Just going from memory there was an episode of The Jeffersons that flashed back to 1968 (i.e. before All in the Family took place) to show their reaction to MLK being killed. I don’t think they lived in the projects, just a poorer neighborhood than the one they moved into next to Archie Bunker. Actually I’m not sure if they even showed their home in the episode, just the one dry cleaning store George was running then. I think upon finding out about the assassination George smashed his own store’s front window out.
Why are housing projects referred to in plural? The phrase “I live in the projects”, rather than “I live in a project”. The British equivalent are council estates and people would say “I live on an estate”, or more likely the actual name of the estate. I suspect it would be the same in the rest of Europe.
Side note: it took me a while to figure this out. In American English, an “estate” is a grand house, like Downton Abbey. So when, in Come Dancing, the Kinks said “Now she’s older/she lives on an estate” I thought (for about 20 years) that it meant she had done very very well for herself, instead of the opposite.
Originally an estate referred to a country mansion. Then at some stage it began to be used in urban contexts to mean a group of streets where the houses were designed by the same firm. Eventually in the 20th century it more commonly referred to what you would define a project, ie. a group of state built houses. Nowadays in Britain the word estate could mean all three of those things.
Two cops on patrol were shot at and killed in 1970 when gang members fired at them from a window.