40 Year Anniversary of the Newark Rebellion...more

[RBG Street Scholar]

RBG Tube Related Video:
DN Video On The 1967 Newark and Detroit Rebellions/ Dr Amiri Baraka

The 1967 Newark Rebellion was a major civil disturbance that occurred in the city of Newark, New Jersey between July 12 and July 17 1967. Although referred to in the popular media as riots, we in the Black community, then and today, realize the event as a genuine rebellion against oppression. I was only 9 year old at the time so I really didn't know what was going on. However, I can still see the Troops driving through my neighborhood, not being able to go to the store or leave the back yard and having to be in the house at 6:00pm. I also remember my parents talking about how they would have the Black National Guard out with the White ones only during the day. At night it was only the White ones, shottin up the projects.


We were living on 6th Street and South Orange Avenue which was a part of the heart the happenings. As I got old enough to learn what happen I found out that in the period leading up to the rebellion, several factors led our residents to feel powerless and disenfranchised. In particular we had been largely excluded from any say in city politics and completely lacked political representation and often suffered police brutality. Furthermore, unemployment, abject poverty, and concerns about low-quality housing contributed to the tinder-box. Yes, we lived in an attic apartment, my dad was a day laborer and mom wasn't working, I had 6 younger brothers and sisters and we all slept in the same room...but what the hell did I know.

This ongoing oppression came to a head when a Black cab driver named John Smith was arrested for illegally passing a double-parked police car and brutally beaten by police who accused him of resisting arrest. A crowd gathered outside the police station where he was detained, and a rumor was started that he had been killed while in police custody. (Actually he had been moved to a City Hospital.)

This set off six days of burning, looting, violence, and destruction — ultimately leaving 23 Black people dead, 725 people injured, and close to 1,500 arrested. Property damage exceeded $10 million.
For about two weeks we were living under Marshall Law, every evening at 6 p.m. the Bridge Street and Jackson Street Bridges (both of which span the Passaic River between Newark and Harrison) were closed until the next morning.

1967, Life Magazine. Billy Furr loots a case of soda a few minutes before he was shot and killed by Newark, N.J. police

The rebellion is often cited in the white media as a major factor in the decline of Newark and its neighboring white communities, as many of the city's white residents immediately fled to the suburbs. However, it was only after the rebellion that political inclusion and representation of the Black community became manifest and Black Power began to spring forth from Newark.
The 1967 Plainfield Rebellion occurred during the same period in Plainfield, New Jersey, a town about 18 miles southwest of Newark.

For Further Research and Study: http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/

To get the full story with some dramatic film clips click here for DN ( once there click Listen/Watch entire archived show in upper left for the stream.)

On the 40th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion we go back to the tumultuous days of July 1967 with renowned poet, playwright, activist and Newark native Amiri Baraka; and Larry Hamm, a Newark community organizer, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, that organizes a commemoration of the Newark rebellion every year. He was thirteen years old during the rebellion...

[RBG Street Scholar]

http://www.zimbio.com/Black+History+...llion+Memories

[Revolutionary_Student]

I have a documentary about this event on DVD. If anybody needs a copy email me at consciousblackmind@gmail.com.

[SoularFlarez]

StarLedger been talken alot bout it lately...


alot bout Sharpe James too... smh