V. NORTHERN NEW JERSEY

Reports of looting, sniping, fire and death in Newark wove a web of tension over other Negro enclaves in northern New Jerky. Wherever Negro ghettos existed—Elizabeth, Englewood, Jersey City, Plainfield, New Brunswick—people had friends and relatives living in Newark. Everywhere the telephone provided a direct link to the scenes of violence. The telephoned messages frequently were at variance with reports transmitted by the mass media.

As reports of the excessive use of firearms in Newark grew, so did fear and anger in the Negro ghettos. Conversely, rumors amplified by radio, television and the newspapers—especially with regard to guerrilla bands roaming the streets—created a sense of danger and terror within the white communities. To Mayor Patricia Q. Sheehan of New Brunswick, it seemed "almost as if there was a fever in the air." She went on to say: "Rumors were coming in from all sides on July 17th. Negroes were calling to warn of possible disturbances; whites were calling; shop owners were calling. Most of the people were concerned about a possible bloodbath."

Her opinion was: "We are talking ourselves into it."

Everywhere there was the same inequality with regard to education, job opportunities, income, and housing. Everywhere, partly because the Negro population was younger than the white, Negroes were under-represented on the local government. In six New Jersey communities5 with sizeable Negro populations, of a total of 50 councilmen, six were Negro.
a half dozen school systems in which Negro children comprised as much as half of the school population, of a total of 42 members on boards of education, seven were Negro.

In each of the ghettos the Negro felt himself surrounded ° by an intransigent wall of whites. In four suburban cities-

Bloomfield, Harrison, Irvington, and Maplewood—forming an arc about Newark, out of a total population of more than 150,000, only 1,000 were Negroes. In the six cities surrounding Plainfield, out of a population of more than 75,000, only 1,500 were Negro.

Three northern New Jersey communities, Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth, had had disorders in previous years, the first two in 1964, Elizabeth in both 1964 and 1965. In general, these seem to have developed from resentment against the police. The most serious outbreak had occurred in Jersey City after police had arrested a woman, and a rumor circulated that the woman had been beaten.

As early as May, 1967, the authorities in Jersey City and Elizabeth had started receiving warnings of trouble in the summer ahead. Following the Newark outbreak, rumors and reports, as in New Brunswick, became rampant. The police, relying on past experiences, were in no mood to take chances. In both Jersey City and Elizabeth patrols were augmented, and the departments were placed in a state of alert.

The view from Jersey City is that of the New York skyline, Except for a few imposing buildings, such as the high-rise New Jersey Medical Center, much of the city is a collection of factories and deteriorating houses, cut up by ribbons of super-highways and railroads.

As one of the principal freight terminals for New York City, Jersey City's decline has paralleled that of the railroads.

As railroad lands deteriorated in value and urban renewal lands were taken off the tax rolls, assessed valuation plummeted from $464 million in 1964 to $367 million in 1967. The tax rate, according to Mayor Thomas J. Whelan, has "reached the point of diminishing returns."

Urban renewal projects, which were intended to clear slums and replace them with low-cost housing, in fact, resulted in a reduction of 2,000 housing units. On one area, designated for urban renewal six years before, no work had been done, and it remained as blighted in 1967 as it had been in 1961. Ramshackle houses deteriorated, no repairs were made, yet people continued to inhabit them. "Planners make plans and then simply tell people what they are going to do," Negroes complained in their growing opposition to such projects.

Wooden sewers serve residents of some sections of the city. Collapsing brick sewers in other sections back up the sewage. The population clamors for better education, but the school system has reached its bonding capacity. By 1975 it is estimated that there will be a net deficit of 10 elementary schools and one high school.

Recently the mayor proposed to the Ford Foundation that it take over the operation of the entire educaeducationalem. offer was declined.

Many whites send their children to parochial schools. Possibly as a result, white residents have been slower to move the suburbs than in other cities.

The exodus, however, is accelerating. Within the past 10 years the Negro population has almost doubled, and now comprises an estimated 20 percent of the total. The little negro political leadership that exists is fragmented and inisive. The county in which Jersey City is located is run by an old-line political machine that has given Negroes little opportunity for participation.

Although the amount of schooling whites and Negroes have had is almost equal, in 1960 the median family income of whites was $1,500 more than that of Negroes.

The police department, like Newark's, one of the largest in the nation for a city of its size, has a reputation for toughness A successful white executive recalled that in his childhood: "We were accustomed to the Special Service Division of the Police Department. If we were caught hanging around we were picked up by the police, taken near the city, hospital, and beaten with a rubber hose."

A city official, questioned about Negro representation on the 825-man police force, replied that it was 34 times greater than 20 years ago. Twenty years ago it had consisted of one man.

During the four days of the Newark riot, when Jersey City was flooded with tales of all description, Mayor Whelan announced that if there were any disturbances he would "meet force with force." The ghetto area was saturated with police officers.

On Monday and Tuesday, July 17 and 18, when crowds gathered and a few rocks were thrown, mass arrests were made. Only one store was broken into, and pilferage was limited to items such as candy and chewing gum.

One man died. He was a Negro passenger in a cab into which ,a Negro boy threw a Molotov cocktail.

In Elizabeth, as in Jersey City, police had beefed up their patrols, and the very presence of so many officers contributed to the rising tensions. Residents of the 12-block by 3-block ghetto, jammed between the New Jersey Turnpike and the waterfront, expressed the opinion that: "We are being punished but we haven't done anything."

"The community," another said later, "felt it was in a concentration camp."

Youths from the two high-density housing projects concentrated in the area were walking around saying: We're next, We might as well go."

Between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. Monday, July 17, a window was broken in a drugstore across the street from a housing project A businessman commented: "Down here in the port it's business as usual when one store window is broken each week. What is normal becomes abnormal at a time like this. When the -window was broken, three extra police Cars Were sent to the area Shortly after 11:00 p.m, the field supervisor dispatched three more cars and, observing the 'crowd gathering at the housing project, requested an additional 30 patrolmen. The department activated its emergency recall plan.

Since there are almost no recreational facilities, on any summer night scores of youths may be found congregating on the streets near the housing projects. As more and more police Cars patrolled the streets, rocks and bottles were thrown at them.

Store windows were broken. Fires were set in trash cans and in the middle of the street An expectation of impending violence gripped the crowd.
Arriving on the scene, Human Rights Commission Executive Director Hugh Barbour requested that, in order to relieve tension, the extra police be withdrawn from the immediate vicinity or the crowd. The officer in command agreed to pull back the rfatrols.

Workers from the anti poverty agency and the Human relations Commission began circulating through the area, attempting to get kids off the street. Many or the residents 'had relatives and friends in Newark. Based on what had happened there, they feared that if the disturbance were not curbed, it would turn into a bloodbath.

The peacemakers were making little headway when a chicken fluttered out of the shattered window of a wintry Market One youth tried to throw gasoline on it and set it afire. As the gasoline sloshed onto the pavement, the chicken leaped: The flames merely singed its feathers. A gangling six-foot youth attempted to stomp the chicken. The bird, which had appeared dead, reacted violently. As it fluttered and darted out of his -Way, the youth screamed, slipped, and tumbled against a tree.

The stark comedy reduced the tension. People laughed soon some began to drift home.

A, short time later a Molotov cocktail was thrown agains the front of a tavern. Fire engines met with no opposition as they extinguished the flames before they could do much damage.
The chief of police ordered the area cleared. As the office N moved in, the persons who remained on the street scattered Within 15 minutes the neighborhood was desertzd.

Both municipal authorities and Negro leaders feared that, if the disorder followed the pattern of other disturbances, there would be an intensification of action by youths the next day. Therefore, the next evening, police patrolled the 36 square blocks with more than 100 men, some of them stationed on rooftops. Tension mounted as residents viewed the helmeted officers, armed with shotguns and rifles.

Early in the evening the mayor agreed to meet with a delegation of 13 community leaders. When they entered his office, the chief of police was already present. The mayor read him an order that, if he were faced with sniping or flagrant looting, his men were to: "Shoot to kill. . . . Force will be met with superior force." An officer's deviation from this order, the mayor said, would be considered dereliction of duty.

Some of the members of the delegation believed that the Mayor had staged the reading of this order for their benefit, were not pleased by his action. They proposed a "peacekeeper task force." The mayor agreed to let them try. One hundred stickers with the word "Peacekeeper" were printed.

One of those who agreed to be a peacemaker was Hesham ,Jaaber. Jaaber, who officiated at Malcolm X's funeral and has 'made two pilgrimages to Mecca, is a leader of a small sect of Orthodox Moslems. A teacher of Arabic and the Koran at the ,Spirit House in Newark, he is a militant who impressed the mayor with his sense of responsibility.

Although Jaaber believed that certain people were sucking the life blood out of the community—"Count the number of taverns and bars in the Elizabeth port area and compare them With the number of recreation facilities"—he had witnessed the carnage in Newark and believed it could serve no purpose to have a riot. Two dozen of his followers, in red fezzes, took to the streets to urge order. He himself traveled about in a car with a bullhorn.

As the peacekeepers began to make their influence felt, the police withdrew from the area. There was no further trouble.

Nevertheless, many white citizens reacted unfavorably to the fact that police had permitted Negro community leaders to aid in the dispersal of the crowd on the first night. The police were called "yellow," and accused of allowing the looting and damaging of stores.

In Englewood, a bedroom community of 28,000, astride the Palisades opposite New York, police had been expecting a riot by some of the city's 7,000 Negro residents since two weeks before Newark. As part of this expectation they had tested tear gas guns on the police firing range, situated in the middle of the Negro residential area. The wind had blown the tear gas into, surrounding houses. The occupants had been enraged.

A continuing flow of rumors and anonymous tips to poi ` of a riot in preparation had specified July 19 and July U.' However, the week following the Newark outbreak, the rump began mentioning Friday, July 21, as the date. And it was on that day the chief of police became sufficiently concerned to . alert the mayor, order mobilization of the police department, and request police assistance from Bergen County and nearby Communities. The 160 officers who responded brotight total force in Englewood that evening to 220 men.

At approximately 9:00 p.m. a rock was thrown through a market in the lower class Negro area, resulting in the setting off 'of a burglar alarm at police headquarters. Two police cars responded. They were hit by rocks.

The tactical force of officers that had been assembled were rushed, to the scene. A small number of persons estimated in the official police report to be no more than 15 or 20, were standing in the street When police formed a skirmish line, the loiterers, mostly youths, retreated into a large nearby park.

As the police remained in the vicinity, people, :attracted by tM  presence of the officers began drifting out of the -park. -- Angry verbal exchanges took place between the residents and the police. The Negroes demanded to see the mayor.'

The mayor arrived. The residents complained about th presence of so many police officers. Other grievance% many them -minor, began to be aired. According to the -mayor, h --,became involved in a "shouting match," and departed. Shortly
thereafter the police, too, left.

They returned at a report that two markets had been hit by Molotov cocktails. Arriving, they discovered firemen fighting two small fires on the outside of the markets.

The police ordered the people on the street to disperse and return to their homes. A rock knocked out a streetlight. Darkness blanketed the area. From behind hedges and other places of concealment a variety of missiles were thrown at the police.

The officer in charge was cut severely when a bottle broke the windshield of a car.

A fire department lighting unit was brought to the scene to illuminate the area. Except for some desultory rock throwing the neighborhood was quiet for the rest of the night. The only other disturbance occurred when a small band of youths made a foray into the city's principal business district two blocks away. Although a few windows were broken, there was no looting. Police quickly sealed off the area.

The same pattern of disorders continued for the next three nights. A relatively large number of police, responding to the breaking of windows or the setting of a fire, would come upon a small number of persons in the street. Fires repeatedly were !et at or near the same two stores and a tavern. On one occaRion two Negro youths threw Molotov cocktails at police offi.- ,strs, and the officers responded with gunfire.

Although sounds resembling gunshots were heard sporadiCally throughout the area, no bullets or expended shells were , found. Lt. William Clark who, as the Bergen County Police Department's civil disorders expert, was on the scene, reported that teenagers, as a harassing tactic, had exploded cherry bombs and firecrackers over a widely scattered area. Another view is that there may have been shots, but that they were fired into 'the air.

Nevertheless, the press reported that: "Snipers set up a .1hree-way crossfire at William and Jay Streets in the heart of tR Fourth Ward Negro ghetto, and pinned down 100 police-then, four reporters and a photographer for more than an -hour."

These reports were "very definitely exaggerated and overplayed," according to Deputy Chief William F. Harrington of the Englewood Police Department. What police termed a "dislurbance" appeared in press reports as a "riot," and "was way Put of proportion in terms of the severity of the situation."

" I feel strongly," the Chief said, "that the news media . 'actually inflamed the situation day by day."

6 Jersey City, Elizabeth, Englewood, Plainfield, Paterson, New Brunswick.