Nativist period 1700s?1860[edit]
for information about riots worldwide, see List of riots.
1829: Cincinnati riot of 1829 (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Rioting against African Americans results in thousands leaving for Canada.
1829: Charlestown anti-Catholic riots (Charlestown, Massachusetts)
1834: Massachusetts Convent Burning
1835: Five Points Riot (New York City)
1841: Cincinnati riot of 1841 (Cincinnati, Ohio)
1844: Philadelphia Nativist Riots (May 6?8/July 5?8)
1851: Hoboken anti-German riot
1855: Bloody Monday (Louisville, KY Anti-German riots)
Civil War period 1861?1865[edit]
1863: Detroit race riot
1863: New York City Draft Riot
Post?Civil War and Reconstruction period: 1865?1889[edit]
1866: New Orleans Riot (New Orleans, Louisiana)
1866: Memphis Riots of 1866 (Memphis, Tennessee)
1868: Pulaski Riot (Pulaski, Tennessee)
1868: Opelousas Massacre (Opelousas, Louisiana)
1868: Camilla, Georgia
1868: Ward Island riot
Irish and German-American indigent immigrants, temporarily interned at Wards Island by the Commissioners of Emigration, begin rioting following an altercation between two residents, resulting in thirty men seriously wounded and around sixty arrested.[10]
1870: Eutaw, Alabama
1870: Laurens, South Carolina
1870: Kirk-Holden war: Alamance County, North Carolina
Federal troops, led by Col. Kirk and requested by NC governor Holden, were sent to extinguish racial violence. Holden was eventually impeached because of the offensive.
1870: New York City Orange Riot
1871: Meridian race riot of 1871, Mississippi
1871: Second New York City Orange Riot
1871: Los Angeles Anti-Chinese Riot
1871: Scranton coal riot
Violence occurs between striking members of a miners' union in Scranton, Pennsylvania when Welsh miners attack Irish and German-American miners who chose to leave the union and accept the terms offered by local mining companies.[11]
1873: Colfax massacre (Colfax, Louisiana)
1874: Vicksburg, Mississippi
1874: New Orleans, Louisiana
1874: Coushatta massacre, Coushatta, Louisiana
1875: Yazoo City, Mississippi
1875: Clinton, Mississippi
1876: Statewide violence in South Carolina
1876: Hamburg, South Carolina
1876: Ellenton, South Carolina
1885: Rock Springs massacre, Wyoming
1886: Pittsburgh Riot
1887: Denver riot of 1887
In one of the largest civil disturbances in the city's history, fighting between Swedish, Hungarian and Polish immigrants results in the shooting death of one man and injuring several others before broken up by police.[12]
1887: Thibodaux massacre, Thibodaux, Louisiana?strike of 10,000 sugar-cane workers which led to a mass killing of an estimated 50 African Americans
Jim Crow period: 1890?1914[edit]
Further information: Nadir of American race relations
See also: Ku Klux Klan
1891: New Orleans anti-Italian riot
A lynch mob storms a local jail and hangs several Italians following the acquittal of several Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy.
1891: 1st Omaha Race Riot
10,000 white people storm the local courthouse to beat and lynch Joe Coe, who was alleged to have raped a white child.
1894: Buffalo, NY riot of 1894
Two groups of Irish and Italian-Americans are arrested by police after a half hour of hurling bricks and shooting at each other resulting from a barroom brawl when visiting Italian patrons refused to pay for their drinks at a local saloon. After the mob is dispersed by police, five Italians are arrested while two others are sent to a local hospital.[13]
1894: Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike
Much of the violence in this national strike was not specifically racial, but in Iowa, where the employees of Consolidation Coal Company (Iowa) refused to join the strike, armed confrontation between strikers and strike breakers took on racial overtones because the majority of Consolidation's employees were African American. The National Guard was mobilized just in time to avert open warfare.[14][15][16]
1898: Wilmington Race Riot
1898: Lake City, South Carolina
1898: Greenwood County, South Carolina
1899: Newburg, NY riot
Angered towards the recent hiring of African-American workers, a group of between 80 and 100 Arab laborers attack a group of African-American workers near the Freeman & Hammond brick yard with numerous men injured on both sides.[17]
1900: New Orleans, Louisiana : Robert Charles Riots
1900: New York City
1902: New York City
Anti-Semitic riots involving Irish factory workers, city policemen and thousands of Jews attending Jacob Joseph's funeral
1906: Little Rock, Arkansas
Started when a white police officer in Argenta killed a black musician in a bathroom, causing the burning down of half a block of burned down commercial buildings and two black residencies, as well as the departure of many blacks as white men taking arms ran down the street.[18]
1906: Atlanta Riots, Georgia
1907: Bellingham Riots, Washington
1908: Springfield, Illinois
1909: Greek Town Riot
A successful Greek immigrant community in South Omaha, Nebraska is burnt to the ground and its residents are forced to leave town.[19]
1910: Nationwide riots following the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada on July 4
War and Inter-War period: 1914?1945[edit]
Further information: Nadir of American race relations
1917: East St. Louis, Illinois
1917: Chester, Pennsylvania
1917: Philadelphia
1917: Houston riot
Red Summer of 1919
1919: Washington, D.C.
1919: Chicago
1919: Omaha, Nebraska
1919: Charleston, South Carolina
1919: Longview, Texas
1919: Knoxville, Tennessee
1919: Elaine, Arkansas
1921: Tulsa, Oklahoma
1923: Rosewood, Florida (area is now an outgrowth of Cedar Key, Florida)
1927: Poughkeepsie, New York ? A wave of civil unrest, violence and vandalism by local White mobs against Blacks, as well Greek, Jewish, Chinese and Puerto Rican targets in the community, though mostly directed at African-Americans.[citation needed]
1930: Watsonville, California
1935: Harlem race riot
1943: Detroit race riot
1943: Harlem race riot
1943: Zoot Suit Riots, Los Angeles
1944: Agana race riot, Guam
Civil Rights Movement and Black Power period: 1955?1977[edit]
1964[edit]
Rochester 1964 race riot; Rochester, New York ? July
New York City 1964 riot; New York City ? July
Philadelphia 1964 race riot; Philadelphia ? August
Jersey City 1964 race riot, August 2?4, Jersey City, New Jersey
Paterson 1964 race riot, August 11?13, Paterson, New Jersey
Elizabeth 1964 race riot, August 11?13, Elizabeth, New Jersey
Chicago 1964 race riot, Dixmoor riot, August 16?17, Chicago
1965[edit]
Watts riots; Los Angeles, California ? August
1966[edit]
Hough Riots; Cleveland, Ohio ? July
Hunter's Point Riot; San Francisco
Division Street Riots; Chicago ? June
1967[edit]
1967 Newark riots; Newark, New Jersey ? July
1967 Plainfield riots; Plainfield, New Jersey ? July
12th Street riot; Detroit, Michigan ? July
1967 New York City riot; Harlem, New York City - July
Cambridge riot of 1967; Cambridge, Maryland - July
1967 Rochester riot; Rochester, New York - July
1967 Pontiac riot; Pontiac, Michigan - July
1967 Toledo riot; Toledo, Ohio - July
1967 Flint riot; Flint, Michigan - July
1967 Grand Rapids riot; Grand Rapids, Michigan - July
1967 Houston riot; Houston, Texas - July
1967 Englewood riot; Englewood, New Jersey - July
1967 Tucson riot; Tucson, Arizona - July
Milwaukee riot; Milwaukee, Wisconsin ? July 30?31
Minneapolis North Side Riots; Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota ? August
1968[edit]
Orangeburg massacre; Orangeburg, South Carolina ? February
King assassination riots: 125 cities in April and May, in response to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. including:
Baltimore riot of 1968; Baltimore Maryland
1968 Washington, D.C. riots; Washington, D.C.
1968 New York City riot; New York City
West Side Riots; Chicago
1968 Detroit riot; Detroit, Michigan
Louisville riots of 1968; Louisville, Kentucky
Hill District MLK riots; Pittsburgh, PA
Summit, Illinois Race Riot at Argo High School, September 1968
1968 Democratic National Convention
1969[edit]
1969 York Race Riot; York, Pennsylvania ? July
1970[edit]
May 11th Augusta Race Riot; Augusta, Georgia ? May
Jackson State killings; Jackson, Mississippi ? May
Asbury Park Riot; Asbury Park, New Jersey ? July
Chicano Moratorium, an anti Vietnam War protest turned riot in East Los Angeles ? August
1971[edit]
Camden Riots, August 1971, Camden, New Jersey
1972[edit]
Escambia High School riots; Pensacola, Florida
1973[edit]
Santos Rodriguez riot, Dallas, Texas July 28, 1973. Riot after the March For Justice protesting Police Murder of Santos Rodr?guez
1974?1988[edit]
Boston busing crisis
1977[edit]
New York City Blackout riot
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Since 1980[edit]
1980: Miami Riot 1980 ? following the acquittal of four Miami-Dade Police officers in the death of Arthur McDuffie. McDuffie, an African-American, died from injuries sustained at the hands of four white officers trying to arrest him after a high-speed chase.
1991: Crown Heights Riot ? May ? between African Americans and the area's large Hasidic Jewish community, over the accidental killing of a Guyanese immigrant child by an Orthodox Jewish motorist. In its wake, several Jews were seriously injured; one Orthodox Jewish man, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed; and a non-Jewish man, allegedly mistaken by rioters for a Jew, was killed by a group of African-American men.
1991: Overtown, Miami ? In the heavily Black section against Cuban Americans, like earlier riots there in 1982 and 1984.
1992: 1992 Los Angeles riots ? April 29 to May 5 ? a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding the assault of Rodney King.
1992: Harlem, Manhattan in New York City ? July ? involved Blacks and Puerto Ricans against the New York Police Department, around the time of the 1992 Democratic National Convention being held there.
1995: St. Petersburg, Florida riot of 1996, caused by protests against racial profiling and police brutality.
2001: 2001 Cincinnati Riots ? April ? in the African-American section of Over-the-Rhine.
2005: Toledo, Ohio ? Neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched in North Park, a mostly African-American section of town.
2009: Oakland, CA ? Riots following the BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant.
2014: 2014 Ferguson unrest ? Riots following the Shooting of Michael Brown
2015: 2015 Baltimore riots - Riots following the death of Freddie Gray
