1967 Newark riots
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The 1967 Newark Riots were a major civil disturbance that occurred in the city of Newark, New Jersey between July 12 and July 17, 1967. In the period leading up to the riots, several factors led local African-American residents to feel powerless and disenfranchised. In particular, they had been largely excluded from political representation and often suffered police brutality.[1] Furthermore, unemployment, poverty, and concerns about low-quality housing contributed to the tinder-box.
According to a Rutgers University study on the riot, African-Americans had been disenfranchised in Newark despite the fact that Newark became one of the first majority black major cities in America alongside Washington D.C. Italian-American mayor Hugh Addonizio (who was also the last non-black mayor of Newark) failed to incorporate blacks in various civil leadership positions and to help blacks get better employment opportunities. The police department was dominated by Italian American and Irish American officers who would routinely stop and attack blacks with or without provocation.[2]
Despite being one of the first cities in America to hire African American police officers, the department's demographics at the time did not match the city's population, leading to poor relations between blacks and the police department. According to a legal essay, only 150 of the 1500 police officers (10 percent) were African American, while the city was over 50 percent African American[citation needed].
This unrest came to a head when a black cab driver named John Smith was arrested for tailgating police car and allegedly beaten by police who accused him of resisting arrest.[3] A crowd gathered outside the police station where he was detained, and a rumor was started that he had been killed while in police custody. (Actually he had been moved to a local hospital.)
This set off six days of riots, looting, violence, and destruction — ultimately leaving 26 people dead, 725 people injured, and close to 1,500 arrested. Property damage exceeded $10 million.
In an effort to contain the riots, every evening at 6 p.m. the Bridge Street and Jackson Street Bridges, both of which span the Passaic River between Newark and Harrison, were closed until the next morning.
The 1967 Plainfield riots occurred during the same period in Plainfield, New Jersey, a town about 18 miles southwest of Newark.
The long and short term causes of the riots are explored in depth in the documentary film Revolution '67 . The riots were depicted in the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral.
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[edit] Impact
While the riots are often cited as a major factor in the decline of Newark and its neighboring communities, the actual factors include decades of racial, economic, and political forces which generated inner city poverty; factors that sparked “race riots” across America in the 1960s. By the 1960s and '70s, as industry fled the city, so did the white middle class, leaving behind a poor population. During this same time, the population of many suburban communities in northern New Jersey expanded rapidly.
Newark's progress since 1967 has been questionable. The poverty rate was 18.4% in 1970; it had grown to 25% by 2006. Many of the same problems that contributed to the violence and destruction in 1967 continue to plague New Jersey's largest city. Today, poverty, unemployment, poor education, and very high crime rates are major problems.
[edit] References
- ^ Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Bantam Books, New York, 1968, pg. 57, which states that 7 of the 9 members of the City Council and the Board of Education were white, in spite of a 52% black population. The report in the same section refers to the strains that had occurred in the Italian-African American political alliance over the issue of police brutality. Ibid.
- ^ Max A. Herman, ed. The Detroit and Newark Riots of 1967. Rutgers-Newark Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
- ^ Halle, David, editor. New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture--A Comparative View. University of Chicago, 2003.
