On this day in 1967, race riots erupt simultaneously across the country. In New York City, violence breaks out in Spanish Harlem, leaving two dead. In Toledo, Ohio, roving crowds loot stores and set fires across the city, prompting the National Guard to respond. And in Detroit, a police raid on an unlicensed bar ignites five days of the deadliest unrest of the era, leaving 43 dead, most of them Black residents killed by police and National Guard troops.

By summer's end, more than 150 U.S. cities have erupted in similar uprisings, driven by decades of poverty, segregation, and police violence in Black communities. The unrest prompts President Johnson to convene the Kerner Commission, which later warns the nation is "moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”