Riots In Cincinnati

America has a long history with riots, both in urban and rural settings. However, urban riots, and especially urban riots in Cincinnati, have covered the same subject matter for the past 200 years: race. As such, Cincinnati acts as a great representative of the average American city, Los Angeles and New York being the exceptions. Cincinnati’s racially charged past largely lies in place because of its location. Cincinnati’s placement on the border between the north and south means an influx of escaped slaves and later emancipated into a city that once contained and white majority. German and Irish immigrants looking for work were also attracted to Cincinnati in the 19th century, and the opportunity it could hold. Neither of these groups

Nativists and German immigrants clashed as James Taylor a man running for mayor in 1855 completely ran his campaign on anti-immigration and nativism through the Know-nothing party. A mob descended on Over-the-Rhine, the German neighborhood in Cincinnati, in an attempt to just as had been done with the black population less than 15 years before. Nativists were worried about the German immigrant voters due to their number and power during voting. Election day came and the Germans constructed a barricade across Vine Street and fired cannons at the approaching mob. The mob destroyed ballots and killed several men to not success as the Democratic candidate still won the election. The riot was demonized in ways no Cincinnati riot was before, and the reputation of the city was in ruins. The newspaper The Democracy ran an article calling the riots “-the most dastardly and villainous acts ever perpetrated in any community.” This juxtaposes the riot of 1841 as the black community is forced to justify the defense of their community to the city of Cincinnati as German immigrants are praised for their resilience and ability to stand against the unjust violence that occurred in 1855. Even the London News found the riot appalling by and published a depiction of the destruction that occurred. Few other than

June 12th 1967, and Cincinnati sees its first riot in over 50 years, one of over 100 riots that summer in America. The Cincinnati strangler was a hot topic amongst Cincinnatians that year, a man accused of the rape and murder of six white women and in May of 1967, the jury finds Posteal Laskey Jr guilty of those crimes. The black community was outraged, Lackey’s cousin protests and is arrested for blocking a sidewalk. The black community holds a demonstration on Reading Road in which the Cincinnati police force quickly came in to monitor them. Raging against what was felt as a wrongful conviction over a thousand rioters looted and burned stores cars and homes throughout Cincinnati egged on by constant police harassment and being barred from a majority of the Cincinnati workforce due to race an anonymous Avondale resident explained to the Reading Eagle in