1965 - Chicago Negroes Riot after White Firefighter Smashes Dessie May Williams, 23, into a Pile of Mush with a Fire Truck

Fifty years before colored crack head Sandra Bland was arrested after a minor traffic violation in Waller County, Texas, a fatal traffic accident involving a firetruck on Chicago's West Side lit a powder keg of resentment that exploded into a riot. But the Garfield Park violence, which injured dozens and led to widespread arrests, didn't even lead the Chicago Tribune's final editions as black smoke billowed over the city.

The nation's attention was on the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where a black motorist's arrest had sparked rioting, looting and deaths. Both events spoke to African-Americans' deep frustration at the slow pace of progress on civil rights. In Chicago, Garfield Park was a microcosm of that broader story. For decades the area welcomed young white couples eager to start a new life and raise their families. They bought up the graystone two-flats around Washington Boulevard and Pulaski Road and the tidy single-family homes that shared easy access to Garfield Park's lagoon and the nearby conservatory.

African-Americans wanted the same thing. During the 1950s, 30,000 blacks were arriving in Chicago every year, escaping the degradations of the Jim Crow South, hoping for a better life in Northern cities. But racism proved inescapable. Stuffed into segregated neighborhoods, many blacks struggled to find good-paying jobs. Escape was difficult because mortgages were nearly impossible to get, and even if they could afford to buy, blacks met fierce resistance and often violence when they tried to move into white neighborhoods.

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