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• President Johnson set up an enquiry into the riots


  July 1967
• The Kerner Report was published

  1968
• The Kerner Report said that


  • The riots were the result of ghetto conditions produced by segregation and discrimination
  • The riots came after white officials failed to fix problems that the black community had pointed out
  • White officials should listen to the black community and involve black people in solving problems
  • The police should change their policing to provide more protection in the ghettos
  • The police had made the situation worse by using violence
  • Federal money given after the riots to improve conditions was usually spent on training and equipping the police with even more weapons to deal with riots
  • There was no serious attempt to improve the ghettos or to win the trust of the black community
  • The media had sensationalised the riots, almost always exaggerating the damage, numbers of dead and the amount of federal aid given afterwards
• King, shocked by his visit to Watts, wanted to show that non-violent direct action could still produce results
• The Coordinating Council of Community Organisations of Chicago (CCCO) asked the SCLC to join a nonviolent campaign for fairer housing

  1966
• James Bevel from the SCLC helped the CCCO to organise tenants' associations to fight the Chicago segregated housing and unfairly high rents
• Jesse Jackson from the SCLC helped to organise Operation Breadbasket: boycotts to pressurise white businesses to employ more black people
• The SCLC officially announced plans for a Chicago Freedom Movement and King went to Chicago


  7 January 1966
• King called meetings and arranged demonstrations. King and the SCLC had support, but it was far from complete
• The SCLC found it hard to connect with the ghettos. In the South, black churches were the focus of most communities and King's message of peaceful non-violence worked well
• It was not enough to be effective across the city
• King faced a very different opposition than he had faced in the South. Chicago's Mayor, Richard Daley, used words, not weapons
• In negotiations with King he sounded reasonable and supportive of civil rights - but did nothing
• The Chicago Freedom Movement planned marches through white neighbourhoods, to start in July
• Before the marches could begin, a riot broke out. King was there at the time, but his appeals for calm were ignored and he was abused for not achieving any gains in Chicago
• State troops were called in to stop the riot and Daley accused the SCLC of encouraging it
• The Chicago Freedom Movement went ahead with their marches through white neighbourhoods. They produced a violent response but the publicity was far less supportive than it had been in the South
• Daley agreed to meetings with the Chicago Freedom Movement and Chicago Real Estate Board, which led to an agreement on fairer housing practices
• King spoke of the campaign as a success: there had been peaceful demonstrations and there was an agreement
• Operation Breadbasket kept running. It helped black people to find jobs in white-owned businesses. It became a key protest organisation in Chicago
• The whole campaign was seen as a failure because: There had been violence on both sides during the campaign and King had not been able to stop the riot that broke out. Daley ignored the agreement he had made with the Chicago Freedom Movement, and Chicago housing policies did not change. The CCCO had warned King that this would happen. When King and the SCLC left, the CCCO found it hard to keep up the pressure on Daley on their own. The government did not push Daley to carry out the agreement. Relations between Johnson and King were strained as King opposed the Vietnam War more publicly
• King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee

  4 April 1968
• In the weeks after King's death: There were riots in 172 towns and cities all over the USA, both in places that had riots in earlier year and in those that had not. By 9 April, the day of King's funeral, 32 black people were dead, over 3,500 had been seriously injured and 27,000 had been arrested. $45 million of damage had been caused
• The Poor People's Campaign that King had planned went ahead. A large, integrated group of poor marchers marched on Washington and set up camp there, within view of the Capitol. The campaign, which many of the SCLC leaders had warned King might not succeed, failed. The SCLC leaders and the protesters argued and it poured with rain. The camp broke up after only a few weeks
• The 1968 Civil Rights Act was quickly passed. It included a section about fair housing, covering rental housing and housing sales made after the passing of the act. The act gave federal protection to civil rights workers, although it also made punishment for rioting more severe
• From 1965, white public opinion had been less supportive of civil rights. This was partly because, with the Civil Rights Act and the Voter Registration Act, many white people felt the battle as won
• The Northern riots caused a drop in white people's support for civil rights and even King himself
• King's death likely accelerated white people's opposition to black people's demands for equality
• Many Black Americans became more radical after King's death
• In 1969, SNCC changed the 'N' in its name from 'non-violent' to 'national' - and lost almost all of its original members
• The result of many black people becoming more and many white people opposing black equality meant increasing conflict, rather than agreement, on civil rights