Over the next several years, fire bombings, racially charged boycotts and shootouts were common place in Cairo, with 170 nights of gunfire reported in 1969 alone.
Cairo's turbulent history of race relations is often traced back to the lynching of black resident William James.
As a result of the large black population in a town with a traditionally southern white heritage (despite the fact that Illinois is not in the South), race relations were already strained by 1900.
By the time of unrest in the 1960s, the unemployment rate of Cairo was more than twice the national average and poverty was widespread among both black and white people in the city.
[5] The incident began with the alleged jailhouse suicide of Private Robert Hunt, a young African-American soldier on leave in his hometown of Cairo.
[40] The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law arrived in Cairo in September 1969 to work with the Pyramid Courts Tenants Council.
[41] The racial conflict resulted in a mass exodus of white residents from Cairo, which was already experiencing population decline before the unrest began.