40 years ago I was working in Washington, DC just two blocks from the WH

[frogcycle]

Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot the night before. It seemed surreal. The news of marches, firehoses, dogs, axehandles, etc. had been going on for several years. But it seemed like there was progress. My high school in Tennessee had been segregated when I was a freshman; phased-in desegregation was accelerated and by the time I was a senior we had several blacks in the school. There was no big fuss over it. I was kind of under the impression that this jim crow stuff was fading away, and probably the diehards would fade away soon. But here it was a couple of years later and what the hell? Why would someone do that? They think they can stop the inevitable?

Some time in midday - seems like it was late morning someone came back to the drafting room where I was and said there were fires breaking out. We went to the front of the building and watched as new plumes of black smoke billowed up here and there. The radio reported traffic was at a standstill; we could look down and see the gridlock. The smoke kept building, and getting closer. We were one block from 14th street, which was the most heavily damaged when all was said and done. We decided to leave. Three of us headed out together. There was no hope of getting a bus; we walked a couple of miles to the Pentagon and got a bus there. As we crossed Constitution Ave. I thought about a little boy saluting as the horse-drawn hearse had passed there, just four and a half years earlier. People were running past us carrying televisions. Seemed a really weird response. More and more fires were starting, but the violence seemed to be mostly against property.

I went to my fiancee's apartment building in Alexandria. We sat on the balcony and watched the city burn into the night. Just over two months later we got married; our wedding was the same day as RFK's funeral.

It went on for a couple of days. Finally James Brown came to town, went into the middle of the riot torn areas and implored people to settle down, go home. And they did. I loved James Brown's music before that; I loved him after that. Sure, he had his faults - big ones, it turned out, but he did put a lid on that stuff at a time when it threatened to just grow and grow.

I still worked there ten years later, and 14th St. was still boarded up.

[Captain Hilts]

1. I didn't know that about James Brown. I'd been downtown DC with kin just a week before...

we lived in Alexandria. I remember my folks reacting with dread when the Special Report came on television.

[frogcycle]

5. I think JB went somewhere else too

but DC was the first. It was big news - he stood on top of a car with a bullhorn right in the middle of chaos

I think "Don't be a dropout" was soon after that

[Captain Hilts]

8. I was in 3rd grade and I will admit to not having gone back to read much on DC in the riots...

I will tell you this: When I lived in Moscow in 1993 and the govt. was shooting up the White House of parliament, I saw the chaos in person. Watching the evening news with my elderly neighbors from upstairs who were clearly upset I told them I know how they feel, I was in DC in '68. They found it oddly comforting to know a city can rebound from something like that.

[Warpy]

2. I was working nights doing end of day balance sheets at a bank

in a large southern city. We were on the third floor and a key was required to get the elevators to stop. The fire doors were locked from the outside but not from the inside.

We could hear the rioters in the lobby and on the first floor, smashing and taking souvenirs.

When I got off work at 3 AM, the streets were a shambles. I'd taken great pains to dress like a derelict, so when a mob approached me from the other direction on the way to my car, they just said "Hi, hippie!" and flashed peace signs and grins.

The whole night was surreal.

[lutefisk]

3. Thanks for these stories.

I didn't live in DC until ten years later, but the damage was still very evident. Evident in the buildings and the people in NE DC I interacted with daily. It's good to read these reports. This is our history. Thank you!

[jillan]

4. Thanks for sharing!

k/r

[frogcycle]

6. yo pirhana

God love ya!

[lonestarnot]

7. kick

[ShaneGR]

9. I was still busy forming my master plan inside my father's testes!

Eight more years until I popped out and began my campaign of destructioN!