The word on the street: Rumor, “race” and the anticipation of urban unrest

• We examine the emergence of Rumor Control Centers (RCCs) across the US in the 1960s.
• Citizens were asked to report divisive rumors to their local RCC.
• By mapping rumors, RCCs tried to anticipate and prevent outbreaks of urban unrest.
• In the process, RCCs often helped to monitor and immobilize young black activists.
• There are a number of contemporary corollaries of RCCs in operation today.

This paper analyzes the emergence of Rumor Control Centers (RCCs) across the US during the late-1960s. The Centers, which were operated by municipal government agencies, were formed in response to the racialized violence that flared up in many cities between 1963 and 1967. State officials encouraged citizens to call their local center if they heard a “rumor” that suggested social tensions might be increasing in their neighborhood. Preemptive measures could then be taken to prevent these tensions from escalating into a riot. The paper outlines how the same anticipatory logics that underpinned Cold War civil defense were flexibly redeployed in response to the radicalizing of the civil rights movement within the US. It also shows how security infrastructures are sometimes fragile and may be reworked or rolled back due to political pressure or more mundane reasons such as failing to hold the attention of citizens and political elites.