By Kevin Mumford
2007 – New York University Press
A review
I
was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey and consider myself a student of
history. So, I was immediately interested in Kevin Mumford’s book on the
history of race relations in that city.
Mumford
is an Associate Professor of Afro-American history at Iowa University and lived
in Newark in 1998. His book is mostly written from the point of view of an
academic interested in Newark. He was not someone who participated in the
movements he has reported on. While Mumford has uncovered many facts worth
considering, my primary problem with his book is that it lacks a class
analysis. This would make the history of Newark more understandable. I can
begin by saying that in my opinion what Mumford calls the Newark riots of 1967
were rebellions against an oppressive political economic system.
Newark before the rebellions
Kevin
Mumford gives a list in his book of those who were arrested during the 1967
Newark rebellions. He shows that most of those arrested were born in the
Southern states where Jim Crow segregation was the law. I believe it is useful
to look at the background as to why Jim Crow became the law in the states where
chattel slavery, at one time, was a fact of life.
350,000
Union soldiers lost their lives in the Civil War. After the war, the federal
government took measures to ensure that the power of the former slave owners
was compromised. First, the government adopted the 13th Amendment to
the Constitution. This Amendment abolished chattel slavery except in cases
where someone is convicted of a crime.
Then,
in the year 1868 the government passed the 14th Amendment that was
supposed to guarantee equal protection under the law. If states did not provide
for equal protection, it is the job of the federal government to intervene.
Then, in 1875 the government passed the Civil Rights Act that expanded on the
14th Amendment.
By
the year 1877 the Republican federal government of President Rutherford B.
Hayes made an agreement with racist forces in the South to withdraw the federal
troops that had defended the reconstruction governments. These reconstruction
governments began to institute democratic reforms in the former slave states.
By 1883 the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act was illegal. This
decision, as well as the decision of Plessy
v. Ferguson in effect, reversed the 14th Amendment. The Supreme
Court isn’t supposed to have the power to reverse the Constitution, but it did
this anyway.
When
President Hayes withdrew federal troops from the southern states, he left the
progressive reconstruction governments largely defenseless. Racist forces of
the Ku Klux Klan and others mobilized to take state power. The result was that
Black people lost citizenship rights in this country.
Today
in Montgomery, Alabama there is a new memorial to the 4,000 people who were
lynched by racist forces in this country. As we have seen, the federal
government had an obligation to prosecute those who murdered the victims of
lynchings. When the government refused to prosecute these murderers, this same
government shared responsibility for all those murders.
This
was just one of the many reasons that explain what has been known as the Great Migration of Black people from the
states where Jim Crow segregation was the law.
After
the Second World War manufacturing in the United States expanded greatly. The
United States became the world’s superpower and began to dominate the
capitalist world economy.
Working
people had been living in impoverished conditions and felt that their
participation in the war earned them a better standard of living. So, when the
United States government attempted to go to war against the revolutionary
Chinese government, the U.S. soldiers refused and organized a “Bring the Troops
Home” movement.
When
the troops came home, hundreds of thousands began to understand that they
needed to carry out another war. This war was a massive strike wave where
hundreds of thousands of workers participated. In the course of this strike
wave unions began to understand that they needed to support the demands of all
workers, including Black workers who were systematically discriminated against.
Then,
there was the racist lynching of 14 year-old Emmitt Till in Mississippi. A few
months after Till’s murder, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a buss in
Montgomery, Alabama. This sparked the 385 day Montgomery Bus Boycott.
One
of the organizers of this boycott was E. D. Nixon who was a member of A.
Phillip Randolph’s Sleeping Car Porters Union. These events demonstrated that a
transition had taken place from the post WWII labor uprisings, to the Civil
Rights movement. Both these movements benefitted all working people.
So,
when Black workers left the states where Jim Crow was the law, there was a
certain expectation that they would have a better life in the Northern or
Western parts of the country. Clearly this migration didn’t happen until there
was a need for workers in industry. In spite of the union victories, Black
people found themselves with some of the worst jobs. However, some Black people
were shocked when they looked at Black
people routinely sitting in the front of municipal busses.
The Newark Rebellions
Just
as the government refused to prosecute the murderers who lynched Black people,
this same government refused to enforce, the idea of equal protection under the
law. As a result, Black people experienced systematic discrimination in
education, housing, health care, and employment. The most offensive form of
discrimination was from routine police brutality.
The
rebellion in Newark wasn’t about protesting a single incident. In January of 1967 business officials issued
a report where they argued that Newark’s problems were, “more grave and
pressing than those of perhaps any other American city.” City officials applied for funds under the
Model Cities Act using the following argument:
“Newark had the nation’s highest percentage
of bad housing, the most crime per 100,000 people, the heaviest tax burden, the
highest rates of venereal disease, maternal mortality, and new cases of
tuberculosis. The city was listed as
second in infant mortality, second in birth rate, seventh in absolute number of
drug addicts. Its unemployment rate in
the Black community was 15%.”
Before
the Newark rebellion, there were efforts to confront the most vicious forms of
racial discrimination. These protests were primarily organized by the group
Congress of Racial Equality. Also Tom Hayden headed a predominantly caucasian
group that came to Newark in an effort to assist in that struggle.
In
the meantime, events took place that began to change the consciousness of this
country. The Civil Rights movement effectively forced the government to adopt
the Civil Rights Act as well as the Voting Rights Act. These laws effectively
did away with Jim Crow segregation.
We
should keep in mind that from a legal standpoint these laws were not necessary
to do away with Jim Crow. All the government needed to do was to enforce the 14th
Amendment, but that action would have shown federal collusion with Jim Crow for
decades.
However,
while Jim Crow was no more, systematic discrimination continued. Malcolm X
understood this and advocated for self-determination for Black people. Malcolm’s
ideas began to transform the thinking of this country. He didn’t just think
that Blacks were victims, but that they have the potential to engage in a
movement that can win true liberation.
So,
after the rebellion in the Black community of Los Angeles known as Watts,
police officers arrested and brutalized John Smith who was a Newark taxi
driver. The fourth district police station where Smith was taken was in the
vicinity of the Hayes Homes, that was a housing project where thousands of
Black people lived. Residents protested the arrest and beating of Smith and
demanded that he be released. This was the beginning of the 1967 rebellion in
Newark.
Mayor
Hugh Adonizio asked New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes to send the National
Guard to suppress the popular insurrection that was erupting in Newark.
Governor Hughes toured Newark on Friday morning July 15 after these
events. He called the uprising, “An
obvious open rebellion.” This
description by Hughes differed from descriptions by Kevin Mumford, the press,
and the history books that have routinely called the Newark rebellions
“riots.” Hughes was open about his
hatred for the tax-paying residents of Newark with his statement:
“The
line between the jungle and the law might as well be drawn here as any place in
America.”
A
Committee of Concern that included the Episcopal Bishop, deans of Rutgers
Newark campus as well as their law school, and the vice-presidents of
Prudential Insurance Company disagreed with Governor Hughes statement. They issued a statement arguing that a major
cause of the rebellion was a belief held in the Black community that the police
are, “the single continuously lawless element operating in the community.”
Tom
Hayden underscored this sentiment in his statement showing how the rebellion
had a unified support in the Black community.
“Fathers
and mothers in the ghetto often complain that even they cannot understand the
wildness of their kids. Knowing that
America denies opportunity to black young men, black parents still share with
whites the sense that youth is heading in a radically new, incomprehensible,
and frightening direction. Refusal to
obey authority—that of the parents, teachers and other adult ‘supervisors’—is a
common charge against youngsters. Yet
when the riot broke out, the generations came together. The parents understood and approved the
defiance of their sons that night.”
In
all, between July 12 and 17, twenty-four African Americans and two caucasians
died in the rebellions. More than 1,100 sustained injuries; approximately 1,400
were arrested.
In
the former tsarist Russia, Jewish people used the word pogrom to describe murderous raids by racist vigilantes into their
communities. One of the definitions of the word pogrom is: A massacre or
persecution instigated by the government or by the ruling class against a
minority group, particularly Jews.
Given
the facts of what happened during the Newark rebellions, I believe that
Governor Hughes order to send the National Guard into the city was an order to
carry out a pogrom.
We
might also consider that the United States became a nation as a result of a
political revolution. The Declaration of
Independence states clearly that when the people are subjected to a “long train
of abuses” it is not only, “their right, but their duty” to throw off their
oppressors and establish new guards for their security.
At
the Boston Tea Party of 1773, insurgents boarded three ships in Boston
Harbor. It took them three hours to
throw 342 chests of tea overboard.
The
so-called “looting” of white owned stores was partly about the routine cheating
these storeowners practiced in the Black community. Well-dressed working people participated in
the rebellion and felt entitled to get even for all the money these stores
effectively stole from the community.
The insurgents left the Black owned stores alone.
We
might also keep in mind that at the same time the government sent the National
Guard to Newark, this same government was sending millions of young people to
go to war against the people of Vietnam. In all, millions of people died
because of this U.S. government’s instigated war. The wars against the people
of Vietnam and Newark both took place in order to defend capitalist interests
of the most affluent people in the world.
The political changes and polarization in Newark after the rebellion
Anthony Imperiale
Before
the rebellions, protests against racist discrimination came from the
organization CORE as well as individuals who put pressure on politicians for
change. After the rebellion Kevin Mumford argued that the two main political
orientations in the city were headed by Anthony Imperiale and Amiri Baraka.
Imperiale organized a supposed self-defense of the Italian community during the
rebellions. In reality, this so-called “self-defense” operation was about
defending Newark’s North Ward against unarmed victims who had been murdered or
injured by the National Guard.
We
should keep in mind that there is always a backlash or counter-revolutionary
movement after rebellions or revolutions. After the revolution that established
the United States, a coalition supporting the interests of slave owners took
control of the United States government. After the Civil War and
reconstruction, forces loyal to the Ku Klux Klan took control of the state
governments in the former slave states.
We
might also consider that Imperiale’s actions were a betrayal of Italian working
class traditions in this country. The following examples demonstrate that
Italians in this country have more in common with the struggles of Black people
than in allying with the repressive forces in this country.
In
the year 1891, eleven workers of Italian descent were lynched in New Orleans,
Louisiana. These Italians had been tried for murder, but the verdicts were
either not guilty or inconclusive. After these verdicts, racist mobs lynched
eleven Italians. Theodore Roosevelt, who became President of the United States
was quoted in support of the lynching.
Italians
had been recruited to work on sugar plantations doing work that had been done
by African American slave labor. There was a 1999 movie of this lynching titled
Vendetta produced by HBO.
Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian workers who were framed and
convicted of murder. Their case won support from around the world. In 1927 they
were both executed. In 1977 Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a
proclamation about Sacco and Vanzetti that said: “any disgrace should forever
be removed from their names.”
Rather
than follow in this working class tradition of battling against repressive
forces, Imperiale allied himself with these same repressive forces. After the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Imperiale waved a rifle in front of his
headquarters and criticized Mayor Adonizio for sending a letter of condolences
to King’s family.
The
author James Baldwin made an insightful comment with respect to this issue. He
argued that when immigrants from Europe came to this country, there was a
“price of the ticket.” This price was about forgetting the working class
traditions they experienced in Europe, and to become “white.” Baldwin argued
that the concept of being “white” is nothing more than an expression of power.
I don’t believe that all immigrants fit this description, but I do believe that
this statement explains one of the reasons for racial discrimination in the
United States.
Amiri Baraka
Amiri
Baraka was one of the leaders of the Black community in Newark. His idea was to
organize Black people to take control of the city in order to make the needed
changes. He aided in electing Ken Gibson to Mayor of the city. Gibson was one
of the first Black mayors in the history of the United States.
However,
Gibson ran for office as a democrat and supported capitalist interests. He
actively tried to enlist the support of Anthony Imperiale in his attempt to
create unity in the city.
While
Baraka clearly supported the interests of Blacks in the city, he didn’t see his
organization as a part of the working class of the city. Clearly, in order for
working people to advance we need to organize against all forms of
discrimination.
Malcolm
X, towards the end of his life, understood that there were caucasian people in
the world who were genuine revolutionaries. In my opinion, from the evidence
I’ve seen, Amiri Baraka was about advancing the interests of Black people
against the interests of working class caucasians.
This
is different from Ken Gibson’s appeal to Imperiale. Anthony Imperiale not only
opposed the interests of Black people, he ultimately allied himself against the
interests of working class Italians. A similar course led to the rise and fall
of Benito Mussolini, who headed a fascist government in Italy. A different political course might have had
the potential to expose this clear contradiction.
The new segregation
Recently,
I viewed a PBS documentary of the town of Montclair, New Jersey. The
documentary showed how Montclair had a history of discrimination, but that
today the city is largely integrated. However, one Black resident who has lived
there for years could not continue to afford the high cost of living and moved
out of town. The number of Black residents in the township is declining.
Montclair
has every style of international restaurant, museums, and a playhouse. There is
a train that connects Montclair to New York City. About 30% of the population
of the city works in management, finances, or corporate law.
Montclair
is one of several suburban towns that surround Newark where the standard of
living is in stark contrast to the city. Looking at this contrast one would
think that the suburbs and Newark were a part of a different world and not just
a few miles apart.
Newark
used to be a commercial center where people from around the area came to the
city to do their shopping. Now there are shopping malls that surround the city.
This is one reason why the city population has declined from about 450,000 to
about 280,000. The first home where I lived in Newark was destroyed to make way
for Route 78 that connects the suburban communities to New York City.
One
measure city and state officials have used to further drive down the standard
of living for working people is to make the property tax rate in New Jersey one
of the highest in the nation. We might keep this in mind when we consider the
fact that Newark and New Jersey are currently offering the Amazon Corporation
about $7 billion in tax incentives. This is in the hope that Amazon will build
one of their headquarters in Newark.
The economy is based on profits, not human needs
When
think about all the things that we all need and want, these would include:
food, clothing, housing, transportation, communication, education, health care,
and exposure to cultural activities such as music, art, dance, theater, the
film, and literature. We might also think about the fact that most of the real
estate in Manhattan, New York consists of office buildings.
In
other words, these office buildings rarely if ever produce the things we all
need and want. These buildings house enterprises such as banks, insurance
companies, advertising agencies, stock brokerage houses, and corporate law
firms. While we do not need the so-called services of these enterprises, we
need to pay for all those services whenever we make a purchase. So, while
production costs usually go down due to automation and lower labor costs,
prices are always going up.
The
crisis that led to the wars against the people of Newark as well as the people
of Vietnam continue to be with us. Capitalists are routinely driven to cut
costs as well as increase sales. This state of affairs has obvious
consequences. Sooner or later there are more commodities on the market than
there are consumers to purchase those commodities. Then, capitalists simply
shut down production and throw people out of work.
The
Cuban Revolution has shown the world that there is another way. Almost
immediately after the revolution the new Cuban government organized a literacy
drive to ensure that everyone on the island knew how to read. This literacy
drive was the foundation for making Cuba the nation in the world that has the
highest number of doctors per capita.
In
the United States we see advertisements to collect charity for people in the
world who don’t have the basic necessities. Cuba, on the other hand, has sent
volunteers to provide all kinds of assistance to some of the least affluent
places in the world.
Conclusion
Most
histories of the civil rights movement portray a non-violent protest against
Jim Crow segregation. The facts are that after Jim Crow was outlawed, this did
little to change the reality for Black people in the northern states.
However,
after the rebellions, I believe that capitalists realized that things needed to
change. They had no interest in allowing more rebellions in the cities that
would cost them a lot of money. So, affirmative action programs took off and
Black people suddenly had educational as well as employment opportunities they
never had before. However, there was a catch.
While
capitalists don’t like to see widespread rebellions, they also do not like to
invest money to improve the conditions working people face every day. The labor
movement, the civil rights movement, as well as the rebellions did have a clear
effect in improving the standard of living in this country.
Capitalists
responded to these improved conditions by making massive investments all over
the world in factories where workers have salaries of between one and ten
dollars per day. This massive shift in capital expenditures has caused an
overall decline in the standard of living for working people in this country.
I
viewed the effects of the capitalist response to the rebellions every day while
I was attending high school. I took a bus that went down Bergen Street and
Springfield Avenue where I routinely saw burned out buildings day after day,
year after year.
As
we have seen, the deterioration in the standard of living most ruthlessly
effects the least affluent. While other cities rebuilt destroyed properties after
the rebellions, people as well as corporations moved out of the Newark. The
housing projects apparently became such an obvious disaster that most of them
were destroyed.
However,
history has shown us that the working class has a tremendous amount of endurance.
We might consider that the past reality was even more horrendous than the
conditions we face today. The Cuban people have shown us that working people
have the potential to transform the world. My experience has shown that working
people inside and outside of Newark also have the potential to make this
change.
The
capitalist system is driving us to a place where working people will need to respond in a meaningful way to
our deteriorating standard of living. Rebellions are precursors of revolutions.
Working people have the potential to learn from the rebellions of 1967, and put
in place a government that makes it’s top priority to provide for the human
needs of everyone.
