Editing Lyndon B. Johnson (section)

===Urban riots===
{{Main|Ghetto riots (1964–1969)}}
{{Further|Long, hot summer of 1967|King assassination riots}}
[[File:40th in Watts.jpg|thumb|Soldiers direct traffic away from an area of [[South Central Los Angeles]] burning during the [[Watts Riots|1965 Watts riots]].]]
[[File:Newark Riots 1967 (305517077) (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[1967 Newark riots]]]]
The nation experienced a series of "long hot summers" of [[Ghetto riots (1964–1969)|civil unrest]] during the Johnson years. They started with the [[Harlem Riot of 1964|Harlem riots]] in 1964, and the [[Watts Riots|Watts district]] of Los Angeles in 1965. The momentum for the advancement of civil rights came to a sudden halt following the riots in Watts. After 34 people were killed and $35&nbsp;million (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|35|1965|r=2}}&nbsp;million in {{Inflation-year|US}}) in property was damaged, the public feared an expansion of the violence to other cities, and so the appetite for additional programs in Johnson's agenda was lost.<ref>{{harvp|Dallek|1998|pp=222–223}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title=Lyndon B. Johnson: The American Franchise| date=October 4, 2016| url=https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson/the-american-franchise| location=Charlottesville, Virginia| publisher=Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia| access-date=June 22, 2017}}</ref>

In what is known as the "[[Long hot summer of 1967]]", more than 150 riots erupted across the United States.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McLaughlin |first1=Malcolm |title=The Long, Hot Summer of 1967: Urban Rebellion in America. |date=2014 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=9781137269638}}</ref> The ''[[Boston Globe]]'' called it "a revolution of black Americans against white Americans, a violent petition for the redress of long-standing grievances."<ref name="Dallek 1998, p. 412">Dallek (1998), p. 412.</ref> The [[1967 Newark riots|Newark riots]] left 26 dead and 1,500 injured.<ref name="Dallek 1998, p. 412"/> The [[1967 Detroit riot|Detroit riot]] resulted in 43 deaths, 2250 injuries, 4,000 arrests, and millions of dollars' worth of property damage. Governor [[George W. Romney|George Romney]] sent in 7,400 [[National Guard (United States)|national guard troops]] to quell [[arson|fire bombings]], [[looting]], and attacks on businesses and police. Johnson finally sent in federal troops with [[tanks]] and [[machine guns]].<ref name=LHS67>{{cite book| last=McLaughlin| first=Malcolm| title=The Long, Hot Summer of 1967: Urban Rebellion in America| date=2014| publisher=Palgrave Macmillan| location=New York City| isbn=978-1-137-26963-8|pages=1–9; 40–41| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QI17AwAAQBAJ&q=%22long+hot+summer%22+1967&pg=PA1}}</ref> At an August 2, 1967, cabinet meeting, Attorney General [[Ramsey Clark]] warned that untrained and undisciplined local police forces and National Guardsmen might trigger a "[[guerrilla war]] in the streets", as evidenced by the climate of [[sniper]] fire in Newark and Detroit.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hinton |first1=Elizabeth |title=From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America |date=2016 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=108}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Flamm |first1=Michael W. |title=In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime |date=2017 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |page=276}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Bigart |first1=Homer |title=Newark Riot Deaths at 21 As Negro Sniping Widens; Hughes May Seek U.S. Aid |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/race/071667race-ra.html |agency=The New York Times |date=July 16, 1967}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Roberts |first1=Gene |title=Troops Battle Detroit Snipers, Firing Machine Guns From Tanks; Lindsay Appeals To East Harlem; Detroit Toll Is 31 Rioters Rout Police-- Guardsmen Released To Aid Other Cities |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/26/archives/troops-battle-detroit-snipers-firing-machine-guns-from-tanks.html |agency=The New York Times |date=July 26, 1967}}</ref>

Johnson's popularity plummeted as a massive white political backlash took shape, reinforcing the sense Johnson had lost control of the streets of major cities and his own party.<ref>Woods, Randall (2006), pp. 790–795.; Michael W. Flamm. ''Law And Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s'' (2005).</ref> The president created the [[Kerner Commission]] to study the causes behind the recurring outbreaks of urban civil disorder, headed by Illinois Governor [[Otto Kerner Jr.|Otto Kerner]].<ref name="'70s"/> The commission's 1968 report suggested legislative measures to promote racial integration and alleviate poverty and concluded that the nation was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."<ref name=kernerreport>{{cite web| title="Our Nation Is Moving Toward Two Societies, One Black, One White—Separate and Unequal": Excerpts from the Kerner Report| url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/| publisher=American Social History Productions| work=History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web| others=Source: United States. Kerner Commission, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968)| access-date=July 12, 2017}}</ref> According to Press Secretary [[George Christian (journalist)|George Christian]], Johnson was unsurprised by the riots, saying: "What did you expect? ... When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off."<ref name=Kotz2005P418>{{cite book|last=Kotz|first=Nick|title=Judgment days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the laws that changed America|year=2005|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-618-08825-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/judgmentdayslynd00kotz/page/418 418]|chapter=14. Another Martyr|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/judgmentdayslynd00kotz/page/418}}</ref>