This map depicts U.S. cities that experienced race-related civil disturbances during the summer of 1967. An estimated 150 cities were affected by the violence, though on varying scales. This map depicts about 110 cities. Still, the main goal is to demonstrate how widespread the protests were, and to help situate Boston’s riot into the larger historical context of race relations during that time.
Navigation tips:
- Click on each point to see more information on each city.
- The cities are color-coded by the month of their first reported incident. To access the legend, click on the icon located in the top left.
You can then select or deselect each month as you explore. - The + and – symbols in the bottom left allow you to zoom in and out of the map.
The source for the map is an article by the U.S. News & World Report titled “Race Troubles: 109 U.S. Cities Faced Violence in 1967.” It was originally published on August 14, 1967. It lists each city that experienced race-related violence from April to early August with brief descriptions that include the causes, arrests, injuries, casualties, and aftermath, where available. I used this information to create a dataset, which can be accessed here. Because the data relies on the reports of a single source, the amount of available descriptive information varies for each city.