President Lyndon B. Johnson called in the National Guard to the city on April 5, 1968, to assist the police department in quelling the unrest.

Starting in the late 19th century through the 1960s, the ready availability of jobs in the United States government attracted many people to Washington, D.C., including African American men, women, and children.

As a result, middle-class African American neighborhoods prospered, but the lower class was plagued by poor living conditions and fell deeper into poverty.

[1] Despite the end of legally mandated racial segregation after the 1954 decision of Brown v. Board of Education, the neighborhoods of Shaw, the Atlas District Northeast corridor, and Columbia Heights remained the centers of African-American commercial life in the city.

In the years leading up to 1968, there were many incidents in which D.C.'s black community held protests and turned angry against white police officers.

This prompted majority black crowds to gather around police stations around the city throwing rocks and, in some cases, firecrackers.

[4] On the evening of Thursday, April 4, as word of King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee spread, crowds began to gather at the intersection of 14th and U Streets.

Stokely Carmichael, the militant civil and political rights activist who had parted with King in 1966 and had been removed as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1967, led members of the SNCC to stores in the neighborhood demanding that they close out of respect.

Around midday, arsonists set buildings ablaze while firefighters were attacked with bottles and rocks and unable to address the fires.

[16] In a radio address after the announcement of King's death, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked all citizens not to resort to violence.

The following morning, he held a meeting at the White House with black civil rights leaders and government officials.

He made a statement saying to "deny violence its victory," pleading that all citizens come together to keep King's dream alive.

In addition, he refused FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's commands to shoot at rioters on the grounds that it would be needless slaughter and to avoid nearby harm to civilians.

He was the leading force in a shift in the military emphasis which focused on the overwhelming use of men, the use of tear gas, and an early, strictly enforced curfew.

[22] On Friday, April 5, President Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 and dispatched 11,850 federal troops along with 1,750 D.C. Army National Guardsmen to assist the overwhelmed D.C. police force.

[16] Marines mounted machine guns on the steps of the Capitol and Army soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Regiment guarded the White House.

[23][7][8] By Sunday, April 7, when the city was considered pacified, 13 people had been killed in fires, by police officers, or by rioters.

The Act helped desegregate D.C. and reduced the amount of blacks living in ghettos, separated from wealthier whites-only areas.

[31][32][33] Walter Fauntroy, City Council vice chairman and the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, played a key role in the rebuilding of D.C. after the 1968 riots.

He challenged people to "Handle your grief the way Dr. King would have wanted it," and those who acted otherwise "do dishonor to the life and mission of Dr.

[36] A 2024 study found that destruction during the riots "caused lots to remain vacant for the next thirty years and only recently converge in terms of structure value.