--- title: The 1991 Crown Heights Riots: Read TIME's Explanation of the History description: "It was the city's worst racial violence since the outbreak that followed Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968," TIME noted canonical: https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-19T15:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:07.343Z article:section: History og:title: The 1991 Crown Heights Riots: Read TIME's Explanation of the History og:description: The incident that sparked the unrest took place on Aug. 19, 1991 og:url: https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059de5dffb2f6714/69885e655f570f2cd2b1cd04/1991.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Police officers try to calm Hasidim during confrontation wit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The 1991 Crown Heights Riots: Read TIME's Explanation of the History twitter:description: The incident that sparked the unrest took place on Aug. 19, 1991 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059de5dffb2f6714/69885e655f570f2cd2b1cd04/1991.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read TIME's Report on the Crown Heights Riots of 1991  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 19, 2015 3:00 PM UTC  Police officers try to calm Hasidim during a confrontation at Utica Ave. and President St. during Crown Heights riots in August of 1991. Police officers try to calm Hasidim during a confrontation at Utica Ave. and President St. during Crown Heights riots in August of 1991.New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 19, 2015 3:00 PM UTC The incident that set off the 1991 Crown Heights riots was easy to pinpoint: on Aug. 19, a car driven by a Hasidic Jew hit and killed a young black child. As a private ambulance took the driver away from the scene and emergency responders worked to free the victim and another child pinned under the car, the area’s black and Jewish residents–who had long been tense neighbors–erupted in anger. As TIME later noted, the result was the worst episode of racial violence in New York City city since 1968, after the death of Martin Luther King. But as with any cataclysmic event, the underlying causes of the riots were far more complicated than a single moment. As TIME’s story on the riots explained, the side-by-side life of the two communities in Crown Heights was already tense—and the fighting did little to diffuse the situation: --- > “” --- **_Read more from 1991, here in the TIME Vault:_** [An Eye for an Eye](http://time.com/vault/issue/1991-09-09/page/22/) ### Hipsterless Brooklyn: Vintage Photos From a Vanished World  View of the Manhattan Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with that island across the East River, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  From photographer's notes: "Trolleys & tracks at corner of Flushing Ave., Graham & Broadway." Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brooklyn, New York, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Corner of Middagh and Hicks, Brooklyn Heights, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Jumping rope on Siegel Street near Humboldt, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  City veterans housing project, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Laundry out to dry, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brooklyn street scene, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Unidentified Brooklynite, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Taking the sun on a Brooklyn rooftop, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Listening to a Dodgers-Giants ballgame on the radio, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Ebbets Field, 55 Sullivan Place, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dodgers ballgame, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Dodgers fans, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Jack Kaufman outside his barber shop on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn in 1946, holding a signed baseball that once beaned future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Subway entrance, Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  On the waterfront, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Moore Street near Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey Boulevard) near Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Grocery shopping, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Unidentified boys, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Under the elevated tracks, Broadway at Lynch, Brooklyn, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Brooklyn Bridge, 1946. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/"},"headline":"Read TIME's Report on the Crown Heights Riots of 1991","datePublished":"2015-08-19T15:00:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:07.343Z","description":"\"It was the city's worst racial violence since the outbreak that followed Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968,\" TIME noted","url":"https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/","keywords":["Race","protest","New York City","faith"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059de5dffb2f6714/69885e655f570f2cd2b1cd04/1991.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt059de5dffb2f6714/69885e655f570f2cd2b1cd04/1991.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Police officers try to calm Hasidim during confrontation wit","caption":"Police officers try to calm Hasidim during confrontation wit","creditText":"New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/race/","name":"Race"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3989495/crown-heights-riots-time-magazine-history/","name":"Read TIME's Report on the Crown Heights Riots of 1991"}}]}] ```