Were The Draft Riots of 1863 In NYC The Worst Riots A U.S. City Has Ever Seen? (bomb, general)
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And there was the "Rodney King" riots in Koreatown in the early 1990's, where, I believe 600 buildings went up in flames!
And you know all too well where they would have rushed to the fastest, the richer areas of town, like a home torched in Malibu or the Hollywood Hills!
I lived in the Hollywood Hills during the King riots. There were NO police, NO firefighters. They quit answering 911 calls the second day.
The rioting was not confined to South Central or Koreatown. Buildings in Hollywood, close to multi-million dollar homes, were looted and burned to the ground. Wealth meant little. Everyone was affected. No one "rushed" to save homes in the Hollywood Hills as we watched the stores and businesses that served our community go up in flames. Neighbors protected neighbors. Had someone torched a millionaire's house.... the cops weren't coming... the fire department wasn't coming.
53 people were killed. Hundreds were injured. Many of them trying to save homes and businesses. Sometimes the homes and businesses of total strangers.
Returning for a moment to the original question, how would one measure or compare the size/destructiveness of a particular riot if not by the number of people killed, injured, dollar amount of destruction, arson, etc.?
Or do you want to debate which riots had the longest-lasting consequences or the largest impact on that particular city?
Am game to discuss NYC Draft Riots. Just to put another on the table, where are the 1966 (67?) Detroit riots in the mix?
I lived in the Hollywood Hills during the King riots. There were NO police, NO firefighters. They quit answering 911 calls the second day.
The rioting was not confined to South Central or Koreatown. Buildings in Hollywood, close to multi-million dollar homes, were looted and burned to the ground. Wealth meant little. Everyone was affected. No one "rushed" to save homes in the Hollywood Hills as we watched the stores and businesses that served our community go up in flames. Neighbors protected neighbors. Had someone torched a millionaire's house.... the cops weren't coming... the fire department wasn't coming.
53 people were killed. Hundreds were injured. Many of them trying to save homes and businesses. Sometimes the homes and businesses of total strangers.
Well, that blew my theory to smithereens, my thinking that the police would rush to protect the rich in the richer areas of town if there were another riot like Watts, and it became scattered.
That surprises me, as what did we learn from the Draft Riots or Watts!!!
I know, with the Draft Riots, there were some mansions torched along 5th Avenue, but any number of them had re-enforcements, like the Mayor's home. But, back then, with the rampant corruption, perhaps the super-rich merely gave some of the police some big spending money to help protect their property.
I've always mistakenly associated the King riots with Koreatown.
Well, that blew my theory to smithereens, my thinking that the police would rush to protect the rich in the richer areas of town if there were another riot like Watts, and it became scattered.
That surprises me, as what did we learn from the Draft Riots or Watts!!!
I know, with the Draft Riots, there were some mansions torched along 5th Avenue, but any number of them had re-enforcements, like the Mayor's home. But, back then, with the rampant corruption, perhaps the super-rich merely gave some of the police some big spending money to help protect their property.
I've always mistakenly associated the King riots with Koreatown.
There was rioting in Koreatown. The rioting occurred in a number of communities. (The Watts riots, which I also remember, was confined to a smaller area.) Koreatown became famous because of the TV coverage of armed store owners protecting their businesses and homes. That happened in other places as well, including the Hollywood Hills. Since we had no fire and police, residents set up their own patrols and there was a type of guard duty with residents standing watch.
Some wealthier home owners did use private security. But there were also hundreds, probably thousands, of homeowners joining forces to protect homes.
Just picked up the Early Spring 2016 issue of Civil War Quarterly.. Good mag, and this issue features a comprehensive article on the NYC Draft Riots. Especially if the subject matter is new to a reader, the article introduces & documents it well.
Personally, I feel like documenting the NYC Draft Riots is especially relevant now (in a contemporary cultural environment where the South is being selectively demonized for their history of Black-White race relations). Race relations were tenuous all over 19th Century America, understanding the Draft Riots puts that historical reality into context.
There was rioting in Koreatown. The rioting occurred in a number of communities. (The Watts riots, which I also remember, was confined to a smaller area.) Koreatown became famous because of the TV coverage of armed store owners protecting their businesses and homes. That happened in other places as well, including the Hollywood Hills. Since we had no fire and police, residents set up their own patrols and there was a type of guard duty with residents standing watch.
Some wealthier home owners did use private security. But there were also hundreds, probably thousands, of homeowners joining forces to protect homes.
Similar happened during the McDuffie riots in Miami in the 1980. A trailer park with white folk was adjacent to the black area rioting so the trailer park folk formed an armed guard to protect their park. No one came to bother them. There was even a photo in the Miami Herald showing three fellows leaning back on patio chairs drinking beer and armed with shotguns.
Just wanted to add that black Americans were one of the primary target of many of the Irish mobs in the 1863 Draft Riot. Black Americans were run out of NYC and black homes and even orphanages were burned and many black people were killed and even lynched by the mobs.
The Draft Riot also sparked other similar riots across the country, whereas other blacks in other cities were attacked on the premise of being blamed for the Civil War.
I am from Toledo, OH and there was a riot in Toledo also in 1863 whereas some Irish dock workers were upset that black workers got paid the same as they were paid. They attacked the black workers and then formed a small mob and burned a "colored" orphanage and attacked the wealthier black residents (were not many at this time) of the city.
However, I feel that all riots occur for specific reasons and have different attributes and that they cannot be compared to which was the "worse."
There was a discussion earlier in the thread from last year that the condition of the Watts rioters was not as bad as the Irish and that the Irish were "fighting for" something in particular. All riots are just outrage boiled over. The modern era's black American riots in major cities were all primarily about police aggression against black neighborhoods. It is interesting to me as a black person, that so many today think "race relations" have "gotten worse" based on seeing similar unrest and protests regarding police brutality and perceived injustice of the criminal justice system. This is the primary reason for nearly all of the modern era riots in big cities - Watts and Detroit in the 1960s, even the LA riot in 1990s was after the officers got acquitted even when they were taped in the beating of Rodney King. IMO, race relations are no different than they were in the 1970s, it is just people (i.e. the media) haven't really paid attention until something happens, either a riot or some sort of protest like what occurred in Ferguson and Baltimore. These have been consistent issues that have spanned the decades in this regard in black America.
I also want to point out that it is interesting to note that many riots in the 1860s ind particular were of Irish mobs attacking black people due to them wanting to be seen as superior to blacks. Irish were seen as some of the lowest on the totem poll of whites and were treatly harshly by society as a result. They frequently lived near or in the same neighborhoods as black Americans as a result, which made the blacks their primary "competition" and targets when civil unrest occurred. They usually attacked black people over wages or jobs such as what occurred in Toledo. The Civil War brought a lot of those tensions to the surface whereas the Irish felt they were being sent to die to free black slaves to come and take their jobs. Ironically, the Irish were seen as "superior" to black Americans, being that black people wanted to fight in the Civil War but were not allowed due to the racist leanings of the Union who held the belief that black soldiers were inferior to whites and should not be allowed to fight.
I find this whole scenario interesting because often, people do not look at the fact that the free black population of the north was highly stressed and endangered during this time period. Many times they were attacked by Irish or other lower class white persons. Free blacks who lived in border states to the CSA were in great danger of being stolen into slavery, free blacks all over were, but especially during the 1850s after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, black people were stolen in large numbers in states like Maryland and Pennsylvania and sold into slavery. Black communities in northern cities/areas lived with a constant fear and threats in many areas, including NYC due to their lower population in comparison to the newly arrived European immigrants.
I read a lot of old newspapers due to having an interest in local history and genealogy. I have found accounts of one of my own ancestor nearly being stolen into slavery in PA in particular and about the riots across the state of Ohio, in Chicago and in Detroit during the 1850s and 1860s. Most of them had some sort of racial undertone whereas usually black people were attacked for the reasons specified above. Newspapers of this era really do show a great fear of the working class whites in particular in northern cities not being "for" slavery but also not "for" black people moving to their area and "taking their jobs." It is interesting that the same attitudes are still present in our society today. We really rarely learn anything it seems from history.
FWIW, I also feel that many of the labor riots are under studied from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. Ohio also has a large history in regards to the labor movement as does many parts of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region. Outrage and anger, like with NYC Draft Riots and the racial riots of the 1860s played a role in labor riots as well.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 03-21-2016 at 08:38 AM..
What about riots in New Orleans? More than 20 Italians were lynched.
No one seems to have mentioned the Tulsa Race Riot of 1924:
The Tulsa race riot was a large-scale, racially motivated conflict on May 31 and June 1, 1921, in which a group of whites attacked the black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It resulted in the Greenwood District, also known as 'the Black Wall Street'[1] and the wealthiest black community in the United States, being burned to the ground.
During the 16 hours of the assault, more than 800 people were admitted to local white hospitals with injuries (the two black hospitals were burned down), and police arrested and detained more than 6,000 black Greenwood residents at three local facilities.[2]:108–109 An estimated 10,000 blacks were left homeless, and 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire, resulting in over $26 million in damages. The official count of the dead by the Oklahoma Department of Vital Statistics was 39, but other estimates of black fatalities vary from 55 to about 300.[2]:108, 228 [3]
Or one of my favorites from a historical perspective, the Nativist Riots in Philadelphia when Irish Protestants attacked Irish Catholics throughout the city:
Similar happened during the McDuffie riots in Miami in the 1980. A trailer park with white folk was adjacent to the black area rioting so the trailer park folk formed an armed guard to protect their park. No one came to bother them. There was even a photo in the Miami Herald showing three fellows leaning back on patio chairs drinking beer and armed with shotguns.
I lived though the riots, I don't quite recall that trailer park...there were some inhabited by Americans in Hialeah and Tamiami Park..and yes, sweetwater.
Owners, which were Americans and Cubans, protected their business posted in the rooftops along the 40th something of NW....I remember the owner of a very beautiful shop that sold electric trains, rockets, maybe one of the best in the US...
But the national guard came, if not there would have been hundreds of casualties, not 20.
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