Today in 1834, at a church in Manhattan, NYC, an interracial group is celebrating the seventh anniversary of New York’s emancipation of slaves. But a mob of angry white people breaks in and disperses the gathering.

Two days later, thousands of white people attack the same church in protest of a meeting of abolitionists, motivated by reports that abolitionists are instructing their daughters to marry blacks and that a black preacher had suggested that Jesus was a colored man.

Riots continue for days. Mobs target homes, businesses, and churches associated with black people and their white allies. They attack the Bowery Theatre until management sends out a blackface performer to sing "Yankee Doodle" and "Zip Coon."

On July 12, the mayor calls for an armed militia to quell the riots by force.