(Damian Dovarganes caught this moment in lower left above of the un-surrection yesterday downtown in Washington. We did not know about it since we were streaming marvelous old television series, marveling that the old network sequencing has been replaced with old shows now new again. The new system of airing old series as if they were new on the thousand channels available on the flatscreen has cut us loose in time!)
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is approaching quickly – tomorrow, in fact. This year, the federal holiday falls on the actual birthday of the celebrated civil rights leader who was assassinated more than a half a century ago.
As the United States commemorates the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, here are a few things to know about the holiday honoring the slain activist and his fight against inequality and racial injustice.
This year marks 56 years since Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. We have a bit of trouble wrapping our brains round it. We remember when Dr. King wrote a letter from a jail down south in Alabama, and his words carried some sentiments that would float above more than two generations of American life.
Today, he is lauded as an American hero who sacrificed himself while leading a nonviolent crusade against racist segregation policies. He has the National Holiday named in his honor tomorrow to commemorate his life and legacy in the struggle against injustice. We are working ourselves up for the observation tomorrow, but the memory of that day more than a half century ago still rings with emotion.
Yesterday, we duplicated our specific performance as concerned citizens during the 1/6 protests across the river. We watched romantic comedies almost all day on the gigantic screen in the conference center next to the vacant space where the bar now sits. In fact, it was better than the 1/6 ”Insurrection,” since we didn’t even know about the event until we were preparing to toss ourselves into the bedrolls!
Out of old habit, Splash clicked on the little flatscreen back in the bunkhouse to see if there had been any interesting local crime or carjackings. We were startled with the change from RomCom to something approaching reality. Channel 5 was reporting on what it called ‘violent protests’ outside the White House. As you may have heard, that other protest three years ago still has participants locked up in some of the less habitable components of the District’s detention facilities.
That was when we noticed things had changed in violent protest. We have to insert the footnote about experiences on this, since we have members in the circle who remember the Detroit Riot of 1967. Forty-three citizens died in that appalling summer in the Motor City. It is tempting to recall the disturbances that followed the George Floyd death in 2020 and compare them. In 1968, over one hundred US cities reported violence in the streets. Total damage and destruction that may have exceeded what was done by BLM and Antifa in their Summer of Love. The Detroit Riot got us used to what could happen if people have their way on a warm Spring evening. There is a history of trouble right here in your nation’s capital.
1968 generated a summer of violence after the Holy Week riots that followed Dr. King’s murder. Disturbances were reported across the country. Here in Washington, we shared the title of ‘most damage’ with Chicago and our neighbor Baltimore. The trouble began years before with the demographic migration north to the big cities for jobs and employment. Something similar is happening today as the Blue cities shed residents moving to more peaceful locals.
The D.C, riots were concentrated in the historic middle-class African-American neighborhoods of Shaw, H Street NE and Columbia Heights with activity concentrated around the intersection of 14th and U Street NW. That corner was once known as ‘America’s Front Yard.’ It isn’t now. As word of Dr. King’s murder in Memphis spread on the evening of Thursday, April 4, 1968, crowds began to gather at 14th and U. Stokely Carmichael was then the leader of an organization that claimed to want peace: With Stokely’s encouragement, SNCC members went to stores in the neighborhood and demanded they close out of respect for Dr. King. Observers back then said the demonstrators were polite at first but rapidly lost discipline and began to smash windows. As mid-night approached, widespread looting was in progress.
Mayor Washington ordered the damage cleaned up immediately as dawn arrived the next morning. Like Detroit the previous summer, anger remained. Carmichael addressed a rally held at Howard, an HBCU here in town. He warned of coming violence. His prediction was accurate. As soon as the rally closed, crowds rambling down 7th St. came into a violent face-to-face interaction with the DC Metropolitan Police. By midday, numerous buildings were on fire, and firefighters were attacked by crowds hurling bottles and rocks.
Later reconstruction indicates the Crowd may have been as many as twenty-thousand angry citizens confronted a smaller number of fire fighters and police. President Lyndon Johnson called out the National Guard and Marines mounted machine guns on the steps of the Capitol. Army troops from The Od Guard, the 3rd Infantry Division force responsible for protecting Arlington National Cemetery and the White House.
That occupation of Washington was the largest of any American city since the Civil War. Mayor Washington imposed a curfew and banned the sale of alcohol and guns within the District. It was a big deal here, and when we moved Socotra House to the Capitol eighteen years after this riot the remaining damage on U St. could still be seen. Some of the Pentagon long-time workers still recalled the blanket of ash on their cars in the massive lots around the building.
By the time the Mayor, Police, Army, National Guard and the President considered the city pacified on Sunday, April 8, some 1,200 buildings had been burned, including over 900 stores. Damages reached $27 million. We have referred the issue of damages to our Financial Staff to do the inflation adjustment and the 109 other cities that burned in 1968 to see how the totals compare to the recent George Floyd riots.
The 1968 riots devastated Washington’s inner-city economy. Thousands of jobs were lost, insurance rates soared, and the increased criminal activity prompted a White Flight also reflected across other ethnic groups. It took years for some parts of downtown to recover. In 2010, a group from the office down on New York Ave and walked as a posse comitatus all the way from the new Indigenous People’s Museum on the Mall over to U Street. The goal was something we would not have considered since the sometimes uneasy peace that followed the 1968 riots.
The in-person stop at Ben’s Chili Bowl was something quite amazing. The store-front shop opened in 1958 and has dispensed Ben’s famous chili half-smoke hotdogs for sixty-five years. As a celebration to a city in recovery, we enjoyed our dogs on a peaceful walk back from U Street to the former Bus Station on New York Avenue.
Tomorrow is a day to remember Dr. King and celebrate his life. It is also to recall how things can sputter in times of social disorder. Like the ones we find ourselves in today. We don’t now what this still-new year will bring, but so long as the ashes don’t cover our cars, we will consider it survivable based on personal experience.
Yesterday? We assume the officials downtown have reformed their system and are now more humane. They must have, since this event was known as another mostly peaceful ‘March on Washington’ featuring an emotional pro-Hamas, anti-Israel crowd. They climbed statues erected by citizens who lived the actual past experience and waved Palestinian flags with a certain hysterical exuberance – along with ISIS ones – and set off smoke bombs and spread “dead” baby dolls outside the WH fence.
Now, it turns out the protests were so serious that a number of White House staffers had to be relocated for their own safety. The flatscreen informed us that demonstrators were heard chanting “Ceasefire Now” and “Free, Free Palestine,” with many waving Palestinian flags. “Yemen, Yemen! Make us proud/ Turn another ship around,” was also did to have been a refrain chanted through the afternoon, hours after strikes were launched against the Houthis in Yemen by the UK and us.
The U.S. Secret Service issued a statement that some White House fences were damaged. The White House also said yesterday that those walls generally worked, even though POTUS Biden is currently at Camp David.
Were any of the 2024 protestors arrested? Will they be raided by fully arrayed (and armed) SWAT teams? The arrested and hurled into prison without due cause? We laughed about that line all the way to lunch!
So, our respects to Dr. King on the holiday established in his name. We hope this 2024 will be a more peaceful and orderly time of change than the ones in 2021, 1968 and 1967! In the meantime, a couple of half-smokes from Ben’s Chili Bowl will keep things nicely sorted out!
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com