[1] Compared to the previous summer of rioting, the number of fatalities was lower, largely attributed to new procedures instituted by the federal government, and orders not to fire on looters.

[6] In New York City, mayor John Lindsay traveled directly into Harlem, telling black residents that he regretted King's death and was working against poverty.

[7] In Indianapolis, Indiana, Senator Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. is credited with preventing a riot there.

The ready availability of jobs in the growing federal government attracted many to Washington since the early 20th century, and middle class African-American neighborhoods prospered.

As word of King's murder by James Earl Ray in Memphis spread on the evening of Thursday, April 4, crowds began to gather at 14th and U. Stokely Carmichael led members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to stores in the neighborhood demanding that they close out of respect.

Crowds of as many as 20,000 overwhelmed the District's 3,100-member police force, and 11,850 federal troops and 1,750 D.C. National Guardsmen under orders of President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived on the streets of D.C. to assist them.

Made uneasy by the violence, city residents of all races accelerated their departure for suburban areas, depressing property values.

The next day, Mayor Richard J. Daley imposed a curfew on anyone under the age of 21, closed the streets to automobile traffic, and halted the sale of guns or ammunition.

Approximately 10,500 police were sent in, and by April 6, more than 6,700 Illinois National Guard troops had arrived in Chicago with 5,000 regular Army soldiers from the 1st Armored and 5th Infantry Divisions being ordered into the city by President Johnson.

By Sunday evening, 5,000 paratroopers, combat engineers, and artillerymen from the XVIII Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, specially trained in tactics, including sniper school, were on the streets of Baltimore with fixed bayonets, and equipped with chemical (CS) disperser backpacks.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that H. Rap Brown was in Baltimore driving a Ford Mustang with Broward County, Florida tags, and was assembling large groups of angry protesters and agitating them to escalate the rioting.

As rioting continued, African American plainclothes police officers and community leaders were sent to the worst areas to prevent further violence.

[10] One of the major outcomes of the riot was the attention Governor Agnew received when he criticized local black leaders for not doing enough to help stop the disturbance.

While this angered black people and white liberals, it caught the attention of Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, who was looking for someone on his ticket who could counter George Wallace's American Independent Party campaign.

Tensions simmered down after Mayor John Lindsay traveled into the heart of the area and stated that he regretted King's wrongful death.

The riot left many of the city's black commercial districts in shambles and the areas most impacted by the unrest were slow to recover in the following decades.

The Trenton Riots of 1968 were a major civil disturbance that took place during the week following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4.

More than 300 people, most of them young black men, were arrested on charges ranging from assault and arson to looting and violating the mayor's emergency curfew.

In addition to 16 injured policemen, 15 firefighters were treated at city hospitals for smoke inhalation, burns, sprains and cuts suffered while fighting raging blazes or for injuries inflicted by rioters.

[citation needed] As an interim measure, the Trenton Fire Department fabricated temporary cab enclosures from steel deck plating until new equipment could be obtained.

The intersection, and Parkland in general, had recently become an important location for Louisville's black community, as the local NAACP branch had moved its office there.

However, rumors (which turned out to be untrue) were spread that Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee speaker Stokely Carmichael's plane to Louisville was being intentionally delayed by white people.

These included Vice President Hubert Humphrey, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and federal judge Leon Higginbotham; government officials such as secretary Robert Weaver and D.C. Mayor Walter Washington; legislators Mike Mansfield, Everett Dirksen, William McCulloch; and civil rights leaders Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, Clarence Mitchell, Dorothy Height, and Walter Fauntroy.

Richard Hatcher, the newly elected black mayor of Gary, Indiana, spoke to the group about white racism and his fears of racially motivated violence in the future.

The Pentagon's Army Operations Center thus quickly began its response to the assassination on the night of April 4, directing air force transport planes to prepare for an occupation of Washington, D.C.

[28] On April 5, Johnson ordered mobilization of the Army and National Guard, particularly for D.C.[29] Some responded to the riots with suggestions for improving the conditions that engendered them.

He urged Congress to pass the bill, starting with an April 5 letter addressed to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, John William McCormack.

In conversations with Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, Johnson describes the complications with ordering federal troops before local governments have exhausted all options.

Mondale commented that: A lot of [previous] civil rights [legislation] was about making the South behave and taking the teeth from George Wallace ...

[30] The riots were political fodder for the Republican party, which used fears of black urban crime to garner support for law and order, especially in the 1968 presidential campaign[citation needed].