1967 Milwaukee riot

During the mid-1960s, there was race-related civil unrest in a number of major US cities, including riots in Harlem and Philadelphia in 1964; Los Angeles in 1965; and Cleveland and Chicago in 1966. During the summer of 1967, a total of 159 race riots broke out across the country in what would come to be known as the Long Hot Summer. Milwaukee communities had long been segregated when Alderwoman Vel Phillips, the first woman and African American to hold the position, proposed the first fair housing ordinance in March 1962. She continued to introduce fair housing proposals over the next five years. Four times they were defeated by the city council. Recent uprisings in Newark and Detroit, which had broken out July 12 and 23 respectively, only served to make matters worse. LeRoy Jones, then one of 18 black police officers among the total of 2,056 officers in the city's department, described the situation: There were some rumors that something was going to happen ... We did know there was going to be a riot. The Police Department knew - one to two weeks ahead - that something was planned. It was predicted that it would be on 3rd Street. A majority of the citizens that took part in this riot were young black men who lived in the inner core of Milwaukee. Of the participants, 35% were unemployed and 20% were classified as poor. ==Events==

July 29 Around midnight on the evening of July 29, a fight broke out between two black women outside the St. Francis Social Center, on the corner of 4th and West Brown streets. A crowd of 350 spectators gathered, and when police arrived to respond to the disturbance, the crowd began to throw rocks at police vehicles. July 30 The day of Sunday, July 30 was calm, but rumors spread and tensions grew. When police responded, officer Bryan Moschea was shot and killed when he entered a building thought to be the location of an unrelated sniper. His badly burned body was not able to be recovered until the following day. Four other officers were wounded. The body of Annie Mosley, aged 77, was found in the burned-out building. She had been shot in the head. The mayor lifted the curfew from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. This resulted in a rush on downtown and suburban supermarkets. As the story in the Milwaukee Journal described it: Grocery shopping Monday meant standing in long lines and waiting ... Shoppers came in families. Sometimes there were six adults in a car. They seemed to be shopping more from compulsion than need. August 1 onward On August 1, Mayor Maier issued an order relaxing the curfew to only night hours. Some people began returning to work and some public services became available, at least partially. Police responded to reports that youths were lighting a paint store on fire. Clifford McKissick, aged 18, was shot in the neck and killed as he fled toward the nearby family home. The Milwaukee County's emergency hospital was closed and all personnel were transferred to the general hospital, which was farther away from the city, and deemed better capable of coping with the large number of casualties. The Milwaukee Sentinel published a piece August 2 describing the plight of those who were restricted by the curfew, saying that they "were outside on their porches or standing next to their apartment buildings, watching. If they got too far away from their homes, though, police and guardsmen moved in." On August 3 the mayor postponed the curfew from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. On August 4 the mayor postponed the curfew from 9:00 PM to midnight, and announced that liquor stores and bars would be allowed to open and sell alcohol. ==Casualties and cost==

In total, the riot resulted in three to four deaths (including at least one police officer), 100 injuries, and 1,740 arrests. According to stories published by the Milwaukee Journal on August 2 and 4, more than $200,000 in window damage had been done to businesses, and the cost of mustering and paying the National Guard to intervene amounted to nearly $300,000. ==Aftermath==

On August 3, 1967, an alliance of civil rights organizations and male priest held a dinner to tribute Father James Groppi and honor his contributions to the local struggle for racial equity in Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin. On August 29, the curfew was lifted and Groppi led 200 members of the Milwaukee NAACP on a march out of the ghetto and toward Kosciuszko Park, in an area predominately inhabited by white residents. On September 4, Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram from Atlanta in support: What you and your courageous associates are doing in Milwaukee will certainly serve as a kind of massive nonviolence that we need in this turbulent period. You are demonstrating that it is possible to be militant and powerful without destroying life or property. Please know that you have my support and my prayers. Faced with capitulation, or the violation of federal law, the Milwaukee Common Council followed on April 30, passing an ordinance that was stronger than that required by the federal law. Casting a tie-breaking vote, council president Robert Jendusa said he hoped the measure might "heal some of the wounds of the community". ==Public opinion==

According to Nesbit, the riots "widened the gap between militant blacks and other civil rights activists and the uncompromising white majority in the city." Thomson described the disparate interpretations of the event, emphasizing that blacks tended to view it as "a violent expression of the accumulated frustration and anger, undesirable but understandable", while whites believed it represented "the failure of black parents to control their children, irresponsible and rebellious individuals and the agitation of civil rights activists..." The same study found that 53% of blacks arrested were unemployed or underemployed compared to 29% among blacks not participating in the riot. Opinions on how to avoid future disturbances varied between white people and black people. For the white inner city respondents, 51% wanted to give police more power so suspicious people on streets would be stopped and get searched. Of the inner city Black respondents, 84% favored a proposal that would reduce racial disparity and provide more jobs for black people. ==Legacy==

The Clifford McKissick Community School in Milwaukee was named for the black youth killed by police on August 2 as part of the riot. In 1981, his family filed a civil lawsuit alleging excessive force on the part of officer Ralph Schroeder in the shooting death of McKissick. A Circuit Court ruled in favor of the officer and found that McKissick was responsible for his own death. A year after the riots, John Oraa Tucker, a Shorewood High School janitor who lived in the house burned on the morning of July 31 (where Nelsen and a police officer were killed, among four others who were wounded) was charged with 9 counts of attempted murder. After the longest jury trial in Milwaukee County Court history (17 days of verdict deliberation) he was cleared on the most serious charges, but found guilty of endangering the safety of the public and given a 25-year sentence. He was paroled on July 1, 1977, just under 10 years into his sentence, and moved to Wausau, Wisconsin. In 1980, twelve years after the passage of Milwaukee's equal housing ordinance, the city ranked second nationally among the most racially segregated suburban areas. In a July 2017 study by the Wall Street Journal of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, Milwaukee was listed the 11th most segregated city. ==See also==