It was worse in the sixties. This went on in many cities.
Philly for the most part was spared most of the riots, but still the destruction of west philly took place. it’s like dresden.
“It was worse in the sixties. This went on in many cities.”
You’re not kidding. I clearly remember the major ones but there were a lot of smaller ones as well. It all seemed to begin with the Harlem race riot of 1964. Here’s some numbers I culled off of wikipedia:
Harlem, July 1964, 6 days, 1 dead, 118 injured
Rochester NY, July 1964, 2 days, 1 dead, 350 injured, 204 stores damaged
Philadelphia, August 1964, 3 days, 341 injured, 225 stores damaged
Watts, CA. August 1965, 6 days, 34 dead, 1032 injured, $298 million dollars damage
Cleveland, ‘Hough Riot’, July 1966, 6 days, 4 dead, 30 critically injured, 240 fires
Benton Harbor MI, August 1966, 6 days
1967 featured 159 race riots across the U.S.
Newark NJ, July 1967, 6 days, 26 dead
Detroit, July 1967, 5 days, 43 dead, 1,189 injured, 2,000 buildings destroyed. This riot set in motion the demise of Detroit as a major American city.
Orangeburg SC, February 1968, 3 dead 28 injured
April 1968, Martin Luther King is assassinated, up to 10 days of rioting breaks out in:
Detroit, Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Wilmington DE
There were more but these are enough to give you a flavor of what was going on. And of course we also had anti-war riots in addition to all of this.