Conclusion
Two independent tests with a total of 36 large and medium-sized non-southern cities have demonstrated support for a political explanation of the major riots of the 1960s. It is argued that politically interested and motivated segments of the black community were disaffected because of the failure of government to respond to their demands. Their participation turned minor disorders into major uprisings. An alternative hypothesis, that public policy response generates increased expectations and ultimately greater violence, has been rejected. However, the findings rest upon the riot experience of a small number of cities in the 1960s. It seems very unlikely that the public policies of these cities would have much impact on the expectations of their black citizens and thus the rationale of the alternative hypothesis is undermined. The public policies of other governments, at other times, might have more influence on the expectations of their citizens. Additional research would be required to identify circumstances under which public policy response might lead to increased expectations, disaffection, and ultimately greater violence.
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Notes
William R. Morgan and Terry N. Clark, “The Causes of Racial Disorders: A Grievance Level Explanation.”American Sociological Review 38 (October 1973): 611–24; Seymour Spilerman, “The Causes of Racial Disturbances: A Comparison of Alternative Explanations,”American Sociological Review 35 (August 1970): 627-49; Seymour Spilerman, “The Causes of Racial Disturbances: Tests of an Explanation,”American Sociological Review 36 (June 1971): 427-42; Bryan T. Downes, “Social and Political Characteristics of Riot Cities: A Comparative Study,”Social Science Quarterly 49 (December 1968): 504-20; Bryan T. Downes, “A Critical Reexamination of the Social and Political Characteristics of Riot Cities,”Social Science Quarterly 51 (September 1970): 349-60; Larry D. Singell, “The Socio-Economic Causes of the Recent Urban Disorders: Some Empirical Evidence,”Land Economics 47 (August 1971): 225-34; Jerome L. McElroy and Larry D. Singell, “Riot and Non-riot Cities: An Examination of Structural Contours,”Urban Affairs Quarterly 8 (March 1973): 281–302; Joel A. Lieske, “The Conditions of Racial Violence in American Cities: A Developmental Synthesis,”American Political Science Review 72 (December 1978): 1324–1340; Jules J. Wanderer, “An Index of Riot Severity and Some Correlates,”American Journal of Sociology 74 (March 1969): 500-5 ; William F. Ford and John H. Moore, “Additional Evidence on the Social Characteristics of Riot Cities,”Social Science Quarterly 51 (September 1970): 339-48; and Robert M. Jiobu, “City Characteristics, Differential Stratification, and the Occurrence of Interracial Violence,”Social Science Quarterly 52 (December 1971): 508-20.
Cf. Chalmers Johnson,Revolutionary Change (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), pp. 92–3.
Violence As Protest: A Study of Riots and Ghettos (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1971), pp. 43-44.
Cf. Edward C. Banfield,The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 204–5.
Howard Schuman and Barry Gruenberg, “The Impact of City on Racial Attitudes,”American Journal of Sociology 76 (September 1970): 245. See also Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence, “Six-City Study, A Survey of Racial Attitudes in Six Northern Cities: Preliminary Findings,” Waltham, Mass.: 1967 (mimeographed).
The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1955), pp. 176-7. See also Banfield, pp. 205-6; and Bernard N. Grofman and Edward N. Mueller, “The Strange Case of Relative Gratification and Potential for Political Violence: The V-curve Hypothesis,”American Political Science Review 67 (June 1973): 514-39.
Banfield, pp. 184–209; Gary T. Marx, “Issueless Riots,”TheAnnals39l (September 1970): 21-33; Louis C. Golderg, “Ghetto Riots and Others: The Faces of Civil Disorder in 1967,” inCities Under Siege: An Anatomy of the Ghetto Riots, 1964-8, ed. David Boesel and Peter H. Rossi (New York: Basic Books, 1971), pp. 138-45; Peter A. Lupsha, “On Theories of Urban Violence,”Urban Affairs Quarterly 4 (March 1969): 272-95; GeorgeRudé,The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848 (New York: Wiley, 1964), pp. 214-36; and Neil J. Smelser,Theory of Collective Behavior (New York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 257-61.
The exception is Washington, D.C., which experienced a major uprising in the spring of 1968, but has not been included because it lacked the local self-government characteristic of the other cities.
Devin Bent, “Partisan Elections and Public Policy: Response to Black Demands in Large American Cities,”Journal of Black Studies (September 1981), forthcoming.
Maurice G. Kendall,Rank Correlation Methods (New York: Hafner, 1962), pp. 94–103.
Ben W. Gilbert and the staff of the Washington Post,Ten Blocks from the White House: An Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968 (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 32–5, 118-9.
California Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,Violence in the City- An End or a Beginning? (1965), p. 20.
Although the estimates were prepared by the American Insurance Association, they were obtained from a variety of sources: Insurance Information Institute, “News from Insurance Information Institute,” 15 May 1968 press release (New York); Insurance Information Institute,Insurance Facts, 1970 (New York: Insurance Information Institute, 1970);Wall Street Journal, 17 April 1968,/?.17, and 16 May 1968, p. 6; Wilfred J. Perry, Executive Assistant, Property Claims Services, American Insurance Association, personal letter, 24 February 1972. Philadelphia presented special problems. The largest riot was apparently the first one, in August 1964. No property damage estimate could be obtained from the American Insurance Association for this riot. However, the estimated property damage for all riots in 1964 was $2.5 million (Perry, letter). According to the California Governor’s Commission, five persons were killed in the riots of 1964, 952 were injured, 2,484 arrested, and 1,080 stores were damaged. Of these, none of the deaths occurred in Philadelphia, 341 or 36% of the injuries, 774 or 31% of the arrest and 225 or 21 % of the stores damaged. From this, it would seem reasonable to assign an insured damage of $1.0 million (40%) as an upper limit estimate.
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,Report (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 115.
Cf. Morgan and Clark, pp. 614-5.
California Governor’s Commission, p. 2;Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 8 September 1967, pp. 1709-12; Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations,Staff Study of Major Riots and Civil Disorders (Washington, D.C.: 1968); International City Managers Association,Urban Data Service 1 (January 1969): 23-31; National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, pp. 112–113.
Ibid., p. 2.
On the use of newspaper data, see M. Herbert Danzger, “Validating Conflict Data,”American Sociological Review 40 (October 1975): 570–84.
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Bent, D. The riot as politics. Rev Black Polit Econ 11, 477–489 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02873491
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02873491