April 4, 1968 - MLK’s Assassination and the DC Riots
Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was shot dead in Memphis by James Earl Ray.
Within hours of his murder, Washington, DC was poised for one of the most explosive urban riots in American history.
The Washington, DC headquarters of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council was located near the intersection of 14th and U Street. Large crowds of young people were typical in the neighborhood, especially as people headed home from work, as the area was a center of the African-American community in Washington, DC.
Just two nights before, several hundred youngsters had a violent altercation with DC police, but Stokley Carmichael, a civil rights activist/revolutionary and former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), convinced both the residents and the police to back down, ending the immediate tension.
When the news bulletin reached America that Dr. King had been killed, a crowd who had heard the news on transistor radios, gathered in shock and silence along U Street.
Carmichael asked SNCC leaders to join him as he walked the U Street corridor asking or perhaps demanding (depending on which accounts you believe), business owners to close their stores out of respect for Dr. King. Most shopkeepers did.
As a reporter and eyewitness on the scene from The Washington Post recounts the sequence of events, crowds were generally calm.
When a stocky 15 year-old youth smashed a window of the Republic Theater on U Street with his fist and then entered the theater and stole a large bag of popcorn, the crowd’s mood started to change.
Carmichael and other leaders tried to keep the crowd calm, but within minutes, it started to grow more angry. Another window was licked in at a hardware store on U Street. Other storefront windows were then broken, with Carmichael and his group of supporters urging the crowd to remain calm, and physically putting themselves at risk, directly confronting groups of angry young men, some looking to release their anger, others for a form of revenge.
READ MORE — >
But quickly, order disintegrated and widespread window breaking and looting occurred. Hundreds of police were called in the area, many from other precincts, as more looting, bottle and rock throwing spread across the neighborhood.
Early the following morning, DC Mayor Walter Washington, ordered city workers to immediately clean up the damage, with the smell of tear gas still evident.
At a Friday morning news conference, Carmicheal’s words were no longer a message of calm and restraint. The now angry young black militant, that some had hoped would be the peace keeper, may have further agitated black residents.
At an outdoor rally at Howard University, where he attended college, Carmichael spoke to students and residents saying “Stay off the streets, if you don’t have a gun, because there’s going to be shooting,” as he waved a pistol over his head. He was not seen or heard of for several days, assumedly wishing to avoid being accused as an instigator of the riots that followed.
After the rally, crowds walking on 7th street were confronted by police, and again things turned violent.
Within hours, dozens of buildings were on fire as crowds estimated in the range the of 20,000 rioted and attacked police and firefighters, pelting them with rocks and and bottles. Hundreds of building fires were set, mostly in three DC neighborhoods.
President Lyndon B. Johnson reacted quickly and deployed over 13,000 federal and National Guard troops, many with bayonets fixed, to assist DC police in attempting to restore order to the city.
It was the largest occupation of American city by military forces since the Civil War. Across the nation, photos appeared in newspapers of soldiers armed with machine guns protecting the White House and Capitol building.
The mayor imposed a curfew and banned for several days, the sale of alcohol and guns (which was still legal at the time).
When the city calmed four days later, the death toll was 12, over a thousand people were injured and more than 6,000 arrests had been made. Over 900 stores and 1,200 buildings had been burned.
On August 28, 1963, less than 5 years earlier, Dr. King delivered his famous “I have a dream speech” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington. The exact spot where he delivered his most famous speech is etched on the second from the top landing of the memorial’s steps.
For those few days in 1968, Dr. King’s message of peaceful and non-violent civil disobedience were forgotten and still live as part of DC’s legacy.
A new MLK national monument on the Mall is planned to be competed by the end of 2009 near the FDR Memorial.
Images - MLK - Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, trooper - Leffler/Library of Congress, Ben’s Chili Bowl & 18th & U Diner - Flickr, Lincoln Memorial I Have a Dream spot - personal collection - © 2008 - Jon Rochetti
9 Comments
I lived through all of this forty years ago and there was one picture that has never left my memory. It is of US Marines manning a fifty-caliber machine gun on the steps of the United States Capitol. It conveyed to me how close we came to collapsing as a nation. Does anyone know where that picture might be on the web??
Dennis:
I’ve seen that classic image and I too was unable to find it on the web when researching the post. Perhaps the U.S. Archives may have an online copy.
[...] concerned. Parents kept me and my friends that hung at our house on a very short leash.. April 4, 1968 - MLK
[...] broke out in cities across the country, including the now famous in Washington, DC riots in the U Street corridor, after Martin Luther King was [...]
i was one of the first black marine to arrive in d.c. the first night off the riots. i stayed and sleep at the capitol bldg after patroling the streets with police. i .was interviewed by several reporters on the steps of the capitol. are any interviews still around.
Amazing James.
It must have been a scary time. I haven’t seen any interviews online.
My Husband is a disabled Vietnam Vet, and was stationed in D.C. during the riots, prior to going overseas. He camped out at the reflecting pool for 2 weeks. He will never forget it! He said at times it was worse than Vietnam because he was fighting against his fellow Americans.
I wondered if anyone had any pictures of the troops camping there.
I too remember this time, living in an apartment building,1916 17th Street NW. I was five at the time and remember looking out the window of my parents 5th storey apartment building and seeing the national guard march down 17th street in a V formation.
I invite you to my personal website where in explain my experience during this volatile time, link below
http://sites.google.com/site/gironjoshua/images-of-a-childhood/washington-dc-1968-riots