Editing Trenton, New Jersey (section)

===Riots of 1968===
The Trenton Riots of 1968 were a major civil disturbance that took place during the week following the assassination of civil rights leader [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] in [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]] on April 4. [[Race riot]]s broke out nationwide following the murder of the civil rights activist. More than 200 Trenton businesses, mostly in Downtown, were ransacked and burned. 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 injuries suffered while fighting raging blazes or inflicted by rioters. Area residents pulled false alarms and would then throw bricks at firefighters responding to the alarm boxes. This experience, along with similar experiences in other major cities, effectively ended the use of open-cab fire engines. As an interim measure, the Trenton Fire Department fabricated temporary cab enclosures from steel deck plating until new equipment could be obtained. The losses incurred by downtown businesses were initially estimated by the city to be $7&nbsp;million, but the total of insurance claims and settlements came to $2.5&nbsp;million.<ref>Cumbler, John T. [https://books.google.com/books?id=G1kVVDSqCT8C&pg=PA283 ''A Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics and Work in Trenton''] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231001194433/https://books.google.com/books?id=G1kVVDSqCT8C&pg=PA283#v=onepage&q&f=false |date=October 1, 2023 }}, p. 283. [[Rutgers University Press]], 1989. {{ISBN|9780813513744}}. Accessed February 12, 2014.</ref>

Trenton's [[Battle Monument, Trenton, New Jersey|Battle Monument]] neighborhood was hardest hit. Since the 1950s, North Trenton had witnessed a steady exodus of middle-class residents, and the riots spelled the end for North Trenton. By the 1970s, the region had become one of the most blighted and crime-ridden in the city.<ref>Listokin, David; and Listokin, Barbara. [https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/PDF/brahvol2.pdf ''Barriers to the Rehabilitation of Affordable Housing Volume II Case Studies''] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018012048/https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/PDF/brahvol2.pdf |date=October 18, 2020 }}, [[United States Department of Housing and Urban Development]], May 2001. Accessed December 1, 2019. "Socioeconomic and housing challenges are especially severe in some of Trenton’s oldest neighborhoods. In the Old Trenton area, abandonment went unchecked for decades, and when abandoned houses were demolished by the city, the empty lots remaining would fill with garbage and vermin. Another hard-hit location was the 'Battle Monument' area: 'Time has not been kind to the Battle Monument section of this city. The five-block area, the hub of the Battle of Trenton in 1775 and of transportation in the 1950s, has in the last four decades suffered from abandonment and neglect.'"</ref>