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On Monday, 26 June 1967, a riot broke out in the city of Buffalo, New York, when two white police officers intervened in an altercation between two male African American teenagers. The riot erupted when a crowd of approximately two hundred African Americans, many of whom were residents of the Lakeview Projects, a public housing facility, responded to the perception that the police used excessive force in attempting to subdue the two youths. The rioting continued intermittently until Saturday, 1 July 1967.2 On the first night of the riot, reports estimated that the crowd swelled from about 200 to 350 people. By the second night of the riot, approximately 1500 African Americans were involved, throwing stones and bricks at police officers who attempted to subdue the crowds with teargas.3 The five-night riot resulted in about sixty injuries, over 180 arrests, and approximately $250,000 worth of property damage done to stores and homes.4
The Buffalo riot was part of a wave of riots that swept across urban areas of the North in the late 1960s. In spite of the gains made by the Civil Rights movement in the South, the quality of life for African Americans in Northern cities in the 1960s was deteriorating. The Second World War stimulated population growth among African Americans in the North. According to historian Henry Taylor, Buffalo's black population increased exponentially from 1950 to 1970 as African Americans migrated from the South to industrial jobs in the North. As Taylor explains, the growth of Buffalo's African American population then led to the phenomenon of white flight, which also occurred in other Northern cities at the time:
As thousands of African Americans moved into Buffalo City, even greater numbers of whites fled to the emerging suburban hinterland. Driven by postwar prosperity, low-interest loan rates (through the Federal Housing Authority and the Veterans Housing Administration), and radical changes in the home mortgage system, home ownership rose and fueled suburban development. Between 1950 and 1970 the Buffalo population declined by 117,000 people, a loss of 20 percent. . . . Most people fleeing the city were white.5
White flight resulted in de facto housing segregation, wherein the majority of those living in the East Side of Buffalo were African Americans. At the time...