NBC Poll: Americans Fear More Racially Charged Protests This Summer

More racially-charged unrest will occur around the country this summer, 96 percent of Americans said in a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday.

According to the poll, not only do most people think there will be more protests and rioting, similar to what occurred in Baltimore, more than half of the respondents said they think a similar disturbance will occur in the metropolitan area closest to their home.

In other revelations in the poll of 508 adults, including 111 African-Americans, conducted April 28-30:

68 percent said they believe it is "very likely" that there will be more protests and clashes around the country;
28 percent said that they believe such unrest is "somewhat likely."
53 percent of whites said they think more confrontations in their closest city are likely this summer;
46 percent of African-Americans said clashes near them are likely.

The numbers show that the expectation of events nationwide were similar among the respondents, regardless of their race, but that more whites expect the disturbances in areas near to them.

White respondents and African-Americans also also had different answers about how to explain the tensions between police and the black community, the poll showed.

Six out of 10 African-Americans said the Baltimore discord was because people have "longstanding frustrations about police mistreatment of African Americans that have not been addressed," and 27 percent said the riots were "caused by people who used the protests about the death of an African-American man in police custody as an excuse to engage in looting and violence."

But the numbers flipped among white respondents. Only 32 percent blamed the violence on frustration, while 58 percent said it was cause by people looking for an excuse for looting.

NBC plans to release the entire poll's results Monday evening.

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