The Language of the Unheard: Legal Services and the 1960s Race Riots

Abstract

This article uses newly collected data on communities who received legal services grants between 1965 and 1975 to evaluate the effectiveness of the federal antirioting program. Results indicate a 4.8% reduction in the number of riots and a 4.7% reduction in the duration of riots due to legal services programs. Additional analysis identifies a positive relationship between riot propensity and legal services funding. Therefore, the estimates provide a lower bound for the possible causal relationship between the legal service program and riot propensities. Further analysis reveals communities implementing legal services programs earlier report better community–police relations in 1970. Together these results are consistent with the historical narrative that legal service lawyers’ involvement in community empowerment and advocacy mitigated the damage of riots that occurred in the 1960s.