On September 1, Rachel Carter, an 18-year-old college student from South River, New Jersey, was visiting friends here. Carter, who is Black, and five friends who are white or Latino, were going for a walk at Crescent Beach Park when confronted by a gang of white youth who screamed, “Nigger go home” and other racist slurs.

Refusing to be intimidated, Carter and her friends refused to leave, and sat on a bench.

Five of the racists jumped on each of Carter’s male friends. A broken bottle and a sickle were used in the attack. When Carter tried to intervene, she was badly beaten.

One of Carter’s friends called 911. The racists fled when the cops arrived. Carter told the press that the cops refused to arrest one of the racists who returned to the scene of the attack. “Sources said the cops were spotted putting one suspect into their patrol car, then letting him go after driving around the corner,” the New York Daily News reported September 9.

Carter said the cops refused to take a report on the attack and told her and her friends to return to New Jersey. The five drove themselves to a hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for medical treatment.

No police investigation into the racist assault took place until four days later, when Joan Carter, Rachel’s mother, and another parent of one those attacked went to Staten Island to file a formal report with the police department and to talk to reporters.

Within a few days 11 people were arrested and four were charged.

At the September 21 rally, Debi Rose of the Staten Island African-American Political Association told the crowd, “We need to reject this idea that ‘boys will be boys.’ They need to be prosecuted!”

Another speaker, Edward Josey, president of the Staten Island NAACP, said, “No one should be subjected to any kind of racial assault, be they Black or white. When someone is confronted with any kind of racial remarks, physically attacked, and told to go back where you belong, they have had their civil rights and human rights violated.”

The protest was initiated by City Council members Charles Barron and Yvette Clarke, and Eric Adams, head of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.

Sheila Andrews came to the protest to “let people know about the racism here. I’ve lived here 20 years and have experienced the racism in education and economics.”

The two cops who came to the scene of the September 1 attack were suspended from the police department two days before the rally.  
 
 
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