Massacres in U.S. History
Here is a list of some of the countless massacres in the history of the United States.
Most of these massacres were designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, religion, LGBTQ rights, and/or labor rights of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and immigrants. While often referred to as “race riots,” they were massacres to maintain white supremacy.
One of the best explanations about why it is important for students to learn this history is included in the article (and related lesson) by Linda Christensen, Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession.
A tweet thread by historian Stephen West shows how politicians fueled hate crimes during the Reconstruction era, with parallels today. Ursula Wolfe-Rocca writes about Red Summer of 1919, Remembering Red Summer — Which Textbooks Seem Eager to Forget.
We also offer a list of massacres that includes these same events and massacres in other countries. While this list includes dozens of entries, it is by no means complete.
Nineteen mineworkers were killed and dozens were wounded in the Lattimer Massacre.
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A small band of striking coal miners in southern Illinois called out Chicago coal barons and stood their ground at Virden.
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The interracial, elected Reconstruction era local government was deposed in a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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Springfield Massacre was committed against African Americans by a mob of about 5,000 white people in Springfield, Illinois.
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Citizens in the small, predominately African American town of Slocum, Texas, were massacred.
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The National Guard fired on striking miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado.
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Fifteen Mexican-Americans were killed by Texas Rangers during the Porvenir Massacre.
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White mobs, incited by the media, attacked the African American community in Washington, D.C., and African American soldiers returning from WWI. This was one of the many violent events that summer and it was distinguished by strong and organized Black resistance to the white violence.
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Sparked by a white police officer's refusal to make an arrest in the murder of a Black teenager, Chicago's Red Summer violence lasted almost a week. At least 38 people were killed and thousands of Black homes were looted and damaged.
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Black farmers were massacred in Elaine, Arkansas for their efforts to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. A white mob shot at them, and the farmers returned fire in self-defense. Estimates range from 100-800 killed, and 67 survivors were indicted for inciting violence.
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The Bogalusa Labor Massacre was an attack on interracial labor solidarity.
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More than 50 African Americans killed in the Ocoee Massacre after going to vote in Florida.
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In what became known as the Tulsa Massacre, white supremacists destroyed a thriving Black community in Oklahoma. This is one of countless white supremacist massacres in U.S. history.
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The Rosewood Massacre was the white supremacist destruction of a Black town and the murder of many of its residents.
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The Catcher "Race Riot" began, leading to the creation of another sundown town.
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Police shot peaceful protesters, killing 19 and wounding over 200 others in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
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On Memorial Day, Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago.
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A camp warden and guards shot dead seven prisoners being held at the Anguilla Prison in Georgia. The Anguilla Prison Massacre Quilt Project tells that story, drawing on records from the NAACP.
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Two years before the Kent State murders, 28 students were injured and three were killed in Orangeburg, South Carolina — most shot in the back by the state police while involved in a peaceful protest.
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The largest LGBTQ massacre in U.S. history (until the Orlando Massacre) occurred at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans.
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Five people were killed when the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis fired on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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The Philadelphia Police Department dropped a C-4 bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, killing eleven people (including five children) and wiping out half a city block and .
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A white supremacist shot and killed six members of the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
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Nine African American churchgoers were gunned down inside a church in an act of white supremacist terrorism.
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Along the “Trail of Tears” in Neligh, Nebraska, a farmer signed a deed to return ancestral land to the Ponca Tribe. In 1877, the Ponca Nation was forced by the federal government to leave their home of Nishu’de ke (also known as Missouri) to relocate 600 miles south into present-day Oklahoma.
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