26

Three days of race riots in Detroit, in 1943,

three African Americans

The fighting left 34 dead.

September 29, 1962,

Oxford, Mississippi

Two civilians were killed and more than 300 wounded

Watts

week in August 1965

Thirty-four people died and more than $40 million worth of property was destroyed before 4,000 members of the California National Guard restored order

Rodney King riots of 1992

six days, 53 people were killed, more than 2,000 injured, and more than $1 billion in property was destroyed.

As long as America is a democracy, we will have riots.