Amiri Baraka by Watts Jerry;

Author:Watts, Jerry;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2001-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

THE NEWARK UPRISING

Besides the assassination of Malcolm X, several events during 1965 fundamentally redefined Afro-Americans and Afro-American politics. First, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed which established federal mandates and mechanisms to ensure the voting rights of southern blacks. America’s political landscape was forever altered as black southerners emerged as highly energized voters. The passage of this law ultimately gave black Americans a more realistic picture of the limitations of voting power. More precisely, only by actively participating in voting could blacks begin to obtain the benefits of liberal democracy and recognize its limitations.

Second, in August 1965, an estimated crowd of 35,000 black Americans rampaged through an area of Los Angeles known as Watts-Willobrook.11 Whether one considers this a riot or a revolt may depend on one’s political orientation. I consider these riots to be moments of insurgency akin to the initial stages of a revolt that never materialized. Regardless of political orientations, most students of American politics agree that what occurred in Watts two years after the March on Washington and one year after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the most significant events in the recent history of American race relations. Thirty-four people (mostly blacks) were killed, and a thousand were injured. Four thousand people were arrested. Damage to property was estimated at $200 million. Throughout the United States, Americans were glued to their television sets as news reports showed hordes of black looters running across streets and jumping through broken store windows with stolen goods. The work of arsonists added to these images, as more than 250 buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire. The chant “Burn Baby Burn” became the supposed motto of the rioters. Before it was over, 16,000 National Guard and law enforcement personnel had to be called in to restore order.

The Watts riot signaled the end of the Civil Rights movement. No longer would acts of nonviolent civil disobedience capture the United States’ moral imagination. The events in Watts indicated how little legitimacy the traditional black leadership had in predominantly black urban areas. In the aftermath, James Farmer, the national leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, stated, “Civil rights organizations have failed. No one has any roots in the ghetto.”12 Farmer’s observation proved to be true in cities throughout the United States. Riots sprang up throughout the latter half of the 1960s, and only in rare instances were the established black political elites in these cities able to control or defuse the situation.

The next major urban conflicts to attract national publicity occurred in Newark and Detroit in July 1967. In Detroit, after several days of rioting, forty-three people had been killed, more than 7,000 persons had been arrested, and about $45 million worth of property had been destroyed.13 A week earlier, Newark had exploded.

During the 1960s, the two cities most vulnerable to black urban unrest were probably Detroit and Newark. By 1966, Newark’s population was almost two-thirds black and Latino, yet the city’s power

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