Racial tensions began to escalate in York, Pennsylvania in 1963. Black citizens of York protested police violence and discrimination at City Hall. Their demands for a bi-racial police review board were turned down by the all-white city council. Citizens continued to protest over the next few years and complained of police brutality and the use of police dogs to curb protests. During this time, the city saw the rise of several notorious all-white gangs. By the mid-1960s, York had become deeply racially divided, and in 1968 a series of white-on-black crimes incited retaliation in the form of fire-bombings and street brawls.

On July 17, 1969, with racial tensions at the boiling point, a black youth who burned himself playing with lighter fluid blamed a local white gang known as the Girarders. That would later be revealed as a lie, but not before the pent-up resentments of the black community turned violent. That same day, seventeen-year-old Taka Nii Sweeney was shot by an unseen gunman when York City Police Detective George Smith stopped him and his friends for violating the city's youth curfew. White and black gangs began fighting that afternoon. Eleven others were hurt when people in six blocks of the city reverted to rock-throwing, barricading and shooting from behind bushes and poles.

Fighting lasted through the night and into the next day. Nine more people were injured, including Officer Henry C. Schaad. Schaad, a twenty-two-year-old rookie with eleven months on the force, was struck by a bullet believed to have been fired by a black rioter while riding in one of the police department's two armored trucks. White gangs around the city prepared for revenge. Schaad languished in the hospital for nearly two weeks before succumbing to his injuries.

As Schaad lay dying, racial tension soared in the city. Fights broke out, buildings were set ablaze and police began barricading black neighborhoods. More than sixty people were injured, one hundred were arrested, and entire city blocks were burned.