The 1964 Race Riots were a series of riots that took place in Singapore during two separate periods in July and September between Chinese and Malay groups. The first incident occurred on 21 July during a Malay procession that marked Muhammad's birthday. In total, the violence killed 36 people and injured another 556. About 3,000 people were arrested. The riots are also known as the Prophet Muhammad Birthday Riots, 1964 Racial Riots, and 1964 Sino-Malay Riots. At that time, Singapore was a state in the Federation of Malaysia.

On 21 July, 1964, about 25,000 Malays gathered at the Padang, Singapore to celebrate the Muslim prophet Muhammad's birthday. After the speeches, the procession went on to Geylang. Along the way, a policeman asked a group that was dispersed to rejoin the main procession. Instead of obeying the orders, the group attacked the policeman. This incident led to a race riot after the group of Malays attacked ethnic Chinese-Malay passers-by and spectators. The riots were reported to have started at about 5:00 p.m. between Kallang and Geylang Serai. The government declared a curfew at 9.30 p.m. to restore order, but in the first day of rioting, four people were killed and 178 injured.

After the curfew was lifted at 6 a.m. the next morning, the conflict grew even more tense, and another curfew was imposed – it was only lifted for short periods to allow people to buy food. The curfew was not completely lifted until 2 August, 11 days after the start of the riots.