On this date in 1967, three days of riots and protests occurred in Cairo, Illinois.
The incident began with the so-called jailhouse suicide of Pvt. Robert Hunt. He was a young black soldier on leave in his hometown of Cairo. The alleged suicide aggravated the town's Black community. The police said Hunt had hanged himself with his T-shirt, but Cairo's Black residents had the evidence to challenge that story.
The suspicious death touched off three days of riots and protests, followed by a seven-year renewal of civil rights activities in the city, one of the nation's latest and longest-sustained such struggles then.
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