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. The six days of rioting, looting, and destruction left 26 dead and hundreds injured.
Contents
Social unrest
In the period leading up to the riots, police racial profiling, redlining, and lack of opportunity in education, training, and jobs led local African-American residents to feel powerless and disenfranchised. In particular, many felt they had been largely excluded from meaningful political representation and often suffered police brutality.
Unemployment and poverty were also very high with the traditional manufacturing base having been fully eroded and withdrawn from the Northeast US by 1967. Further fueling tensions was the final decision by the state of New Jersey to clear a vast tract of land in the central ward of its tenement buildings displacing thousands, to build the new University of Medicine and Dentistry facility. (In subsequent years the UMDNJ facility would become an important primary care facility for the remaining residents.)
According to a Rutgers University study on the riot, many African Americans, especially younger community leaders, felt they had remained largely disenfranchised in Newark despite the fact that Newark became one of the first majority black major cities in America alongside Washington, D.C. In sum, the city was entering a turbulent period of incipient change in political power. A former seven-term congressman representing New Jersey's 11th congressional district, Mayor Hugh Addonizio (who was also the last non-black mayor of Newark) took few steps to incorporate blacks in various civil leadership positions and to help blacks get better employment opportunities. Black leaders were increasingly upset that the Newark Police Department was dominated by white officers who would routinely stop and question black youths with or without provocation.
Despite being one of the first cities in the U.S. to hire black police officers, the department's demographics remained at odds with the city's population, leading to poor relations between blacks and the police department. Only 145 of the 1322 police officers were black (11%), mirroring national demographics, while the city remained over 50% black.
Sparking event
This unrest came to a head when two white Newark policemen, John DeSimone and Vito Pontrelli, arrested a black cabdriver, John Weerd Smith. After signaling, Smith passed the double parked police car, was then pursued and pulled over by the officers. He was arrested, beaten by the officers and taken to the 4th Police Precinct where he was charged with assaulting the officers, and making insulting remarks. Residents of Hayes Homes, a large public housing project, saw an incapacitated Smith being dragged into the precinct, and a rumor was started that he had been killed while in police custody (Smith had in fact been released in the custody of his lawyer). When police rushed out of their station wearing hard hats and carrying clubs, people began to throw bricks, bottles, and rocks. At least five police officers were struck by stones, according to one policeman. Some residents went to City Hall and shouted angry protests. After midnight false alarms caused fire engines to race around a six block area along Belmont Avenue in the ghetto area. Looters smashed windows, and threw merchandise onto sidewalks. According to police, liquor stores were the main target of looters.
Subsequent Events
The next evening, a crowd of rioters broke all of the windows in the 5th Precinct station, and were dispersed by police using clubs. Looting began along Springfield Avenue, the heart of the area business district. Next a car was burned and a policeman was injured by a flying brick after which shotguns were issued to some police. By midnight looting was occurring in a wider area, all police were placed on emergency duty and fires were being started. At 1:00 A.M. police were told to "fire if necessary." Within two hours National Guard and state troopers were called out.
Early in the evening of July 15 a woman named Rebecca Brown was killed in a fusillade of bullets directed at the window of her second floor apartment. This event helped to set off the worst of the fighting. By the sixth day, riots, looting, violence, and destruction ultimately left a total of 16 civilians, 8 suspects, a police officer, and a firefighter dead; 353 civilians, 214 suspects, 67 police officers, 55 firefighters, and 38 military personnel injured; and 689 civilians and 811 suspects 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 city about 18 miles southwest of Newark.
The long- and short-term causes of the riots are examined in the documentary film Revolution '67. The riots were depicted in the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral.
Impact
While the riots are often cited as a major factor in the decline of Newark and its neighboring communities, longer-term racial, economic, and political forces contributed towards generating inner city poverty. By the 1960s and 1970s, 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.
As of 2000, the Newark Police Department was 37% black, 27% Hispanic and 36% white though the city remained 52% black, 34% Hispanic, and 14% white. As of 2016, "the police force is now thirty-five per cent black and forty-one per cent Latino."