Vol. 71/No. 30      August 20, 2007

“After six years of the biggest boom in American history and 13 years of civil rights agitation the black masses are worse off than before,” wrote George Novack in the Sept. 4, 1967, Militant. “The authorities have shown themselves quicker to call out the National Guard than to act effectively against the conditions responsible for the revolts.”

Following the successful mass working-class political action in the South known as the civil rights movement, protests against racial discrimination spread to dozens of urban centers in the North in the mid-1960s. Rebellions broke out in Harlem in 1964, Watts in 1965, Chicago in 1966, and Newark and Detroit in 1967.

“The uprisings come as no surprise,” wrote Novack. “They climax a series which began four years ago in Birmingham” when a wave of mass marches and sit-ins against Jim Crow segregation were met by cop assaults.

In 1967 Blacks comprised nearly 60 percent of Newark’s population. Cop brutality was rampant and working people, especially African Americans, confronted rising levels of poverty with abysmal housing, education, and job conditions. In the summer of 1967, 20,000 working people were threatened with eviction to make room for a new highway and medical school.

Then on July 12 cops stopped, arrested, and beat African American cab driver John Smith. Crowds gathered in front of the Fourth Precinct police station where Smith was held and demanded to see him—dead or alive. Over the last year cops had killed at least nine men in that area. Smith survived.

The following day several hundred rallied against police brutality in front of the precinct. The cops responded by assaulting the protestors.

Thousands of youth took to the streets to protest the cop riot in one of the largest demonstration of Blacks ever held in Newark. Every major intersection in the area was filled with crowds of a thousand or more, according to eyewitness reports.

As the demonstrators gathered steam, Newark mayor Hugh Addonizio called on Gov. Richard Hughes to send state troopers and National Guardsmen to the city. Hughes complied, dispatching 627 state troopers and 5,900 National Guardsmen to join the 1,390 Newark cops.

Some people broke into stores. “I don’t understand all this talk about ‘looting,’” one resident told the Militant at the time. “They rob us every day. They rob us on the rent! They rob us on food, on the job! They rob our kids on education! Everything! What the hell do they expect!”

Under the pretext that snipers were hiding in the housing projects, the cops and National Guardsmen rolled through the city in tanks. They fired at Blacks returning home from work and through apartment windows. They destroyed about 100 Black-owned stores. In addition to killing 24 people, the cops and guardsmen wounded 1,100 and arrested many more. A fire captain and a police detective were killed during the rebellion.

“It was a long night of hell,” Lawrence Stewart wrote in an eye-witness report in the July 24, 1967, Militant. “Automatic fire rent the air from all directions. People stayed under their beds, in bathtubs, cellars—any place they thought they’d be safe.”

Later investigations found that out of 13,000 rounds of ammunition fired, only 100 were even alleged to have come from the community. None of the officers or guardsmen were indicted for any of the killings. No one was ever charged with being a sniper.

A few days after the rebellion nearly 1,000 people participated in a National Conference on Black Power in Newark. There, delegates learned that another Black rebellion had broken out in Detroit. The 40th anniversary of these events is big news here. Local politicians are using it to denounce “Black-on-Black violence” and celebrate a supposed revival of the city. Some also point to the unemployment, poor housing, and inferior education that continue to mark Newark today. Mayor Cory Booker dedicated a plaque and ordered flags to be flown at half mast for six days.

A July 12 action organized by the Black rights group People’s Organization for Progress commemorated the rebellion. About 100 people marched from the Fourth Precinct to a monument honoring those killed in the protests

Three days earlier, 100 people joined a discussion at a screening of the PBS documentary Revolution ’67 at the Newark Historical Society. The film was also shown several times at Newark’s only movie theater.  
 
 
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