In the morning, police made no effort to cordon off the area. As white sightseers and churchgoers drove by the housing project there was sporadic rock throwing. During the early afternoon, such incidents increased.

At the housing project, a meeting was convened by L. C. to draw up a formal petition of grievances. As the youths gathered it became apparent that some of them had been drinking. A few kept drifting away from the parking lot where the meeting was being held to throw rocks at passing cars. It was decided to move the meeting to a county park several blocks away.

Between 150 and 200 persons, including almost all of the rock throwers, piled into a caravan of cars and headed for the park. At approximately 3:30 p.m., the chief of the Union County park police arrived to find the group being addressed by David Sullivan, executive director of the human relations commission. He "informed Mr. Sullivan he was in violation of our park ordinance and to disperse the group."

Sullivan and L. C. attempted to explain that they were in the process of drawing up a list of grievances, but the chief remained adamant. They could not meet in the park without a permit, and they did not have a permit.

After permitting the group 10 to 15 minutes grace, the chief decided to disperse them. "Their mood was very excitable," he reported, and "in my estimation no one could appease them so we moved them out without too much trouble. They left in a caravan of about 40 cars, horns blowing and yelling and headed south on West End Avenue to Plainfield."

Within the hour, looting became widespread. Cars were overturned, a white man was snatched off a motorcycle, and the fire department stopped responding to alarms because the police were unable to provide protection. After having been on alert until midday, the Plainfield Police Department was caught unprepared. At 6 p.m., only 18 men were on the streets. Checkpoints were established at crucial intersections in an effort to isolate the area.

Officer John Gleason, together with two reserve officers, had been posted at one of the intersections, three blocks from the housing project. Gleason was a veteran officer, the son of a former lieutenant on the police department. Shortly after 8 p.m., two white youths, chased by a 22-year-old Negro, Bobby Williams, came running from the direction of the ghetto toward Gleason's post.

As he came in sight of the police officers, Williams stopped. Accounts vary of what happened next, or why Officer Gleason took the action he did. What is known is that when D.H., the newspaper reporter, caught sight of him a minute or two later, Officer Gleason was two blocks from his post. Striding after Williams directly into the ghetto area, Gleason already had passed one housing project. Small groups were milling about. In D.H.'s words: "There was a

kind of shock and amazement," to see the officer walking by himself so deep in the ghetto.

Suddenly, there was a confrontation between Williams and Gleason. Some witnesses report Williams had a hammer in his hand. Others say he did not. When D.H., whose attention momentarily had been distracted, next saw Gleason he had drawn his gun and was firing at Williams. As Williams, critically injured, fell to the ground, Gleason turned and ran back toward his post.

Negro youths chased him. Gleason stumbled, regained his balance, then had his feet knocked out from under him. A score of youths began to beat him and kick him. Some residents of the apartment house attempted to intervene, but they were brushed aside. D.H. believes that, under the circumstances and in the atmosphere that prevailed at that moment, any police officer, black or white, would have been killed.

After they had beaten Gleason to death, the youths took D.H.'s camera from him and smashed it.

Fear swept over the ghetto. Many residents-both lawless and law-abiding-were convinced, on the basis of what had occurred in Newark, that law enforcement officers, bent on vengeance, would come into the ghetto shooting.

People began actively to prepare to defend themselves. There was no lack of weapons. Forty-six carbines were stolen from a nearby arms manufacturing plant and passed out in the street by a young Negro, a former newspaper boy. Most of the weapons fell into the hands of youths, who began firing them wildly. A fire station was peppered with shots.

Law enforcement officers continued their cordon about the area, but made no attempt to enter it except, occasionally, to rescue someone. National Guardsmen arrived shortly after midnight. Their armored personnel carriers were used to carry troops to the fire station, which had been besieged for 5 hours. During this period only one fire had been reported in the city. Reports of sniper firing, wild shooting, and general chaos continued until the early morning hours.

By daylight Monday, New Jersey state officials had begun to arrive. At a meeting in the early afternoon, it was agreed that to inject police into the ghetto would be to risk bloodshed; that, instead, law enforcement personnel should continue to retain their cordon.

All during the day various meetings took place between government officials and Negro representatives. Police were anxious to recover the carbines that had been stolen from the arms plant. Negroes wanted assurances against retaliation. In the afternoon, L.C., an official of the human relations commission, and others drove through the area urging people to be calm and to refrain from violence.

At 8 p.m., the New Jersey attorney general, commissioner of community affairs, and commander of the state police, accompanied by the mayor, went to the housing project and spoke to several hundred Negroes. Some members of the crowd were hostile. Others were anxious to establish a dialog. There were demands that officials give concrete evidence that they were prepared to deal with Negro grievances. Again, the meeting was inconclusive. The officials returned to City Hall.

At 9:15 p.m., L. C. rushed in claiming that-as a result of the failure to resolve any of the outstanding problems, and reports that people who had been arrested by the police were being beaten-violence was about to explode anew. The key demand of the militant faction was that those who had been arrested during the riot should be released. State officials decided to arrange for the release on bail of 12 arrestees charged with minor violations. L. C., in turn, agreed to try to induce return of the stolen carbines by Wednesday

noon.

As state officials were scanning the list of arrestees

to determine which of them should be released, a message was brought to Colonel Kelly of the state police that general firing had broken out around the perim

eter.

The report testified to the tension: an investigation disclosed that one shot of unexplained origin had been heard. In response, security forces had shot out street lights, thus initiating the "general firing."

At 4 o'clock Tuesday morning, a dozen prisoners were released from jail. Plainfield police officers considered this a "sellout."

When, by noon on Wednesday, the stolen carbines had not been returned, the governor decided to authorize a mass search. At 2 p.m., a convoy of state police and National Guard troops prepared to enter the area. In order to direct the search as to likely locations, a handful of Plainfield police officers were spotted throughout the 28 vehicles of the convoy.

As the convoy prepared to depart, the state community affairs commissioner, believing himself to be carrying out the decision of the governor not to permit Plainfield officers to participate in the search, ordered their removal from the vehicles. The basis for his order was that their participation might ignite a clash between them and the Negro citizens.

As the search for carbines in the community progressed, tension increased rapidly. According to witnesses and newspaper reports, some men in the search force left apartments in shambles.

The search was called off an hour and a half after it was begun. No stolen weapons were discovered. For the Plainfield police, the removal of the officers from the convoy had been a humiliating experience. A half hour after the conclusion of the search, in a meeting charged with emotion, the entire department threatened to resign unless the state community affairs commissioner left the city. He acceded to the demand.

On Friday, 7 days after the first outbreak, the city began returning to normal.

VII. NEW BRUNSWICK

Although New Brunswick has about the same population as Plainfield, New Brunswick is a county seat and center of commerce, with an influx of people during the day. No clearly defined Negro ghetto exists. Substantial proportions of the population are Puerto Rican, foreign-born, and Negro.

All during the weekend, while violence sputtered, flared, subsided, then flared again in Plainfield, less than 10 miles away, there were rumors that "New Brunswick was really going to blow." Dissatisfaction in the Negro community revolved around several issues: the closing of a local teenage coffeehouse by the police department, the lack of a swimming pool and other recreation facilities, and the release of a white couple on very low bond after they had been arrested for allegedly shooting at three Negro teenagers. As elsewhere, there was a feeling that the law was not being applied equally to whites and Negroes.

By Monday, according to Mayor Patricia Sheehan, the town was "haunted by what had happened in Newark and Plainfield." James E. Amos, the associate director of the antipoverty program in Middlesex County, said there was a "tenseness in the air" that "got thicker and thicker."

the

Staff members of the antipoverty agency met with mayor and city commissioners to discuss what steps might be taken to reduce the tension. The mayor, who had been elected on a reform platform 2 months previously, appointed a Negro police officer, Lieutenant John Brokaw, as community liaison officer. He was authorized to report directly to the mayor.

Negro officers in the department went into the streets in plain clothes to fight rumors and act as counterrioters. Uniformed police officers were counseled to act with restraint to avoid the possibility of a police action setting off violence. The radio station decided on its own initiative to play down rumors and news of any disturbance.

The antipoverty agency set up a task force of workers to go into all of the communities, white, Puerto Rican, and Negro, to report information and to try to cool the situation.

The chief of police met with the chiefs of surrounding communities to discuss cooperation in case a disorder broke out.

The streets remained quiet until past 9 p.m. Then scattered reports of windows being broken began to be received by police. At 10:30 p.m., Amos noticed 100 youngsters marching in a column of twos down the street. A tall Negro minister stepped from the office of the antipoverty agency and placed himself in the street in order to head them off.

"Brothers! Stop! Let me talk to you!" he called out. The marchers brushed past him. A small boy, about

13 years old, looked up at the minister:

"Black power, baby!" he said.

The New Brunswick police were reinforced by 100 officers from surrounding communities. Roadblocks were set up on all principal thoroughfares into the city. Wild rumors swept the city: reports of armed Negro and white gangs, shootings, fires, beatings, and deaths. In fact, what occurred was more in the nature of random vandalism. According to Mayor Sheehan, it was "like Halloween-a gigantic night of mischief.”

Tuesday morning the mayor imposed a curfew, and recorded a tape, played periodically over the city's radio station, appealing for order. Most of the persons who had been picked up the previous night were released on their own recognizance or on low bail.

The antipoverty agency, whose summer program had not been funded until a few days previously, began hiring youngsters as recreational aides. So many teenagers applied that it was decided to cut each stipend in half and hire twice as many as planned.

When the youngsters indicated a desire to see the mayor, she and the city commissioners agreed to meet with them. Although initially hostile, the 35 teenagers who made up the group "poured out their souls to the mayor." The mayor and the city commissioners agreed to the drawing up of a statement by the Negro youths attacking discrimination, inferior educational and employment opportunities, police harassment, and poor housing.

Four of the young people began broadcasting over the radio station, urging their "soul brothers and sisters" to "cool it, because you will only get hurt and the mayor has talked with us and is going to do something for us." Other youths circulated through the streets with the same message.

Despite these measures, a confrontation between the police and a crowd that gathered near a public housing project occurred that evening. The crowd was angry at the massive show of force by police in riot dress. "If you don't get the cops out of here," one man warned, "we are all going to get our guns." Asked to return to their homes, people replied: "We will go home when you get the police out of the area."

Requested by several city commissioners to pull back the uniformed police, the chief at first refused. He was then told it was a direct order from the mayor. The police were withdrawn.

A short time later, elements of the crowd-an older and rougher one than the night before-appeared in front of the police station. The participants wanted to see the mayor.

Mayor Sheehan went out onto the steps of the station. Using a bullhorn, she talked to the people and asked that she be given an opportunity to correct

conditions. The crowd was boisterous. Some persons challenged the mayor. But, finally, the opinion, "She's new! Give her a chance!" prevailed.

A demand was issued by people in the crowd that all persons arrested the previous night be released. Told that this already had been done, the people were

VIII. DETROIT

On Saturday evening, July 22, the Detroit Police Department raided five "blind pigs." The blind pigs had had their origin in prohibition days, and survived as private social clubs. Often, they were after-hours drinking and gambling spots.

The fifth blind pig on the raid list, the United Community and Civic League at the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount, had been raided twice before. Once 10 persons had been picked up; another time, 28. A Detroit vice squad officer had tried but failed to get in shortly after 10 o'clock Saturday night. He succeeded, on his second attempt, at 3:45 Sunday morning.

The Tactical Mobile Unit, the Police Department's crowd control squad, had been dismissed at 3 a.m. Since Sunday morning traditionally is the least troublesome time for police in Detroit-and all over the country-only 193 officers were patroling the streets. Of

suspicious. They asked to be allowed to inspect the jail cells.

It was agreed to permit representatives of the people to look in the cells to satisfy themselves that everyone had been released.

The crowd dispersed. The New Brunswick riot had failed to materialize.

these, 44 were in the 10th precinct where the blind pig was located.

Police expected to find two dozen patrons in the blind pig. That night, however, it was the scene of a party for several servicemen, two of whom were back from Vietnam. Instead of two dozen patrons, police found 82. Some voiced resentment at the police intrusion.

An hour went by before all 82 could be transported from the scene. The weather was humid and warmthe temperature that day was to rise to 86-and despite the late hour, many people were still on the street. In short order, a crowd of about 200 gathered.

In November of 1965, George Edwards, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Commissioner of the Detroit Police Department from 1961 to 1963, had written in the Michigan Law Review:

It is clear that in 1965 no one will make excuses for any city's inability to foresee the possibility of racial trouble. *** Although local police forces generally regard themselves as public servants with the responsibility of maintaining law and order, they tend to minimize this attitude when they are patrolling areas that are heavily populated with Negro citizens. There, they tend to view each person on the streets as a potential criminal or enemy, and all too often that attitude is reciprocated. Indeed, hostility between the Negro communities in our large cities and the police departments, is the major problem in law enforcement in this decade. It has been a major cause of all recent race riots.

At the time of Detroit's 1943 race riot, Judge Edwards told Commission investigators, there was "open warfare between the Detroit Negroes and the Detroit Police Department." As late as 1961, he had thought that "Detroit was the leading candidate in the United States for a race riot."

There was a long history of conflict between the police department and citizens. During the labor battles of the 1930's, union members had come to view the Detroit Police Department as a strike-breaking force. The 1943 riot, in which 34 persons died, was the bloodiest in the United States in a span of two decades.

Judge Edwards and his successor, Commissioner Ray Girardin, attempted to restructure the image of the department. A Citizens Complaint Bureau was set up to facilitate the filing of complaints by citizens against officers. In practice, however, this Bureau appeared to work little better than less enlightened and more cumbersome procedures in other cities.

On 12th Street, with its high incidence of vice and crime, the issue of police brutality was a recurrent theme. A month earlier, the killing of a prostitute had been determined by police investigators to be the work of a pimp. According to rumors in the community, the crime had been committed by a vice squad officer.

At about the same time, the killing of Danny Thomas, a 27-year-old Negro Army veteran, by a gang of white youths had inflamed the community. The city's major newspapers played down the story in hope that the murder would not become a cause for increased tensions. The intent backfired. A banner story in the Michigan Chronicle, the city's Negro newspaper, began: "As James Meredith marched again Sunday to prove a Negro could walk in Mississippi without fear, a young woman who saw her husband killed by a white gang, shouting: 'Niggers keep out of Rouge Park,' lost her baby.

"Relatives were upset that the full story of the murder was not being told, apparently in an effort to prevent the incident from sparking a riot."

Some Negroes believed that the daily newspapers' treatment of the story was further evidence of the double standard: playing up crimes by Negroes, playing down crimes committed against Negroes.

Negroes questioned why the entire gang was not held. What, they asked, would have been the result if a white man had been killed by a gang of Negroes? What if Negroes had made the kind of advances toward a white woman that the white men were rumored to have made toward Mrs. Thomas?

The Thomas family lived only four or five blocks from the raided blind pig.

A few minutes after 5 a.m., just after the last of those arrested had been hauled away, an empty bottle smashed into the rear window of a police car. A litter basket was thrown through the window of a store. Rumors circulated of excess force used by the police during the raid. A youth, whom police nicknamed "Mr. Greensleeves" because of the color of his shirt, was shouting: "We're going to have a riot!" and exhorting the crowd to vandalism.

At 5:20 a.m., Commissioner Girardin was notified. He immediately called Mayor Jerome Cavanagh. Seventeen officers from other areas were ordered into the 10th Precinct. By 6 a.m., police strength had grown to 369 men. Of these, however, only 43 were committed to the immediate riot area. By that time, the number of persons on 12th Street was growing into the thousands and widespread window-smashing and looting had begun.

On either side of 12th Street were neat, middle-class districts. Along 12th Street itself, however, crowded apartment houses created a density of more than 21,000 persons per square mile, almost double the city average.

The movement of people when the slums of "Black Bottom" had been cleared for urban renewal had changed 12th Street from an integrated community into an almost totally black one, in which only a number of merchants remained white. Only 18 percent of the residents were homeowners. Twenty-five percent of the housing was considered so substandard as to require clearance. Another 19 percent had major deficiencies.