Lombard Street riot

In the early decades of the 19th century, there were significant increases in the city's black population, as large numbers of freed and fugitive slaves immigrated to Philadelphia, which was a few miles north of the Mason-Dixon line.

[3][page needed] There were periodic outbreaks of racial, ethnic, and religious violence between Irish Catholics, German Protestants, blacks, and even pacifist Quakers.

[1][7][8][9] The rioters moved west, setting fires and attacking firefighters and police as they went, heading for the home of African-American leader Robert Purvis.

It reads:Lombard Street Riot — Here on August 1, 1842 an angry mob of whites attacked a parade celebrating Jamaican Emancipation Day.

[12]The marker was the result of work by a class of Philadelphia students challenged by their history teacher to research a race riot in the city and argue for its significance.

Petitioning for the marker was their way of highlighting the racial intolerance often left out of versions of city history presented to tourists.