Fifty years later, has the U.S. learned anything from the Newark rebellions? with Junius Williams, served as the chair of the committee celebrating the 350th anniversary of the founding of the city of Newark, has hosted conferences about the riots at Rutgers-Newark to discuss what the city has endured since 1967. Prof. Williams is a nationally recognized attorney and educator who has been at the forefront of the Civil Rights and Human Rights Movements in this country for decades. He was the youngest President of the National Bar Association and was listed as one of the 100 Most Influential Blacks in America in Ebony Magazine, ran for Mayor of Newark, and now teaches leadership and community organization at Rutgers University, Newark, based on lessons outlined in his book, Unfinished Agenda, Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power. and Larry Hamm, has been organizing, agitating and protesting for more than a quarter century, from the time he helped to lead a student movement against a Newark teacher's strike as a senior at Arts High, to his days leading demonstrations against apartheid at Princeton University, to his adult years as the president of the People's Organization for Progress, one of the most important grass-roots organizations for empowerment in the country and was the state director of the Million Man March.
Fifty Years ago on July 12, 1967 the African American residents of Newark rebelled. The rebellion was sparked by the beating of a Black cab driver by white police officers and would leave 26 people killed, more than 700 injured, and millions of dollars of property damage to looted, vandalized, and burned properties.
On the 50th anniversary of what has become known as the Newark riots, local historians and activists say the similarities between the city then and the country now, are striking. Frustrated by racial tensions and individual acts of police-involved violence, and amid the backdrop of a politically and culturally tumultuous era, academics say the people of 1967 and the people of 2017 don't seem so far apart. In fact, they argue, should Newark's riots and the nearly 50-year fallout the city continues to struggle with in its aftermath not serve as a cautionary tale, we may be headed for a replay of what was arguably the decade of greatest violent upheaval in American history.
According to Junius Williams, Dir. of the Abbott Leadership Institute at Rutgers University, Newark, activists today are faced with the same choice as those in the 1960s: protest peacefully or violently.
"We are poised on the precipice," said Williams, a lifelong Newarker who witnessed the rebellion first hand. "We will either have mass acts of civil disobedience, or individual acts of violence. But, people are frustrated, so either way, it can't stay the way it is now."
produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
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