The 1968 Kansas City riot was a riot that occurred in Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 in April 1968. Kansas City became one of thirty-seven cities in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to be the subject of rioting after the assassination Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

. The rioting in Kansas City did not erupt on April 4, like other cities of the United States affected directly by the assassination of King, but rather on April 9 after local events within the city.

Riot

The first signs of disorder in the streets of Kansas City was a stable student march, in response to the government failing to close schools across the city on April 9, the day of King's funeral. This was seen as an apparent lack of respect for King by the students. The riot was sparked when Kansas City Police Department deployed tear gas to the student protesters when they staged their performance outside City Hall.

The deployment of tear gas dispersed the protesters from the area, but other citizens of the city began to riot as a result of the Police action on the student protesters during a meeting with Mayor Ilus W. Davis

Ilus W. Davis

Ilus Winfield Davis was mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, United States from 1963 to 1971."Ike" Davis grew up on the east side of Kansas City and in 1933 was in the freshman class of the University of Kansas City which was to become the University of Missouri-Kansas City...

. The resulting effects of the riot resulted in the arrest of over one hundred adults, and left five dead and at least twenty admitted to hospitals.