*On this date, 1968, the Washington D.C. riots occurred.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Washington, D.C., experienced four days of violent civil unrest and rioting. Stokely Carmichael, who had parted with King in 1966 and was in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1967, led members of the SNCC to stores in the neighborhood, demanding that they close out of respect. Although polite initially, the crowd lost control and began breaking windows. Carmichael, who supported the riots, told rioters to "go home and get your guns."
The conflicts began when a window was broken at the People's Drug Store at 14th and U Streets, N.W intersection. An hour and a half later, by 11 pm, window-smashing and looting spread throughout the area. Looting occurred generally where there was little police protection. The local police department could not handle the disturbance, as one officer said, "This situation is out of control; we need help. It's too much for us to handle." The disturbance unit was later activated, but when the order was restored around 3 am, 200 stores had windows broken, and 150 stores were looted, most empty. Black store owners wrote "Soul Brother" on their storefronts so that rioters would spare their stores.
This episode was part of the broader riots that affected at least 110 U.S. cities; those in Washington, D.C., and those in Chicago and Baltimore were among those with the greatest numbers. President Lyndon B. Johnson called the National Guard to the city on April 5, 1968, to assist the police department in quelling the unrest. By Sunday, April 7, when the city was considered pacified, 13 people had been killed in fires, by police officers, or by rioters. An additional 1,097 people were injured, and over 7,600 people were arrested.
