I think Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the rest of America is in the middle of a revolution.  Currently the protests, marches, and property damage, are being labeled as “riots,” but throughout human history “riots” have brought about long-overdue changes to existing social structures that were directly harmful to marginalized communities.  After doing a bit of therapeutic American history research (because I’m a nerd), I have come to the conclusion that sometimes, riots are revolutions that just haven’t been put into history books yet. 

A riot is defined as an incident in which a group of people “disturb the peace.”  But a state of peace that keeps the privileged few comfortable while the underserved masses are deprived of their own rights to peace, is not true peace–it is socially enforced complacency and ignorance.  Riots are not random obliterations of tranquil utopian societies. Rather, I think riots forcibly rip away the veil of peace to reveal the corruption just beneath the surface.  There are many examples from our history in which people were roused to riot after one too many inciting incidents of injustice.

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

Environmental Triggers:

Tens of thousands of Africans were forced into slavery in Saint-Domingue, Hispaniola, to work the sugar plantations.  The conditions were so horrendous that the enslaved frequently died from illness and abuse.  By the 19th century, the enslaved Black population made up about 90% of the population of the entire island.

In addition to the enslaved Black people, there were wealthy whites (grand blancs), poor whites (petit blancs) and free people of color–descendants of the offspring of white men and enslaved Black women.  The free people of color were mostly middle class or wealthy, and some even owned slaves.  However, the wealthy whites held the most social capital in Saint-Domingue.

Near the end of the 18th century, news about the French Revolution made its way to Saint-Domingue.  In 1791, the National Assembly in France granted French citizenship to all free men of color in Saint-Domingue (provided they were wealthy landowners whose parents were not slaves themselves).  This angered the petit blancs, who began to attack the free people of color.  In the midst of that fighting, August 1791, the enslaved Blacks of Saint-Domingue rose in a massive slave revolt.

The Revolt:

Enslaved Black people, and escaped Blacks called “Maroons,” launched a siege at night when the slave masters were sleeping.  The uprising was…pretty bloody.  Let’s just say there was a lot of Game of Thrones-style pillaging, torture, and murder that lasted several days and nights.

Toussaint Breda, a middle aged free man and son of African slaves, quickly rose as a leader among the Black militia and moulded them into a group strong enough to fight back against the French.  Breda–renaming himself Toussaint L’Ouverture–even joined forces with Spanish armies in Saint-Domingue to bolster his people against the French.

The Reforms:

Realizing that they would probably not succeed if they tried to reconquer Saint-Domingue, France decreed that all of the Blacks of Saint-Domingue were free.  L’Ouverture then promptly switched sides to the French and chased out the Spanish troops.  He appointed himself Governor-General for Life, and set about revamping the country’s economy–sans slavery.

Following L’Ouverture’s untimely death in 1803, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (L’Ouverture’s general and a former slave) declared himself emperor of Hispaniola, which he renamed Haiti.  Haiti became the first Black republic in the world, it’s Black residents having abolished slavery more than 50 years before North America.

The Stonewall Riots (1969)

Environmental Triggers:

Police regularly raided gay bars (and other LGBT gathering places) in the 1960s.  During these encounters, officers physically and sexually assaulted queer patrons, and forced transgender people to identify their “biological sex.”  New York refused liquor licenses to establishments that served LGBT people, so investigating LGBT hubs for illegally serving alcohol was often the impetus for police raids.  These establishments were scarce spaces in which queer and transgender people were free to be themselves and interact with others like them; the police raids frequently broke these precious respites.

The Revolt:

Around 1am on June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn and arrested several patrons just outside.  One officer hit a woman over the head with a baton and she called out for help.  This particular police raid drew an enraged crowd.  Marsha P. Johnson, an African American transgender woman and local activist, has been identified by witnesses as instigating the riots by hurling a brick through the windshield of a police cruiser.

Hundreds of Stonewall patrons, witnesses, and local residents descended on the police, attacking them with bricks, beer cans, and glass bottles.  The police were quickly outnumbered.  Several officers barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn, and the crowd outside set the barricade ablaze

Protests continued for several days afterward, with LGBT residents and allies expressing outrage toward the NYPD and the prevalence of violence against the LGBT community.  

The Reforms:

Months after the riots, LGBT activists groups like the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance began organizing and making more vocal public pushes for LGBT rights–much more so than in the 1950s.

On the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, LGBT activists in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles held massive gay pride protest demonstrations–which later became the Gay Pride Parades we know today.  Newspapers across the nation documented these events, bringing more attention–and support–to the movement.

On June 11, 1999, President Bill Clinton proclaimed June as National Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.  Later, President Barack Obama would proclaim June as LGBT Pride Month during his entire administration.  In 2016, Obama established the Stonewall Inn as a national monument.

The Mount Pleasant Riots (1991)

Environmental Triggers:

Latinx people represented only 10% of the D.C. population and had no representation in the local government.  Many of the Latinx residents of the Mount Pleasant area were recent immigrants–many did not speak English and had few points of access for jobs and participation in public life outside their own communities.  There was also anxiety about Mount Pleasant becoming gentrified, and low-income residents getting pushed out.  Police-community relations were also strained due to the officers’ dearth of Spanish-speaking staff and repeated instances of excessive force and unwarranted searches and seizures that violated the Latinx community’s civil rights.   

On May 5th, 1991, two police officers confronted a Salvadoran man who had been drinking.  The man did not speak English and the officers did not speak Spanish.  The encounter became heated, and came to a head when a rookie officer shot the Salvadoran man in the chest.  The scuffle drew a crowd of Latinx residents.  For a community that often felt that they could do little to stand up for themselves, one witness described this shooting as the straw that broke the camel’s back

The Revolt:

The crowd of people that witnessed the shooting began hurling rocks and bottles at the police officers.  The officers arrested some of the rioters, and a large police vehicle was called in to contain them.  Others in the crowd overtook the vehicle and set it on fire.  They then turned their attention to other police cruisers, flipping them over and setting them on fire as well.

The uprising lasted for 3 days.  The Mount Pleasant residents damaged over 60 police vehicles by the time things cooled down.

The Reforms:

Pedro Aviles, a Mount Pleasant resident who helped form the Latino Civil Rights Task Force, spoke with local politicians about the pervasive problems that affected his community and led to the riots.  

The US Civil Rights Commission held and investigation, and confirmed Aviles’ claims, citing “appalling” violations of basic civil rights.  Sharon Pratt, the mayor at the time, and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, supported the Latino Civil Rights Task Force.  The police department developed a bilingual unit, and local non-profits were funded to help improve the livelihoods of the Latinx Mount Pleasant residents.  Sadly, these programs were cut due to lack of funds and what progress was made suddenly dissolved. 

Despite this, the riots did help change the conversation around D.C. police relations with the Latinx community.  One step forward, two steps back is still one step forward after all.

[A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

Martin Luther King, Jr.