Riot is a noisy, violent outbreak of disorder by a group of people. Rioters often harm other persons and damage property. Rioting or urging people to riot is a crime in most countries and in all the states of the United States. However, the precise legal definition of a riot differs from place to place.
Rioting cannot always be easily distinguished from vandalism, disorderly conduct, or other similar offenses. But most riots involve hundreds or thousands of people, and follow an aggravation of already severe economic, social, or political grievances. A riot may break out spontaneously, or it may be carefully planned through conspiracy. Few riots—unlike revolts or rebellions—are aimed at overthrowing a government or removing specific leaders. However, a riot may set forces in motion that bring about such a result.
A riot may break out during a demonstration. In a demonstration, many people gather merely to protest publicly against some policy of the government, an industry, a university, or some other institution. But when passions run high, the massing together of thousands of persons and the efforts of police to keep order can lead to violence. In the United States, the Constitution guarantees everyone the rights to assemble in peace, to petition the government for grievances, and to dissent (disagree) as an individual or in a group (see Freedom of speech ). But when dissent changes into disruption of order and is accompanied by violence that injures others or causes physical damage, it is a riot.
Causes of riots
Riots have occurred throughout the world since the beginning of history. In most societies, at one time or another, the poor have rioted to press their demands for food. But poverty and need are not the only reasons. For example, in Britain during the early 1800’s, workers called Luddites staged riots in which they destroyed labor-saving machines, which they feared would replace them. In Mexico City in 1968, rioting students fought with police over various issues, including alleged police brutality during student demonstrations.
The specific issues that trigger riots vary. However, the underlying causes of many riots are similar. Many riots occur because some groups believe they do not have an equal chance for economic, political, or social advancement. Members of most minority groups live in this situation. Many people in such groups may feel they are mistreated by individuals or by government agencies or other organizations that influence their lives. They may become depressed because they feel they cannot help make decisions that affect themselves and their community. People who believe their grievances are being ignored often become defiant, and their feelings can erupt.
Members of a majority group may also become rioters if they fear a minority. They may attack members of the minority to keep them in an inferior social or economic position. Most lynch mobs in the Western and Southern United States were composed of members of dominant, majority groups (see Lynching ).
Many social scientists classify riots into two groups: (1) instrumental riots and (2) expressive riots.
Instrumental riots
occur when groups resort to violence because of discontent over specific issues. Most riots have been of this type. The violence results from attempts to change certain policies or to improve certain conditions. Most labor riots, especially those in the past, fall into this category. During the 1800’s and early 1900’s, for example, U.S. laborers fought to improve working conditions in mines, on railroads, and in factories. Union disputes with management often resulted in violence. Other instrumental riots include prison, antidraft, antiwar, and student riots.
Instrumental riots frequently indicate that the organizations being attacked have not listened effectively to or acted upon grievances previously voiced through orderly channels. But most people condemn the use of violence to achieve even the most desirable goals when peaceful means of change are available.
Expressive riots
occur when many people in a minority group use violence to express dissatisfaction with their living conditions. Studies of urban riots of the 1960’s show that African Americans in the riot areas had many grievances, including few job opportunities, bad housing, and inferior schools, and the use of what they felt was excessive force by the police. Several riots were triggered by arrests or other routine police actions that people of the Black ghettos considered police provocation or brutality. These police actions brought crowds into the streets in protest. The small number of police at the scene could not control them.
The resulting riots became chiefly symbolic gestures of widespread discontent. For some rioters, however, they became opportunities to loot stores for personal gain. For others, the riots were little more than destructive play. In trying to restrain the rioters and promote a return to order, the police sometimes used more force than many people thought necessary. Such action caused many rioters to become even more violent. See African Americans (Unrest in the cities) .
Major riots in the United States
During the 1700’s,
most riots in the United States were instrumental riots. High and unfair taxation was a leading cause of such riots. During the 1760’s and 1770’s, American colonists rioted against tax collectors and other British-appointed officials (see Boston Tea Party ; American Revolution (Background and causes of the revolution) ). For information on other riots resulting from taxation, see Shays’s Rebellion ; Whiskey Rebellion .
During the 1800’s,
anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Black riots were common. Many native-born Americans strongly disliked immigrants, especially Irish Roman Catholics and Asians. In the mid-1850’s, members of the Know-Nothing, or American, Party opposed the Catholic Church. The Know-Nothings feared rising Irish Catholic political power. They attacked Irish Catholics in several cities, including Baltimore, Louisville, New Orleans, and St. Louis. The uprisings took several lives. See Know-Nothings .
In 1863, during the Civil War, antidraft riots broke out in New York City. They were among the most destructive riots in U.S. history. Armed mobs swarmed through the downtown area to protest the drafting of men into the Union Army. Rioters looted, set buildings on fire, and shot Black people, policemen, and federal troops. More than 100 people were killed and several hundred others were wounded.
So-called race riots in the United States have been especially destructive. Violence aimed at Black people and abolitionists broke out in several Northern cities before the Civil War. After the war, in 1866, white Southerners attacked Black people in New Orleans and Memphis.
Many Chinese immigrants were victims of mob violence during a depression in the 1870’s. Many native-born Americans believed the immigrants were taking their jobs and forcing down wages. Anti-Chinese riots in California and other states resulted in several deaths and the passage of laws prohibiting Asians from entering the United States. See Oriental Exclusion Acts .
Labor riots of the late 1800’s caused great bloodshed. Dozens of people were killed in riots in several cities during the great railroad strikes of 1877 (see Labor movement (Opposition to unions) ). The Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago erupted when someone threw a bomb during a meeting of anarchists who were protesting police tactics against strikers at an industrial plant (see Haymarket riot ).
During the 1900’s,
labor and race riots continued to cause destruction. In 1919, efforts to unionize the steel industry led to riots at plants in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In 1934, a dispute between unions and management in the cotton-textile industry led to riots in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Rhode Island, and other states. These riots took about 20 lives.
In the early 1900’s, attempts to segregate Black Southerners and keep them from voting led to lynchings in rural areas and riots in cities. During World War I (1914-1918), many Black people moved to the North to work in defense plants. White people feared Black people would take their jobs and move into their neighborhoods. Black people often claimed that white law officers treated them unfairly. These grievances led to clashes between white and Black people. The worst one occurred in 1917 in East St. Louis, Illinois, where 39 Black people and 9 white people died in a riot. A riot in Chicago in 1919 caused 38 deaths.
What many historians have called the nation’s worst race riot occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from May 31 to June 1, 1921. Black and white people clashed when a mob of white men gathered to lynch a Black man who had been accused of attacking a white woman. During the violence that followed, white people burned and looted more than 1,200 buildings. The city’s Black business district was destroyed. The deaths of 40 people were documented, but some historians estimate that about 300 people may have been killed, mostly Black people.
Racial violence also broke out during World War II (1939-1945). The most destructive riot during the war occurred in 1943 in Detroit, where 34 people died.
Many riots erupted in U.S. cities during the 1960’s, largely because of the economic deprivation and social injustices suffered by Black people living in poverty-stricken areas. They included those in the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965, in Detroit and Newark in 1967, and in Cleveland in 1968. The Detroit riot was the most violent. It led to 43 deaths and 1,200 injuries. About 2,500 stores were burned or looted, and more than 7,000 people were arrested.
After the Detroit riot, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—also known as the Kerner Commission—to study the causes of urban riots. The commission put much of the blame on the racial prejudice and discrimination of white people against Black people. In 1968, Johnson established the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. It recommended such measures as better housing and increased economic opportunities for Black and poor people. The commission believed that these steps would reduce the dissatisfaction that contributes to riots and other violence.
In 1968, riots broke out during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Thousands of young people assembled downtown. Many were protesting the nation’s part in the Vietnam War (1957-1975). Many supported the presidential nomination of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota, a critic of the war. Several bloody clashes took place between demonstrators and the police, but no one was killed. U.S. involvement in the war led to an increasing number of small riots and demonstrations across the country.
During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, student riots occurred in many U.S. cities. Most of the rioters were middle-class students who demanded a greater voice in the administration of their schools. Militant Black students also used violence in efforts to enforce their demands, which included the addition of Afro-American history and culture courses.
In 1971, one of the worst prison riots in the history of the United States occurred at the state prison in Attica, New York. The inmates, most of them Black, charged that the white prison guards mistreated them. Rioters seized the prison and held it for four days. Finally, state troopers stormed the prison to regain control. The uprising resulted in the deaths of 11 prison employees and 32 prisoners. In 1980, a riot at the state penitentiary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, caused 33 deaths. That same year, an urban riot in Miami led to 17 deaths and over $200 million in property damage.
In 1992, riots triggered by a court decision broke out in Los Angeles and some other U.S. cities. The riots erupted after a California jury decided not to convict four white Los Angeles police officers of assault and other charges that resulted from their beating of Rodney G. King, a Black motorist, in 1991. No Black people had served on the jury. King had been stopped after a pursuit, and a local resident videotaped the beating. The videotape was then broadcast by television stations throughout the nation. The court decision set off several days of rioting, mainly in Black areas of South-Central Los Angeles (now called South Los Angeles). The rioting in Los Angeles resulted in 53 deaths, over 4,000 injuries, and about $1 billion in property damage. Later in 1992, the federal government indicted the four police officers on charges that they had violated King’s civil rights. In 1993, a federal jury convicted two of the officers on these charges.
In 1997, the Oklahoma Legislature created a commission to study and officially document the 1921 Tulsa race riot. In early 2000, the commission recommended to the Legislature that survivors of the riot and their descendants be paid to compensate for their losses during the riot.
See also Los Angeles riots of 1992 ; Rodney King incident ; Tulsa race massacre of 1921 .
