The 1967 Tampa riots were a series of race riots during June 1967 in Tampa, Florida, as one of 159 such riots in the United States that summer. The Tampa riots began after a 19-year-old black man named Martin Chambers, who was one of three people suspected of robbing a camera supply warehouse on 421 East Ellasme Street, was fatally shot by a white officer of the Tampa Police Department, Patrolman James Calvert. The riots began on the night of June 11 and ended on June 15, in the neighborhood that was then known as Central Park.
Background
June 11
A hydroplane race took place on the day of June 11, where the Tampa Police Department's anti-riot unit, the Selective Enforcement Unit, was covering the event during the afternoon. TPD Chief James P. Mullins would be absent that day.
Central Park neighborhood
Central Park, previously known as "The Scrub", was Tampa's first African-American neighborhood located between downtown Tampa and Ybor City. The neighborhood grew with the arrival of Henry Plant's railroad in 1883 and the cigar industry two years later. Starting in the 1890s and lasting until the 1950s, it was the most significant black neighborhood in the city, with Central Avenue being called the "Harlem of the South".
Urban renewal
In the 1950s and 1960s, Tampa underwent significant urban development.
The federal Housing Act of 1949 and subsequent amendments allowed cities to pursue urban renewal projects. However, a 1952 Florida Supreme Court case ruled that cities could not use eminent domain to sell the land to private companies to redevelop. Though, with this case, cities in Florida could not participate in the Act, the legislature passed laws allowing Tampa and Tallahassee to undertake urban renewal projects. Urban renewal in the Central Avenue neighborhood was seen as a way to increase tax revenue.
Renewal projects forced some residents to leave their homes. The circumstances were exacerbated by insufficient low-income housing. Even before displacement, public housing was often filled up and private housing did not have the same quality or prices as public housing. As part of a slum-clearance project, two public housing projects would be built in parts of its area during 1954: Robles Park Village and Central Park Village. During May 1958, the Urban Renewal Agency (URA) in Tampa's municipal government was created by Mayor Nick Nuccio.
Ybor City saw the practices of blockbusting and redlining in it. African-American residents in Tampa often had difficulty getting loans from insurance and mortgage companies. Many black residents' views were not factored in during urban renewal projects, especially as URA had no black members on its board. For the construction of Interstate 4 (finished in 1963), an estimated 2,544 homes were razed and a sizable amount of neighborhood would be demolished for it. During the freeway construction that was done in Tampa, the URA estimated that several hundred black families would be displaced with freeway construction between 1962 and 1963 along with roughly 400 others being relocated by code enforcement related reasons.
Civil Rights Movement
During the Civil Rights Movement in Tampa, there was little violence in the city. Starting in February 1960, a series of sit-ins at several stores in the downtown area took place, leading to 18 stores in Downtown Tampa being integrated in September. During the sit-ins, the only time that the police intervened was when they had to remove two white people from a Walgreens who were being abusive to protesters. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Tampa on November 19, 1961, and gave a speech at Fort Homer Hesterly Armory to a crowd of 4,200 people. A false bomb threat led to King and the attendees being evacuated and the speech was delayed by 30 minutes.
By 1967, Tampa was described as having little visible legal segregation in it. The city practiced the "Tampa Technique" of desegregating in a slow and nonconfrontational manner. However, there was significant economical segregation. Many black residents in the city were denied jobs and didn't have access to civil service tests. Black residents were also dissatisfied with the rate at which low-cost housing was being built, the poor quality of policing, a shortage of recreational facilities, and being exploited by white business owners in black neighborhoods.
Initial incident
Chase
On June 11, 1967, three burglars—Martin Chambers (19 years old), John Dawson, and Calvin Moore (15)—broke into Tampa's Photo Supply Warehouse located at 421 East Ellasme Street at 5:30pm, stealing photographic and film equipment worth over $100. Chambers is known to have had a criminal record in the past.