1943

On June 20, 1943, a fight between Black and white youth on Belle Isle bridge escalates into three days of citywide race war. 34 people are killed — 25 Black, 9 white; 600+ are injured; nearly 2,000 arrested. White mobs drag Black passengers from streetcars and beat them. The Packard plant had seen racial conflict after Black workers were promoted to work beside whites. President Roosevelt deploys 6,000 federal troops. Police kill 17 Black people and no whites. The riot exposes wartime racial terror in a Northern industrial city.

Twenty-eight CORE members — Black and white — sat at Jack Spratt Coffee House in Chicago after it refused to serve Black customers. After several visits they won desegregation of the restaurant. The tactic and its success were documented and studied by civil rights organizers for the next two decades.

After a white police officer shot a Black Army soldier in a Harlem hotel, two days of uprisings left 6 dead, 185 injured, and 550 arrested. The riot revealed the rage of Black New Yorkers who faced overcrowded housing, police brutality, and job discrimination while their sons fought fascism abroad.

Over ten days beginning June 3, 1943, U.S. Navy and Marine servicemen roam Los Angeles attacking Mexican American and Black youth wearing zoot suits. Mobs strip and beat victims on streetcars and in theaters. Police largely arrest the victims rather than perpetrators. The Los Angeles press celebrates the attacks. At least 150 people are injured. The riots reveal how racial minorities faced violence from both civilian racists and uniformed military personnel.

At the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company in Mobile, Alabama, white workers riot after Black workers are promoted to welding positions. A white mob of several thousand attacks Black workers with pipes and tools, injuring approximately 50 Black workers. The federal government, needing wartime production, negotiates a compromise segregating work areas rather than protecting Black workers' rights.

White workers at the Pennsylvania Shipyard in Beaumont, Texas riot after a false rumor that a Black man had raped a white woman. A mob of several thousand white men destroys Black businesses and homes in the Black neighborhood. Two people are killed, dozens injured, and over 200 arrested — the majority Black. Martial law is declared. The riot exemplifies how wartime racial tensions and false rape accusations were used to terrorize Black communities.

Wartime tensions erupt into deadly violence in Detroit.