1968 жылғы Балтимор көтерілісі

Civil unrest between April 6 and 14, 1968

The Baltimore riot of 1968 was a period of civil unrest that lasted from April 6 to April 14, 1968, in Baltimore. The uprising included crowds filling the streets, burning and looting local businesses, and confronting the police and national guard. The immediate cause of the riot was the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, which triggered unrest in over 100 cities across the United States. These events are sometimes described as the Holy Week Uprising. Black Baltimore was quiet on April 5, despite riots in nearby Washington, D. C. One white student at UMBC reported a quiet scene, with noticeable sadness, but little violence or unrest: April 5, "in many cases, was just another day". Baltimore remained peaceful into the day on April 6. Three hundred people gathered peacefully around noon for a memorial service, which lasted until 2 p. m. without incident. Street traffic began to increase. A crowd formed on Gay St. in East Baltimore, and by 5 p. m. some windows on the 400 block had been smashed. Police began to move in. People began to report fires after 6 p. m. Soon after, the city declared a 10 p. m. curfew and called in 6,000 troops from the national guard. Sales of alcohol and firearms were immediately banned. By the morning of April 7, reports to the White House described five deaths, 300 fires, and 404 arrests. Unrest also broke out on Pennsylvania Ave in West Baltimore. The combined National Guard and police force proved unable to contain the uprising. On Sunday, April 7, federal troops were requested, and the President invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807. Late that evening, elements of the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, began arriving on the scene, while several Marine units from Camp Lejeune were put on standby status. With the intervention of federal forces, the Maryland National Guard was called into federal duty, resulting in a shift from state control (reporting to the Governor of Maryland) to federal control (reporting through the Army chain of command to the President). The federal force, Task Force Baltimore, was organized into three brigades and a reserve. These were (roughly), the XVIII Airborne Corps troops, the Maryland National Guard, and troops from the 197th Infantry Brigade from Fort Benning, Georgia (which arrived two days later). The 1,300 troops of the Maryland Air National Guard were organized in a provisional battalion and used to guard critical infrastructure throughout the city, as well as an ad hoc detention facility at the Baltimore Civic Center. Task Force Baltimore peaked at 11,570 Army and National Guard troops on April 9, of which all but about 500 were committed to riot control duties. These forces had received orders to avoid firing their weapons, as part of an intentional strategy to decrease fatalities. Task Force Emergency Headquarters Brigade
Headquarters and Headquarters Company, EOH
1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment
2nd Battalion, 115th Infantry Regiment (later detached to TF Abcar)
729th Maintenance Battalion (Now 729th Support Battalion, MDANG)
2nd Battalion, 110th Field Artillery Regiment
C Company, 728th Maintenance Battalion (Now 728th Support Battalion, PAANG)
110th Collection, Classification and Salvage Company
B Company, 19th Special Forces Group
C Company, 103rd Medical Battalion
1204th Transportation Company
Task Force Third Brigade
Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Brigade
2nd Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment
1st Battalion, 115th Infantry Regiment
121st Engineer Battalion
Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 115th Military Police Battalion
200th Military Police Company
1229th Transportation Company
B Troop, 1st Squadron, 223rd Cavalry
C Company, 103rd Engineer Battalion
Admin Section, 28th Admin Company
Task Force Troops
135th Air Commando Group
175th Tactical Fighter Group
136th Evacuation Hospital
D Troop, 1st Squadron, 223rd Cavalry
229th Army Band
29th Military Police Company
2nd Platoon, 28th Military Police Company
2nd Platoon, B Company, 228th Supply and Transportation Battalion
2nd Forward Supply Section, A Company, 228th Supply and Transportation Battalion
Other participating forces:
50th Signal Battalion

In the next few days, six people died, 700 were injured, and 5,800 were arrested. One thousand small businesses were damaged or robbed. Property damages, assessed financially, were more severe in DC ($15 million), Baltimore ($12 million), and Chicago ($10 million) than in any other cities. In addition, an active Army soldier died in a traffic crash while redeploying from the city. Rioters set more than 1,200 fires during the disturbance. Damage was estimated at over $12 million (equivalent to $77.5 million today). Of the arrests, 3,488 were for curfew violations, 955 for burglary, 665 for looting, 391 for assault, and five for arson.

One of the major outcomes of the uprising was the attention Agnew received when he criticized local black leaders for not doing enough to help stop the disturbance. These statements caught the attention of Richard Nixon, who was looking for someone on his ticket who could counter George Wallace's American Independent Party third party campaign. Agnew became Nixon's vice presidential running mate in 1968. The uprising had broken out mainly in the black neighborhoods of East and West Baltimore in which extensive property damage and looting occurred. Many of the businesses destroyed in the uprising were located along the main commercial avenues of the neighborhoods and were often owned by people of a Jewish background. Media and academic coverage of the events has been thin, partly because the event remains emotional for those involved.