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26 comments

  1. The biggest ones in my lifetime were the George Floyd protests. There were much bigger ones in the 60s, particularly after Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination.

  2. In my lifetime, George Floyd, as it wasn’t confined to one city/state…whereas the LA Riots was huge but geographically confined.

  3. I’ve personally never seen a riot in person, and I’m sure most people haven’t.

    Over the news, you’ll of course see the few that happen.

  4. The biggest mass protests and civil disobedience in recent history were the George Floyd protests

  5. Biggest or most serious?

    FLoyd’s was biggest with number of people, probably, but no cops died and only 25 people died.

    The Civil war draft riots in NY were probably deadliest. Recent Irish immigrants were angry about the draft and attacked the Black community in NYC. 120 died including kids at an orphanage they attacked.

    The Atlanta riots in 1906 could be as deadly but we’ll never know the true number of victims – White mobs killed dozens of Black victims… which also brings up the point– often “riots” were just mobs attacking a group of victims who were trying to protect or defend themselves. — and many of the Floyd protests were just that – not riots.

  9. I’m my lifetime the BLM riots were the biggest. I don’t live in the city so i was unaffected. In charlotte someone caught themselves in fire trying to burn things.

  11. I don’t know if it was the biggest, but maybe one of the deadliest and most shameful was the Tulsa race riot.

  13. People are saying George Floyd as a “riot” but I don’t think it qualifies. Mass protests are going to have a few violent incidents and property damage, but I don’t think it reaches the level of riot unless the underlying goal is just to fuck shit up and do violence and property damage.

  14. Tulsa race riot in 1921 is my first instinct. (Black Wall Street)

    It’s been called a riot and a massacre – I think both are applicable. It’s not just the high body count that makes me rank it as worst, but just the intense malice of it all. A truly terrible moment in history.

  15. Personally? When I was in middle school our buildings didn’t have air conditioning and it was an unusually hot May and we staged a walkout because we weren’t allowed to wear shorts. We won! Viva La revolution!

  16. April 1968. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., uprisings, or riots, occurred in 100 cities across the United States. Thousands were injured and I believe dozens died.

  17. Difficult to quantify biggest. My best answer would be the Tulsa race riot, 1921.

  19. As of now, the NYC draft riots in 1863 was the largest. In modern times, the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

  22. Well we did fight a civil war. I’d say that was a pretty big riot.

  24. I was still very young and on the opposite coast so I don’t have any memory of it, but from all accounts the L.A. riots were probably the biggest.

    Lot of people saying Tulsa cause it was named in history books as the Tulsa Race Riot. But in reality that was revisionist history’s way of sugar coating the truth. It was a massacre, a mass murder.

    George Floyd also popping up here a lot too. Again not sure that qualifies as a riot. It was a massive nation wide series of protests. Rioters showed up to a few of those as they tend to with any large protest or demonstration.

    So yeah, L.A. probably still takes the cake on that.

  25. The 1967 Detroit Riots were pretty bad. 43 people died, 1,200 were injured, 7,200 were arrested, and over 400 buildings were destroyed. Even members of the military died during it. The film Detroit which came out in 2017 is about the riots and is worth a watch.

  26. The Watts riot in ’65 and the Rodney King riots in ’92 were pretty significant in LA. Nationwide, the George Floyd riots a few years ago were collectively larger and more destructive.

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