A Social History of Racial Violence

by Grimshaw,Allen

• ISBN13: 9780202362632
• ISBN10: 0202362639
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2009-08-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

No topic has been discussed at greater length or with morevigor than the racial confrontations of the 1960s. Events ofthese years left behind hundreds dead; thousands injuredand arrested, property damage beyond toll, and a populationboth outraged and conscience stricken. A SocialHistory of Racial Violence places the events of the 1960sinto historical perspective. The book includes accounts ofracial violence from different periods in American history,showing these disturbing events in their historical contextand providing suggestive analyses of their social, psychological,and political causes and implications.Grimshaw includes reports and studies from the slaveinsurrections of the seventeenth century to urban disturbancesof the 1960s. The result is more than a descriptiverecord. Its contents provide a review of major theoreticalpoints of view. The volume defines patterns in past andpresent disturbances, isolates empirical generalizations, andsamples the substantial body of literature that has attemptedto explain this ultimate form of social conflict. It includesselections on the characteristics of rioters, on the ecologyof riots, and on the role of law in urban violence, as wellas theoretical interpretations developed by psychologists,sociologists, political scientists, and other observers. Theresulting volume will help interested readers better understandthe violence that accompanied the attempts of blackAmericans to gain for themselves full equality.