The Fires Last Time: Lessons from the 1968 Baltimore Riots

Last week, I met with a scholar of the civil-rights movement who was very worried about the first signs of trouble in Baltimore. At one point he looked up at me and suddenly said, “I’m very worried the civil unrest of the 1960s is coming back, and nothing about it will be good.” Yesterday’s rioting in Baltimore recalls the turmoil that swept that city and 125 others in April 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. The unrest in Baltimore lasted almost four days and resulted in six people...