April 4, 1968 was the beginning of the six day riot in Washington D.C. This riot erupted after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the civil rights movement. Kings assassination was the tipping point for African Americans in D.C., but not the root cause. A lot of the anger put into these riots stemmed from the already poor living conditions African Americans faced In D.C. It was a city that had one of the harshest segregational systems that included strict segregation of housing. This limited the African Americans to a crowded area of the city with lesser prestige. Other pressing issues included the still present racism in schools with white parents pulling their children out of public school to send them to all white private schools.