Space and Power: An Analysis of the DC Riots :: Free Essays Online

Space and Power: An Analysis of the DC Riots Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson has stated, "A riot is somebody talking. A riot is a man crying out, ‘Listen to me mister. There is something I’ve been trying to tell you and you’re not listening.’" (Gilbert ix). During the 1960s the Civil Rights Movement made a transition from an allegiance to the ideology of nonviolence to one of black power and self-defense. After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., waves of disorder spread through the African American sections of more than 120 cities across the nation; however, the heaviest damage was done in the nation’s capitol of Washington D.C. (Gilbert 15-16). I am arguing that the cause of the riots was white people who antagonized and aggravated African Americans to an unbearable point. African Americans turned to militancy in hopes that it would bring some attention to the problems they were facing. During this time period, radical militant black power leaders also traveled to Africa and other third world countries to call for revolutions. The conditions of the cities where many of the uprisings occurred were deteriorating. Research has shown that blacks faced discrimination in employment, education, housing, and in matters dealing with the police. According to Joseph R. Brandt, a black minister during the 1960s, "In nearly every way, the gap between black people and whites has widened, rather than narrowed" (Barndt 17). An article published in 1969 in the Washington Post stated, "Today the Negro wage earner makes 53 percent of his white brother’s salary, while in 1953, the figures were 59 percent." The African Americans of Washington, D.C. did not only making very little progress, they had actually gone backwards. Black people compromised more than one-half of the population of Washington, D.C. but they had less than one-eighth of the top jobs in the city ("Are D.C."). Compared to a white person, an African-American had only a one-forth chance of getting a job (Boesel 312). In 1969, employees of the General Services Administration charged their employer with systematic racial discrimination in its staffing, promotion and training practices (Honsa). Segregation could also be found in real estate and housing. The refusal of many institutions to grant a housing mortgage loan to black people was a definite factor in keeping some of the areas of the city segregated (Asher, F10). In 1964 complaints were filed against ten Washington real estate firms that showed different lists of available apartments to blacks than they did to whites ("Core").