MLK Riots – Baltimore 1968
Like Nixon before him, Trump may benefit from urban disorder
Max Hastings | The Times UK
Roosevelt Street, in a black Chicago neighbourhood, early on a Saturday morning: first I saw the scorched buildings, then the wrecked cars, finally the places being looted. Above a furniture store hung a mocking sign: “Spring has Sprung!”, with a handful of figures scavenging for anything that might have been overlooked by earlier waves of pillagers.
Police cars cruised by, shotguns poking from their windows. National Guardsmen, frightened men, stood clutching rifles at every street corner. Groups of African-Americans watched indifferently as “Whitey” sweated to preserve shops and homes.
This was the scene on April 6, 1968, as riots erupted across America after the assassination of Martin Luther King. As a very young reporter, I was a witness. In those times it seemed that race, the election and the Vietnam War were tearing asunder the greatest country on earth. Continue reading
