All the Long, Hot Summers

Burn, baby, burn!" That was the exultant cry first heard in the Los Angeles district of Watts. It marked a historic shift from the era of sit-ins and nonviolent marches, of songs and prayers, to the era of ghetto rioting. The worst outbreaks: New York City, July 1964. At a rally held in Harlem to protest the killing of a black youth by a white off-duty police officer, black leaders denounced the police and called for community action. When the crowd marched to a Harlem police station, scuffles with police erupted into a riot that lasted six days and also broke out in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The final toll: one dead, 143 injured, 461 arrested.

Los Angeles, August 1965. A minor incident on a hot summer night turned into six days of rioting, arson, looting and sniping by an estimated 10,000 blacks. Of the 34 people killed, 28 were black. By the sixth day, 12,000 National Guardsmen and 2,500 city and county police were patrolling 46 square miles and had arrested 4,000 people. Some 200 buildings were completely destroyed, with property losses estimated at $40 million.

Cleveland, July 1966. Again a minor incident—this time in a neighborhood bar in the black section of Hough—turned into widespread shooting and fire bombing. In six days, four blacks were killed and 50 injured. A grand jury later blamed "trained professionals."

Newark, July 1967. Violence exploded when blacks heard and believed a false rumor that the police had killed a black taxi driver. As the rioting spread, exaggerated reports of black snipers prompted the intervention of the National Guard. In six days of rioting, 26 were killed, 1,500 injured, and damage reached $30 million.

Detroit, July 1967. The worst riot of the decade erupted on a muggy night when police raided an after-hours drinking club. At the height of the violence, President Lyndon Johnson sent in the U.S. Army, and the National Guard fired machine guns from Sherman tanks. The seven-day toll: 43 killed, 2,000 injured, 7,000 arrested and 5,000 left homeless.

Washington, D.C., April 1968.

After the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Stokely Carmichael led a march down 14th Street that swelled into a riot. In four days, nine died, 1,000 were injured and 6,000 arrested.

The "long hot summer" had become an annual event in America's cities when the rioting suddenly stopped. One reason was a series of reforms: more political power for blacks, police review boards, a variety of job programs. Another was the realization that ghetto blacks were the chief victims of ghetto violence—burned-out areas of Detroit and Newark are still in ruins today. But as Miami demonstrated, the elements that created the history of ghetto rioting still exist.