The Memphis riots of 1866 began harmlessly enough with the collision of two hacks on a Memphis street. One driver was Black, the other White. It evolved into a three-day orgy of hate and murder fueled by mobs, the police and the local news organs. Forty-six people were killed, forty-four of them Black. Eighty-five people were injured. $100,000 of property, goods and money, much of it owned by the Black soldiers and their families stationed at nearby Fort Pickering was either stolen or burned.
