What was race riots

Save Word. Definition of race riot. Examples of race riot in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web As a teenager, a race riot broke out at her high school in Troy, Alabama. Sawicky, The New Republic , 30 Aug. First Known Use of race riot , in the meaning defined above. Learn More About race riot. Time Traveler for race riot The first known use of race riot was in See more words from the same year. From the Editors at Merriam-Webster. Racial tensions in Phillips County culminated in the Elaine Massacre, which left hundreds of blacks and five whites dead.

The assault and murder of a white woman in rural Crawford County in late resulted in the expulsion of an entire black community by white mobs. In , a white mob tracked down John Carter, a black man accused of assaulting a white family, and lynched him. However, the heyday of lynching had long passed, and John Carter was one of the final victims of Arkansas lynch mobs. At the same time, the poor economic conditions of the Great Depression crossed color boundaries, forcing many instances of racial cooperation.

However, none of the violence was extensive enough to be considered a riot by historians. Isolated incidents of violence by whites were met with stiff organized responses from African Americans in the form of protest and condemnation.

Arkansas race relations underwent a fundamental change in the period before the civil rights movement: no longer was white supremacy taken for granted. As race relations in the South were transformed, so were those in Arkansas.

The nonviolent strategy of the civil rights movement brought a new televised drama to race riots and protests across the country. During the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, racial tensions culminated in white mob activity outside of Central High School, forcing the evacuation of the black students recently admitted. However, no one was seriously injured, and the mob was contained.

While civil rights activists in many counties met stiff resistance and even threats of physical violence, tensions did not flare to the dramatic levels they reached in other states until after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In August, a peaceful protest in Little Rock turned violent, requiring National Guardsmen to calm the crowds. The next year saw widespread mob activity by both blacks and whites in Forrest City over civil rights.

National Guardsmen were once again required to calm the increasingly hostile mobs. The following years saw similar events unfold in Arkadelphia Clark County , Earle Crittenden County , El Dorado, and Marianna Lee County , as well as smaller incidents throughout the state; in Earle, for example, white mobs attacked African Americans protesting the segregation of schools, still ongoing in However, by the end of , racially charged mob activity in the state dropped off dramatically.

This could be due in part to the relatively small population of Little Rock compared to other cities where riots have occurred since the late s. Similarly, modern society largely shuns violent forms of civil disobedience as a means of protest. As a result, since the s, few race riots have occurred in the United States, and none of those have occurred in Arkansas.

For additional information: Barnes, Kenneth C. Who Killed John Clayton? Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South, — Graves, John William. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, Kirk, John A. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, Lancaster, Guy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Lancaster, Guy, ed. Bullets and Fire: Lynching and Authority in Arkansas, — Twelve were convicted and sentenced to die before their convictions were overturned on appeal.

Text Dependent Questions. The people participating in race riots prior to were largely white rather than black, and they were meant to intimidate African Americans into submission.

What is the purpose of the bullets at the end of the article detailing the various instances of violence? These vignettes are meant to show how badly African Americans were treated across the South during these riots and outbursts of violence, as well as the unwarranted fates that many of them met. Reveal Answers. Teach This in a Learning Plan.

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