racial segregation and race riots, U.S riots, not only in Chicago and Washington, D.C., but in such cities as Charleston, South Carolina; Longview, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; and Elaine, Arkansas Black deaths exceeded 100, injuries were in the thousands, and thousands more were left homeless The most serious riots were in Wilmington, North Carolina (1898); Atlanta, Georgia (1906); Springfield, Illinois (1908); East St Louis, Illinois (1917); Chicago, Illinois (1919); Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921); and Detroit, Michigan (1943) Wilmington’s riot was the first major outbreak since Reconstruction An election rife with fraud and intimidation of black voters produced a white racist city administration resolved to control the city’s black population Whites began rampaging two days after the election, killing about 30 blacks and forcing many others to leave The Atlanta riot of 1906 occurred after months of inflammatory press treatment of black crime in an effort to disenfranchise blacks Reports that 12 white women were raped in a week provoked a white riot White mobs murdered blacks, destroyed homes and businesses, and overwhelmed police and black resistance After four days, 10 blacks and two whites were dead, and hundreds were injured Over 1,000 left Atlanta The rioters in Springfield, Illinois, reacted to a white woman’s claim that she had been molested by a black man After lynching the alleged attacker, the crowd began dragging blacks from homes and streetcars The National Guard restored order only after four whites and two blacks had been killed White liberals, shocked by the violence in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, met the next year with blacks and formed the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Illinois was the scene of another riot in 1917 in East St Louis White workers feared black competition for jobs and attendant status An aluminum plant brought in black and white strike breakers and, with militia and court injunctions, broke a white strike The union blamed the blacks The result was a riot, including beatings and destruction of property After the riot, harassment and beatings continued for several months In June a new riot began, and this time, along with the beatings, burnings, and the destruction of over 300 buildings, the official death toll was nine whites and 39 blacks Chicago’s riot was the worst in the postwar years A black swimmer entered the whites-only section of the water, leading white swimmers to stone him until he drowned; 13 days of rioting by thousands of blacks and 315 whites produced 15 white and 23 black deaths and 178 white and 342 black injuries Property destruction left over 1,000 families homeless The Tulsa riot was in response to a white girl’s allegation that a black man had attempted to rape her in a public elevator Rumors that the suspect was to be lynched led an armed black mob to the jail Whites and blacks fought, and the riot was under way A mob of over 10,000 rampaged through the black neighborhood Machine guns and airplanes were used to help the white mob, and by the time four companies of the National Guard had restored order, 150 to 200 blacks were dead Rioting eased after that, but World War II brought a massive black migration to the war jobs of the nation’s cities Detroit’s blacks and whites competed for the same jobs and the same houses On June 20, 1943, fighting began in an integrated recreational area, Belle Isle Fighting became rioting, with the customary looting and burning of the black neighborhoods The white mobs spread through the city seeking blacks downtown as well as in the ghettos Cars full of whites were shot at by black snipers Federal troops quelled the riots, but 25 blacks and nine whites were dead The riots inevitably started when whites attacked blacks This occurred at times of social dislocation Riots grew due to the spread of rumors The police consistently either were a precipitating factor or assisted in the growth of the riots The location of the riots was always in the black community Blacks reacted to white violence either by retaliating violently, leaving the cities, or engaging in peaceful protest The NAACP publicized the riots and continued to work for legislative reform World War II altered the civil rights landscape The NAACP had won a series of victories from the 1920s, slowly tearing down the legal structure supporting unequal facilities The Supreme Court overturned the white primary in 1944, making black access to the political process theoretically possible Between 1940 and 1952 southern black voter registration rose from 150,000 to over million Further reading: Gilje, Paul A Rioting in America Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996; Guterl, Matthew Pratt The Color of Race in America, 1900–1940 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001; Klarman, Michael J From Jim Crow to Civil Rights New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; Packard, Jerrold M American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow New York: St Martin’s Press 2002; John H Barnhill