Glenville Shootout
| Glenville shootout and Glenville riots | |||
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| Part of the Black Power movement | |||
Now-empty lot at the intersection of Auburndale Ave. and Lakeview Rd., where the Ahmed Evans house and Lakeview Tavern once stood.
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| Date | July 23-24, 1968 (gun battle); July 23-26, 1968 (riots) |
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| Location |
Glenville neighborhood, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. 41°31′11″N 81°36′00″W / 41.519766°N 81.599926°W |
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| Causes | Racial tension, poverty, racial segregation | ||
| Methods | Firefight; Widespread rioting, looting, assault, arson, protests, property damage, murder | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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| Lead figures | |||
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| Number | |||
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| Casualties | |||
| Death(s) | 7 (gun battle); 2 (riots) | ||
| Injuries | 15 (gun battle); unknown (riots) | ||
| Arrested | 4 (gun battle); approx. 80 (riots) | ||
The Glenville shootout was a gun battle which occurred on the night of July 23-24, 1968, in the Glenville section of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Gunfire was exchanged for roughly four hours between the Cleveland Police Department and the Black Nationalists of New Libya, a Black Power group. The battle led to the death of three policemen, three suspects, and a bystander. At least 15 others (police, gunmen, and bystanders) were wounded.
The gun battle sparked the Glenville Riots, which began on the evening of July 23 as the gun battle was winding down, and continued through the evening of July 26-27. During the first day of the riots, the African American mayor of Cleveland, Carl Stokes, refused to allow white police officers to patrol the area. When African American leaders in the neighborhood were unable to quell the violence, Stokes sent the Ohio Army National Guard and the rest of the Cleveland Police into the area to stop the violence. The riots ended early in the morning on July 27. Losses due to the riots were about $2.6 million, and proved to be the political death knell of Mayor Stokes' Cleveland: Now! redevelopment effort. The alleged instigator of the gunfight, Ahmed Jones, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison.
The city of Cleveland suffered a significant loss of heavy industry beginning about 1950, which led to markedly higher unemployment. Meanwhile, large numbers of African Americans left the Deep South during the Second Great Migration. Cleveland saw a significant influx of blacks (who mistakenly believed the city was still a source of good jobs), but racial segregation and racially discriminatory housing practices left most African Americans able to find housing only in the city's eastern neighborhoods. The number of residents living there jumped from 150,000 in 1950 to 250,000 in 1960. Among the changing areas was the Glenville neighborhood. In 1950, Glenville was overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and Jewish. As these residents began migrating into Cleveland's far eastern suburbs in the 1950s, single-family homes were turned into rentals, and thousands of African Americans moved in. By 1960, Glenville was overwhelmingly black and poor. Most people in Glenville also lived in crowded, substandard housing. Quite often, single-family homes in Glenville were subdivided into four or more apartments, each of which accommodated a large, extended family.
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Wikipedia