An A or A- Essay on the 1967 Newark Riots

The Explosion in Newark: Police Brutality and Misgovernment

The riots that engulfed the city of Newark, New Jersey into a period of civil discord lasting from July 12 to July 17, 1967 were part of the huge increase in urban riots in the 1960s. From cities and towns across the country, African-Americans seeking political representation, adequate housing, employment, and an end to police brutality and government neglect, furiously destroyed and looted cities. Like so many other post-WWII riots in American history, police brutality, and government attempts to introduce “negro removal” or urban renewal projects, deindustrialization and the abundance of substandard housing units sparked a riot that culminated in 26 deaths, hundreds injured, and millions of dollars in property damage. If the city administration of mayor Hugh Addonizio and the police had acted properly and truly endeavored to address the needs and concerns of Black Newark, it is likely that the riots could have been avoided. Thus, police brutality, government neglect and their misuse of power sparked the riots, further exacerbating the already dire situation.

First, government failure to incorporate blacks into the city administration caused greater tension and distrust between African-Americans and the Italian-dominated political system. Mayor Addonizio won the election in the predominantly black city through a black-Italian coalition that included promises to serve the black community. Blacks expected appointments in the administration and changes in the police practices in the mostly black neighborhoods, such as the Central Ward. Instead, Addonizio did not incorporate blacks into his administration, which was highlighted by his decision to appoint an Irish high school graduate for a vacant seat in the school board instead of Wilbur Parker, a qualified African-American candidate. Incensed, the black community quickly lost faith in Addonizio’s government and promises to the black coalition that put him in power. Indeed, Fred Means, president of the Negro Educators of Newark, warned, “The Negro community is in turmoil over this injustice. If immediate steps are not taken, Newark might become another Watts.”  As Means indicates, the conditions were perfect for a riot on the scale of Watts to occur in Newark.

Furthermore, the city quickly demonstrated its lack of interest in the welfare of Black Newark by making plans to develop a 150-acre medical complex by tearing down black housing units. As part of a massive urban renewal project that included the construction of highways and downtown development that would also dislocate the black population, Addonizio’s policy clearly had negative implications for the city of Newark. A palpable lack of affordable housing outside of the mostly black Central Ward and the fact that blacks were already paying more for housing than whites in the city illustrates the danger of dislocating the black population. Since few could afford new housing in the suburbs or more expensive neighborhoods due to discrimination in the GI Bill, deindustrialization, and segregation, there was no other place for blacks to go. By 1967, over 40,000 of the city’s 136,000 housing units were slums with landlords who never improved housing but collected high rent from poor tenants.

The conditions for housing in Newark were so terrible that like the Bronx in the 1970s, landlords often burned their own property for insurance money, which averaged 3620 structural fires per year from 1961 to 1967.  For those unable to afford over-priced private housing, 11% of all Newarkers lived in high-rise, high-density public housing during this period as well, which concentrated the poor in one centralized area. Like a lot of private housing, the public housing projects were densely populated and made parental supervision of youth more difficult, increased the difficulty for maintenance workers, and lacked open space.  Thus, plans to force the black population to relocate using eminent domain was not realistic and faced stern opposition from the community through protests and rallies. And since Addonizio’s administration did nothing to mitigate the problem of unaffordable housing and the proliferation of slums, black opposition to urban renewal in consideration by the city was inevitable.

In addition, Addonizio challenged the Newark’s United Community Corporation, a product of President Johnson’s War on Poverty and Community Action Program. Acting autonomously from his oversight, the United Community Corporation was funded by the federal government for job programs, daycare centers, and other programs that served the black majority of the city. Seeing the program as an attempt to take away the power of the city government, Addonizio used his authority to require the program to receive mayoral approval before federal funding, effectively limiting its impact in the black community. Addonizio also failed to address problems in the economic sphere. As the flight of manufacturing jobs occurred with the closing of breweries, tanneries, and the exit of Westinghouse and General Electric, fewer employment opportunities were available for the blacks. Newark’s black population, the product of waves of northern migration from the rural South, was less educated and concentrated in unskilled labor. The loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector resulted in greater unemployment and accelerated poverty rates in the city, which hit the black community hardest. Indeed, young blacks entering the job market were hurt the worst, and 45.4% of Newark’s blacks between the ages of 15 and 35 later participated in the riot. The city administration should have been pushing for education and job training programs for blacks entering the job market to avoid the violent turn of events that took place in 1967.

Like the Addonizio, the police also exacerbated the racial tension in Newark. As Addonizio turned his back on his black constituents and pushed for policies that would hurt the black community, the police remained corrupt, violent, and racist. Since Addonizio refused to meet with black leaders in order to change police practices, the police continued their old forms of intimidation, unlawful arrests, beatings, and other forms of corruption. Like other riots, such as Los Angeles in 1992 or Miami in 1980, a black cabdriver, John W. Smith was pulled over by two white officers and beaten for supposedly improperly passing them. Unfortunately, this practice of intimidating, stopping blacks, and using excessive force was routine among Newark’s police force, which believed that “a little brutality would keep ‘them’ in their place.”

In 1965, Lester Long, for example, was shot in the back while fleeing police who doubted the authenticity of his papers and Lester was not the only one shot for minor or unproven crimes in Newark’s history. Due to the long history of police oppression and brutality, blacks saw them as an occupying force in the Central Ward, and did not trust them. The justice system’s failure to deal with police abuses and protect African-American citizens played a huge role in sparking the 1967 riot.

In fact, the riot began at the police precinct an incapacitated Smith was brought to, which was across the street from Hayes Homes project. Thinking that Smith was dead, people from the project angrily protested outside of the precinct. Although there still was an opportunity to resolve the issue through mediation between police and the city and black community leaders, the police charged into the crowd when picketers refused to leave and began hurling stones. By skipping peaceful mediation and dialogue, the police escalated the protests through the indiscriminate attacks on individuals and were no longer disciplined. A white cop even beat one of the few black officers during this initial phase of the riot! The collapse of police discipline and self-control quickly devolved into a “police riot.” Moreover, the riot was precipitated by police violence and after the first day of rioting, all civilian-caused deaths were over. The lack of organizational control of the police and National Guard led to shootings of unarmed civilians without provocation and fleeing looters, whose only crime had been ransacking supermarkets, liquor stores, drugstores, and junkyards. Thus, the riots were accelerated in length by internal disorder within the ranks of the police, who were responsible for 80% of the fatalities.

Police even raided apartments and shot women and children in search of black snipers believed to be targeting police from apartment windows, a phenomenon overblown by the media and used by police to enter the slums. Obviously the police’s use of unnecessary force, murder, a tradition of intimidating and brutalizing blacks only contributed to the start of the riot. Though the underlying factors facilitated the start of the riot by creating the housing, economic, political, and social conditions ripe for violent conflagration, the police only made matters worse after beating Smith.

The destructive 6-day riot that shook Newark and necessitated the presence of the National Guard, could have been avoided have the city government and police cooperated with the populace through interactive dialogue and included blacks in the administration. Of course the turbulence of the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement, and the nascent Black Power Movement contributed to the violent response of blacks throughout Northern cities. After witnessing incessant political exclusion, poverty, unemployment, segregation, and slum-life conditions, violent retribution by the black majority seemed the only way to get national attention to their plight. As groups accepted Frantz Fanon’s message of violent resistance to colonial domination in the Black Power age that identified African-Americans as colonized peoples within the United States, riots could be seen as part of the larger freedom movement. Resistance, self-determination through black representatives in the city government, and especially an end to the housing crisis, urban renewal projects destroying the black heart of Newark, and jobs for the unskilled were demands most blacks agreed on.

Indeed, 75% of the participants in the riot were employed and the rioters were representative of all classes in the black population, which means that this was not some riot caused by riffraff.  A large number of blacks representative of the working class and underclass united against the city’s continual neglect and exploitation by looting and destroying the mostly Jewish-owned stores in the Central Ward, symbols of their exploitation. While this may have hastened white flight from Newark and drove the black middle class away as well, this riot at least forced the nation to direct some attention, however brief and misinterpreted by some, to acknowledge the serious problems facing urban America and the increasingly segregated nature of life in America. As the city’s government and police demonstrated, the power structures in American cities clearly could not solve these problems on its own. America was moving toward two separate societies and they were increasingly unequal.

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