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 shriek is somebody talking. A riot is a man crying out, Listen to me mister. There is something Ive been onerous to tell you and youre not listening. (Gilbert ix). During the 1960s the Civil Rights Movement do a transition from an allegiance to the ideology of nonviolence to one of benighted 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 legal injury was done in the nations capitol of Washington D.C. (Gilbert 15-16). I am arguing that the cause of the riots was white pack who antagonized and aggravated African Americans to an impossible point. African Americans turned to militancy in hopes that it would bring some direction to the problems they were facing. During this time period, radical militant black power leaders as well as traveled to Africa and other third world countries to call for revolutions. The conditions of the cities where galore(postnominal) of the uprisings occurred were deteriorating. enquiry 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 surrounded by 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 brothers salary, while in 1953, the figures were 59 percent. The African Americans of Washington, D.C. did not only making very bantam progress, they had actually gone backwards. Black people compromised more than one-half of the universe of discourse of Washington, D.C. but they had less than one-eighth of the top jobs in the city ( atomic number 18 D.C.).Compared to a white pe rson, an African-American had only a one-forth chance of get 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). sequestration 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 contrary lists of available apartments to blacks than they did to whites (Core).