Campus racial disorders and community ties, 1967–1969

Abstract

A common tactic in the analysis of the racial civil disorders of the 1960s has been to eliminate from data sets those events that occurred on university and college campuses. This procedure assumed a disjuncture between urban and campus collective violence, specifically in that the former would be related to local economic and social conditions and the latter would not. As a result, campus racial riots have not been well represented in the research on the rioting of the 1960s and their place in, and contribution to, the riot wave are not well understood. Contrary to earlier assumptions, our analysis shows a strong connection between campuses and their local context. First, campuses having stronger ties to local communities had higher rates of racial disorder during 1967–1969. Second, economic competition indicators for the local community influenced campus rioting, just as they influenced inner-city rioting. We conclude by discussing the implications of omitting campus events from past riot research.

Citation

Myers, D.J. and Buoye, A.J. (2001), "Campus racial disorders and community ties, 1967–1969", Coy, P.G. (Ed.) Political Opportunities Social Movements, and Democratization (Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 297-327. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-786X(01)80025-2