I was born in 1950, and very well remember the riots of the 1960’s. Watched on tv and read everything I could about them.
IMHO, those riots were at least as important as anything in the election of Nixon in 1968. Remember his “law and order” campaign theme?
In the summer of 1967 I was eleven years old and living with my parents and siblings in Kearny, NJ., Newark was just about two miles to the west across the Passaic River. You could say I lived on Beaver Cleaver’s street. A peaceful, quiet ,tree-shaded street(Chestnut St.), until they had some sickness and were removed. We lived in a rambling 4 bedroom, two and a half bathroom beautiful Victorian home. White picket fence, milkman came around every morning with those cool bottles of milk, yup, it was as lily-white suburban as they came. And then on a hot July night the city of Newark exploded. I remember the grave concern of my Dad and the almost terrified look on my mothers face. Two young men, sons of our neighbors were in the National Guard and I remember seeing the two of them dash out of their parents home, in khakis , each carrying a web-belt that had a canteen on it and duffel bags. They had been called up. I was only 11 at the time and not really understanding what was going on. But the look of terror on my mothers face and those two young Guardsmen made me realize that this was something very serious. My Dad and Mom packed up some clothes for all of us(five boys, two girls), piled us into our ‘61 Valiant Station Wagon(with the ‘’Select-O-matic, push button transmission) and headed south to my aunts home in Belmar NJ, (on the Jersey Shore) and we stayed there for a week until it was okay to come back. The whole experience disturbed me. I didn’t understand what was happening and seeing my mother in the state she was in scared me. Funny how almost immediately after Johson signed the ‘’War on Poverty’’, Watts,in Los Angeles, Newark, Birmingham and other cities went up in flames. Boy, talk about stupid liberals and the law of unintended consequences. After over forty years now the city of Newark has never been the same. It has never fully recovered.
Nothing has changed. the media didn’t call them race riots then, and won’t now.
But they are race riots. And they’re not Chinese or Japanese doing the rioting.
Rochester wasn't one of the worse places but it did serve as a sign of where we (they) were heading as they started striking out at the good citizens because of what the Dim politicians were doing. I believe that was the catalyst that put us where we are today - seemingly hopeless in removing racism because they were being heavily indoctrinated then. Once the race-baiters discovered how easy it was to get them rioting in the streets, it was game over.
I have a vague recollection of my mother being scared to death that the rioters in Augusta, Ga. were going to come to the suburbs. My father was in Vietnam. We were literally cowering in our house watching the news to see where the current riots were occurring.
One of my friend’s father owned a dry cleaning store in New Haven, CT. During the riots that took place there in the late 1960’s, the plate glass window in the front of the store was broken by the rioters. My friend’s father replaced the glass only to have it broken the same day, again by rioters. So he packed up the family, moved to the suburbs, and open another store no where near New Haven. Many other businesses did likewise.
Basically, the race riots caused many businesses to leave downtown New Haven and made many of the people living in the surrounding towns avoid the city as much as possible. Crime rates rose, undesirables moved in and the city, IMHO, never recovered.
I was 10 years old in 1968, that was a bad year. The riots were bad, Detroit, Newark, NJ, some parts of Brooklyn have never really recovered from them, even to this day.
And the 70s were bad too, pretty much the entire country was on drugs. Watch some of the old “Matchgame” shows on Game Show Network to see how it was when everybody was coked up.
also i believe after reading some of the posts that they were started by the white and black socialists. Mantra of burn baby burn (Eldridge Cleaver?)as the great society wasn’t getting enough of white man’s money. whites and jews all moved out after that.
There was a riot in my town in either '69 or '70. I must've been only four or five years old, but I remember it all very well because my family lived on the main road through town. After the riots, that town turned into a ghost town overnight; many businesses closed down and pulled out. A few doors down from our house, though, a new business opened - a gun shop.
When I grew older, my father explained that the riot erupted after a man was killed on the street by the Warlocks, who'd been terrorizing everyone in town. Riots. Warlocks. Strange times indeed.
Then again, all times are strange. As a child, I also remember men in hardhats filling the street on a union march, while most of the neighborhood hid inside their homes. But, three generations of my family lived on that street, beginning in the early 1900's. And my oldest relatives remembered hiding in their homes as children when the Klan marched through with torches to protest the immigrants living there.
The world has always been a weird place. I think it's getting even weirder now, though.
I was living in Cleveland, Ohio during that time and I could hear the gunfire from my front porch. When I asked a Police officer friend about it he said that things calmed down quickly when the police brought in the 50 cal. mounted guns.
Parts of the black neighborhoods looked like Berlin after the war.
I believe you have a story about relatives controlling a bridge?