Race riots are the most glaring and contemporary displays of the racial strife running through America's history. Mostly urban, mostly outside the South, and mostly white-instigated, the number and violence of race riots increased as blacks migrated out of the rural South and into the North and West's industrialized cities during the early part of the twentieth-century. Though white / black violence has been the most common form of racial violence, riots involving Asians and Hispanics are also included and examined.
Race riots are the most glaring and contemporary displays of the racial strife running through America's history. Mostly urban, mostly outside the South, and mostly white-instigated, the number and violence of race riots increased as blacks migrated out of the rural South and into the North and West's industrialized cities during the early part of the twentieth-century. While most riots have occurred within the past century, the encyclopedia reaches back to colonial history, giving the encyclopedia an unprecedented historical depth. Though white on black violence has been the most common form of racial violence, riots involving other racial and ethnic groups, such as Asians and Hispanics, are also included and examined. Organized A-Z, topics include: notorious riots like the Tulsa Riots of 1921, the Los Angeles Riots of 1965 and 1992; the African-American community's preparedness and responses to this odious form of mass violence; federal responses to rioting; an examination of the underlying causes of rioting; the reactions of prominent figures such as H. Rap Brown and Martin Luther King, Jr to rioting; and much more.
Many of the entries describe and analyze particular riots and violent racial incidents, including the following: Belleville, Illinois, Riot of 1903 Harlem, New York, Riot of 1943 Howard Beach Incident, 1986 Jackson State University Incident, 1970 Los Angeles, California, Riot of 1992 Memphis, Tennessee, Riot of 1866 Red Summer Race Riots of 1919 Southwest Missouri Riots 1894-1906 Texas Southern University Riot of 1967 Entries covering the victims and opponents of race violence, include the following: Black Soldiers, Lynching of Black Women, Lynching of Diallo, Amadou Hawkins, Yusef King, Rodney Randolph, A. Philip Roosevelt, Eleanor Till, Emmett, Lynching of Turner, Mary, Lynching of Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Many entries also cover legislation that has addressed racial violence and inequality, as well as groups and organizations that have either fought or promoted racial violence, including the following: Anti-Lynching League Civil Rights Act of 1957 Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 Ku Klux Klan National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Nation of Islam Vigilante Organizations White League Other entries focus on relevant concepts, trends, themes, and publications. Besides almost 300 cross-referenced entries, most of which conclude with lists of additional readings, the encyclopedia also offers a timeline of racial violence in the United States, an extensive bibliography of print and electronic resources, a selection of important primary documents, numerous illustrations, and a detailed subject index.
About the Author: Walter Rucker is assistant professor of history at Ohio State University in Columbus. He received his PhD from the University of California, Riverside in 1999. Prior to coming to Ohio State in 2003, Professor Rucker was an assistant professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). His teaching and research interests include Atlantic world/African diasporic history, pan-Africanism, slave culture and resistance, and black social movements. He has delivered a number of professional talks and authored journal articles appearing in the Journal of Black Studies, the Journal of Negro History, and the Black Scholar. His first book The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America will be published by Louisiana State University Press in 2005.
James Nathaniel Upton received his PhD in political science in 1976 from Ohio State University, where he is an associate professor in the African American and African Studies Department. He was the recipient of the Ohio State University 2005 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. His recent publications include From Civil Rights to National Rights: The Development of Race as a Nationality Concept (with R. Maples) in Ethnicity and Housing: Accommodating Differences, Frederick W. Boal, ed., 2000, Multiculturalism: A New Understanding of Nationality (with R. Maples) in Community, Difference and Diversity: Implications for Peace, Edison Bailey and Paula Smithka, eds., 2002, and Racial Violence in the United States: 1900-1919 in Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts, Joseph Rudolph, ed., 2003.