History of Indianapolis

City population grew rapidly throughout the first half of the 20th century. While rapid suburbanization began to take place in the second half of the century, race relations deteriorated. Even so, on the night that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Indianapolis was one of the few major cities in which rioting did not occur. Many credit the speech by Robert F. Kennedy, who was in town campaigning for President that night, for helping to calm the tensions. Racial tensions heightened in 1970 with the passage of Unigov, which further isolated the middle class from Indianapolis's growing African American community. Although Indianapolis and the state of Indiana abolished segregated schools just prior to Brown vs. Board of Education, the later action of court-ordered school desegregation busing by Judge S. Hugh Dillin was a controversial change.

In 1970, non-Hispanic whites were about 80 percent of the population. The 1970s and 1980s ushered in a period of planning and revitalization for the urban core of Indianapolis. Changes came early with the reorientation of the city’s government. Unigov was created as the result of a 1970 consolidation between city and county government. The city of Indianapolis merged most government services with those of Marion County. For the most part, this resulted in a unification of Indianapolis with its immediate suburbs. This caused the boundaries of the city to grow tremendously, reflected in Indianapolis’ jump in ranking to the nation's 11th largest city in 1970. The City-County Building housed the newly consolidated government. At its completion, the City-County Building became the city’s tallest building and the first building in the city to be taller