1967 Milwaukee riots

1967 Milwaukee riot
Part of Long hot summer of 1967
Location	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Casualties
Death(s)	3–4
Injuries	100
Arrested	1,740

The 1967 Milwaukee riot was one of 159 riots to occur in United States cities during the summer of 1967. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, black residents, outraged by the slow pace in ending housing discrimination and police brutality, began to riot on the evening of July 30. The inciting incident was a fight between teenagers, which escalated into full-fledged rioting with the arrival of police. Within minutes, arson, looting, and sniping was ravaging the North Side of the city, primarily the 3rd Street Corridor.

The city put a round-the-clock curfew into effect on July 31. The governor mobilized the National Guard to quell the disturbance that same day, and order was restored on August 3. Although the damage caused by the riot was not as destructive as in such cities as Detroit and Newark, many businesses in the affected neighborhoods were severely damaged. Tensions increased afterward between police and residents. The July disturbance also served as a catalyst to additional unrest in the city; equal housing marches held in August often turned violent as black demonstrators clashed with white residents.

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 Alderperson Vel Phillips, the first woman and first 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.

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