On June 17, 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black worshippers during a Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in a racially motivated terrorist attack that exposed the state’s ongoing institutional embrace of …
The Detroit race riot erupts on June 20, 1943, killing 34 people, injuring over 400, and causing $2 million in property damage. The violence exposes how federal housing policy enforces residential segregation while demanding integrated war production, creating explosive tensions that government …
Detroit Police DepartmentFederal troopsDetroit housing authorityWar production workersNAACPracial-violencehousing-segregationwar-productioncivil-rightsinstitutional-racism
On July 27, 1919, the drowning of Black teenager Eugene Williams - who drifted into a white beach area on Lake Michigan and was stoned by white beachgoers - triggered eight days of racial violence in Chicago that killed 38 people (23 Black, 15 white), injured 537, and left over 1,000 Black families …
Chicago Police DepartmentIrish American athletic clubsBlack Great Migration communitiesGovernor Frank LowdenIllinois National Guardracial-violencecivil-rightsred-summerhousing-discriminationpolice-complicity
Armed white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina launched the only successful coup d’etat in American history, overthrowing the legally elected biracial government, murdering an estimated 60-300 Black citizens, and establishing one-party white Democratic rule that would persist for …
Alfred Moore WaddellFurnifold SimmonsRed ShirtsWilmington Black CommunityDemocratic Partyvoting-rightsracial-violenceelection-violencecoupwhite-supremacy+1 more
On July 13-16, 1863, New York City erupts in the largest civil urban disturbance in American history as working-class mobs violently protest the federal draft law that allows wealthy men to avoid military service by paying $300—equivalent to an average worker’s annual salary—or hiring …
Irish AmericansBlack New YorkersDemocratic PartyUnion Armydraft-riotsclass-inequalityracial-violenceconscriptiondraft-exemption+1 more