11.06.1989 Outbursts of racial tension or violence in America usually coincide with disparagement of past efforts to improve relations and predictions of worse things to come. It might help to place recent outbursts in perspective by recalling some past experiences. Watts was followed by 150 major riots and hundreds of minor ones that summer and the next three summers. Cities were aflame all over the country. The worst of the riots and the bloodiest of the century occurred in Detroit in July 1967.
Historical analogies can be as misleading as helpful, but some are unavoidable.
Comparisons between the 1860s and the 1960s in the history of American race relations have proved all but irresistible when the civil rights movement comes under discussion. The two peaks of progress that face each other across the century challenge comparison, as do the shadows that they cast before them. It was to suggest that if the soaring promises and expectations of 1965 were followed by the complacency, neglect, and betrayal that prevailed after the promises of 1865, we might face once more the failure and reaction that disgraced the First Reconstruction. Although it is impossible to believe that the analogy will hold up to the extent of predicting for the 1990s the horrors of the 1890s that wiped out the gains of the First Reconstruction, it must be admitted that there are some signs pointing that way. Before turning to them, however, it is important to give full acknowledgement to such progress as has been made.