When have conservatives rioted?

I hadn’t planned on posting today—I’m in the middle of an incredible conference, soaking up insights and inspiration. But then I stumbled across a jaw-droppingly ridiculous question on Facebook: “When have conservatives rioted, looted, burned buildings, or murdered people?”

Now, before I dive in, let me be clear: the post was framed in defense of gun ownership. So for the record, I’ve never lived in a household without a firearm. My father was in the Air Force, my ex-husband was a police officer, my mother always had her own gun, and I grew up on the range doing target practice. I am, unapologetically, a pro-gun liberal.

Now, let’s get back to that question.

To pose such a question is either a test of intellectual honesty or a willful erasure of history. Either way, it demands a serious and informed response. So allow me, with all the elitist credentials of my Ivy League education, to oblige. 😆 

Let’s start with the most recent and glaring example: January 6, 2021. On that day, a violent mob of self-identified conservatives stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented act of domestic terrorism. They did not come to protest—they came to overturn the outcome of a lawful election. They beat police officers with flagpoles, erected gallows, ransacked offices, and shouted for the lynching of elected officials. Seven people died as a result of the attack, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who suffered fatal strokes after being assaulted.

But this was not the first time violence was used in the name of conservative ideology. The idea that violence has only occurred on one side of the political spectrum is not just false—it’s dangerously ignorant. The historical record is overflowing with examples of white conservative mobs, militias, vigilantes, and state actors who rioted, looted, burned cities and homes, lynched and murdered thousands—often in broad daylight and with the blessing, or blind eye, of the government.

Here are just a few of the many irrefutable examples:
 • Fort Pillow Massacre (1864): Confederate soldiers slaughtered surrendering Black Union troops.
 • Sand Creek Massacre (1864): U.S. troops killed over 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly women and children.
 • Memphis and New Orleans Massacres (1866): White mobs murdered Black Union veterans and civilians.
 • Colfax Massacre (1873): A white militia killed over 150 Black defenders of Reconstruction government.
 • Wilmington Coup (1898): White supremacists overthrew a duly elected multiracial city government, killing dozens of Black citizens.
 • Tulsa Race Massacre (1921): Greenwood—known as “Black Wall Street”—was obliterated by white mobs. As many as 300 Black residents were murdered, and 10,000 were left homeless.
 • Rosewood Massacre (1923): A Black community in Florida was destroyed by white mobs, with unknown numbers of dead.
 • Zoot Suit Riots (1943): U.S. servicemen attacked Mexican American youths in Los Angeles while police arrested the victims.
 • Ocoee Massacre (1920): A Black man attempted to vote. The result? Dozens of Black residents were slaughtered and their homes razed.

These are not isolated incidents. They are chapters in a centuries-long chronicle of racially and politically motivated violence—often carried out or condoned by conservatives defending white supremacy, property over people, and power over democracy.

Even in the 20th century, from Detroit (1967) to East St. Louis (1917), to Chicago (1919), violence erupted not because Black people rioted—but because they dared to live, vote, work, and exist with dignity in a country that codified their oppression.

So yes, conservatives have rioted. They’ve looted. They’ve burned entire towns. They’ve murdered children, elders, and freedom fighters. And they’ve often done it not in secret, but with cheers and Confederate flags waving in the wind.

So…to the person who asked the ridiculous question, let us be honest: history is not neutral. And neither is this question. But if you ask it, expect an answer grounded in truth—not sanitized, not polite, but necessary.

History remembers. And so do we.

Stay tuned for my book, Beneath the Bayan Tree: A Family’s Legacy of Resistance, Freedom, and Perseverance.