I recently read a great overview of US riots-- Paul gilje's "rioting in America". He identifies many, many riots that achieved their goals, from the 17th c to the present.

American rioting, he argues, has strong roots in the medieval English system of collective violence by the plebeians, which was generally considered an acceptable form of expressing grievances because the patricians were understood as playing a paternalistic role, and therefore allowed their "children" to act out, and then made economic or political adjustments to make the people happy. Other successful riots regulated moral behavior in communities. All of these practices were continued in colonial America, frequently with success.

I think it should be pointed out here that Gilje, like many others who've written on the topic, emphasizes the fact that the term "riot" is usually a very loaded word that is often only applied to people the speaker does not feel have legitimate justification for their actions, and frequently incorrectly assumes that it does not have a strong organized element. He defines riot as "extralegal collective violence" and does not draw a sharp distinction between riots and rebellions or mob-based vigilante violence. So, for Gilje, other examples of "successful" riots in American history are the hundreds of mob lynchings of blacks in the American South, whose ultimate purpose was to terrorize and oppress African Americans.

EDIT I think it's also important to highlight gilje's argument that in the 20th c rioting, especially in urban ghettos, became MUCH LESS violent towards people, but more diffuse and destructive of property--being more of a venting of frustrations with a social and economic system that is far more depersonalized than that which existed previously, and this has led to a lesser ability to create change in the way many 17th and 18th century riots--which were often very unorganized themselves--were able to.

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Just want to confirm that you are specifically asking about riots, which are more disorganized and fractured events, and not rebellions, which tend to be better organized and have much clearer goals and targets (including targeted people)?