In his new history of the hundreds of race riots that erupted across the country in the 1960s, historian Peter B. Levy offers a gripping look at the violence in York, Pa. in the summers of 1968 and 1969, resulting in the deaths of a white police officer and a black woman from South Carolina. The deaths of Officer Henry Schaad and Lillie Belle Allen went unsolved until the daily newspapers in York published 30-year retrospectives on the riots. Those reports led to new investigations that pinned Allen's death on members of white gangs and complicit police officers, including one, Charlie Robertson, who went on to become York's mayor. Two black men were charged in Officer Schaad's death. Levy, a professor of history at York College, lives in Towson. He is the author of, "The Great Uprising: Race Riots in Urban America during the 1960s," published by Cambridge University Press. Levy will be a guest on an upcoming episode to talk more about the uprisings of the 1960s, including those in Baltimore and Cambridge, Maryland.For more about the York riots: "Silent no more: The murder of Lillie Belle Allen," by Kim Strong, and "40 Years Later: A Different York," by Mike Argento.
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