Shurn and Partee’s deaths fueled the anger of rising unemployment and alleged mistreatment from police. Black residents began burning buildings, overturning cars, and smashing windows.
Governor George W. Romney dispatched the Michigan National Guard to stop the rioters. Over 300 state police troopers were called in, launching tear gas and other crowd control methods. The large police presence and heavy rains quelled the rioting after two nights.
Benton Harbor’s history of mistreating Blacks and riots in response is a storied one. Other riots in to the town in 1960, 1967, and 1990. In 1966, riots broke out after a white man was accused of killing a Black person.
In 1991, Eric McGinnis, 16, was killed. When he was found in the St. Joseph’s River, he had rope burns on his neck and residents believed he may have been lynched as reprisal for dating a white girl.
As a result of the 2003 riots, the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project built homes in the town, and also in Detroit, in 2005.
(Photo: WNDU News)
