Harlem riot of 1964

IDC Final Project

Harlem Riot Of 1964

Protestors Carrying the photos of Police Gilligan (source: DeMarsico, 2011) Created By: Weihang Ke

Situations Before the Riot: During the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement took place mainly in the south in an attempt to gain equal rights and to end racism.

Even though the Civil War had thoroughly abolished slavery in the United States, it never signaled that discrimination against the black would also stop there. In fact, many laws, including Jim Crow Laws, literacy test, etc., were established to harm African Americans and prohibit them from obtaining fair rights. Despite such horrific racism, black people still came up with many different strategies to reveal their rage and resistance. For instance, together they boycotted buses, which successfully caused the bus companies to be financially disabled and eventually surrendered.

Typical Black Leaders: Martin Luther King Jr.: a civil activist who advocated for a nonviolent method of protesting.

Rosa Parks: a civil activist who was famous for her significant role in Montgomery Bus Boycott

Mostly Associated With Southern States Though (source: Wolfdog, 2017)

On the Very North in NY, However...

Harlem, the African community that locates in New York City, was also undergoing such miserable injustice and discrimination, but one of their strategies, instead of taking rational and nonviolent methods, was to forcefully rebel against the white supremacists and to physically fight for the notion that the black lives did matter.

About the riot: On July 8, 1964, some black boys were wandering around a building on East 176th Street, a mainly white community. After being intimidated to leave by the superintendent of that building, those playful black teenagers not only refused to obey his order but more seriously, James Powell, one of the kids amongst them, got into an argument with the superintendent. He chased the superintendent into the apartment. Coincidentally, a white police officer named Thomas Gilligan, who had previously been a war veteran, was patrolling this neighborhood and witnessed this conflict. Later, James Powell was holding a knife trying to stab Gilligan, but instead, he was shot fatally by Gilligan (Baruch College, 2018).

Harlem Graffiti (Source: Smith, 2018)

Actions Taken Against the Police Brutality: A demonstration was organized by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to sue the police brutality.

Posters, reading "Wanted for murder: Gilligan the cop“, were made in order to call the resignation and prosecution of Gilligan, the cop (Finkel, 2018).

A crowd of people got together in front of the police precinct building, asking for justice and a reasonable explanation.

The Harlemites threw bricks and rocks at the police officers.

An Inevitable Riot Occurred....

Everything went insane: people running away, getting defeated, and screaming. Could not keep order in the streets, the police officers fired 2000-gunshot directly into the air in order to scare the crowd and make them leave. Nonetheless, not only did the sound of the gunshots not frighten the black mobs but rather upset them more that they even started throwing Molotov cocktails at the police officers (Baruch College, 2018).

Harlemites running away from helmeted police with nightsticks (source: All Things Considered, 2014)

Th eD ur ati o Rio n of the t Day 1&2 (July 16 & 17): Quite a peaceful protest on the street

Day 3 - Day 6 (July 1822): The real violence and seriousness happened.Â

Source: Stultz, 2014 There was one African American being killed, more than 100 people getting injured.

45 e r ar 0 r e re io s w st te e g $1 ed rs a m  w . t a ou er d l ab e a t h o T ort n. w illio m

Statistical Consequences

Police Gilligan, the defendant, was determined not guilty by the jury.

Windows, local businesses were devastated.

self-defense: Powell intended to stab him with the knife first.

Reaction of the South Martin Luther King, invited by the then- Mayor Robert Wagner, did come to New York City four days after the riot ended. He, as one of the primary leaders who successfully fought nonviolently for equality during the Civil Rights Movement in the South, continued to encourage African Americans in New York to struggle against the racial oppression that was prevailing, but in a nonviolent way.

Opponents of Dr. King: In New York where northern racism was known to be quite different from the Southern ones, Martin Luther King Jr.'s suggestions were not always respected, nor accepted. Some Harlem leaders even denounced King’s visit and comments about Harlem riot because they insisted that the nonviolent methods of protesting against discrimination, such as boycott, was useless in the North (All Things Considered, 2014). Indeed, for the first two days of the riot, a peaceful demonstration on the streets was implemented, but obviously, it did not really improve the situation.

What Harlemites Believed...

Source: PictureQuotes

ADDRESS BY NYC MAYOR WAGNOR: African Americans could have effectively utilized the law and legislation because, throughout American history, African Americans were the minority group that has benefited the most from the law. He promised to increase the number of black officers on the police department as the riot was so sensationally intense. (NYPD Archive, 1964)

For Example: The Supreme Court decision of 1954, also known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, granted African Americans the civil right to be treated equally as the whites. Where would this right be without this court case? Wasn’t this law passed to benefit the black community in general? Mayor Wagner, seemed to be supportive of the blacks, continued to say that he absolutely understood African Americans' needs of housing and education, and under his administration, New York City had made a law to outlawed discrimination in housing (NYPD Archive, 1964).

Quote by Mayor Wagner “Law and order are the Negro’s best friend.

(NYPD Archive, 1964)”

How People Felt???

Interviewee #1: Charles Tylor He stated that when he went on to the streets of Harlem on the second night of rioting, he was shocked to see cops on horseback were all over the street. Even more sadly, he was so grieved to hear Powell, who had been living in the same building with Taylor and who often taught him how to roller skate, had already been shot and killed by the police (All Things Considered, 2014).

Interviewee #2: Christopher Hayes As a history professor who wrote about Harlem Riot of 1964 for his doctoral dissertation, he stated, "You would not want to be standing there 50 years ago. There were people running. You were liable to get knocked down. Things were flying through the air — Molotov cocktails, bricks, pieces of concrete, anything you could find."

Interviewee#3: John Reddick Belief 1: As an African-American teenager who was in Harlem during the riot, he mentioned that “the way Powell died was an eye-opener for the neighborhood. (All Things Considered, 2014)” To clarify such a vague statement, he later explained that injustice and discrimination against the African minority had usually been associated with the Southern states; however, this Harlem riot inculcated people of the concept that racism could occur anywhere throughout the United States, and the rebellion against the white supremacists could also occur in the North.

Belief 2: All African Americans, Reddick argued, should unite together in order to make something, but due to the age gap between generations, the elders, such as Reddick’s grandparents, had very different reactions to the riot comparing to those black rioters. Reddick’s grandparents, for instance, were the opponents of riots. Instead, they believed that African community should adopt Martin Luther King’s concept of nonviolence because fighting could never get them anywhere.

Other Riots in 1964 Riot #1: Philadelphia riot of 1964 It was about a conflict between a black woman and the police offers. Odessa Bradford, the woman, interrupted the traffic flow by an abrupt stop in the interaction of 22nd Street and Columbia Avenue in North Philadelphia, a predominantly black community. Later, two police officers, a black one named Robert Wells and a white one named John Hoff, approached her. However, Odessa Bradford got into an argument with the police, and consequently, she was physically removed from the car. At the same time, a lot of pedestrians passing by felt sympathetic with Bradford because they believed it was so inhumane to use force and power to be against a woman. Therefore, an upstander tried to provided support for Bradford by attacking the officers, but he and Bradford were both arrested instead.

Consequences: Furious black rioters decided to destroy most of the businesses owned by white people, mainly along Columbia Avenue. Oddly, police officers did not really get involved into this riot; instead, they withdrew themselves from the area, and as a result, 225 stores were devastated and damaged during the riot, which eventually caused the businesses in North Philadelphia to declined tremendously (History Making Production, 2013).

Pictures of Philadelphia RiotÂ

Source: Bunch, 2014

Source: History Making Production, 2013

Riot #2: The Paterson uprising It lasted four days, from August 11 to 14. Similarly, on the night of August 11, a group of African American teenagers started throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police cars on their way returning home from school. Approximately 500 people participated in this rebellion, but they divided themselves into several small groups of 25 people. As the tension increased between the young black teenagers and the police, Paterson Mayor Graves decided to react to the uprising by “meeting force with force�.

Consequence: On August 12, members of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People and the Congress of Racial Equality, two remarkable organizations established to help African Americans, discussed with Mayor Graves in need of the African American community in Paterson, such as better housing, reasonable rent, better facilities, etc. (Mack: Paterson, 2017).

Source: AZ Quote

Work Cited Flamm, M. (2014, July 15). The Original Long, Hot Summer. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/opinion/16Flamm.html Unknown (2018). Disasters: New York City (NYC) Harlem Riots of 1964. Baruch College.

Retrieved from http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/disasters/riots-harlem_1964.html Finkel, M. (2018). Race Riots: Harlem (1964). HighBeam Research. Retrieved from https://www.highbeam.com/topics/race-riots-harlem-1964-t10640 Stultz, S. (2014). The Harlem “Race Riot” of 1964. BlackPast.org. Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/aah/harlem-race-riot-1964 Unknown (2014, July 18). New York’s ‘Night of Birmingham Horror’ Sparked A Summer of Riots. Code Switch. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/18/330108773/new-yorks-night-ofbirmingham-horror-sparked-a-summer-of-riots NYPR Archive Collections. (1964, July 22). Statement on Harlem Riot. WNYC. Retrieved from https://www.wnyc.org/story/statement-on-harlem-riot/ History Making Production. (2013, August 28). The Philadelphia race riot of August 1964.

Philly.com. Retrieved from http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/TODAY-IN-PHILADELPHIA-HISTORY/ThePhiladelphia-race-riot-of-August-1964.html Mack, W. (2014). Elizabeth, New Jersey Uprising (1964). BlackPast.org. Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/aah/elizabeth-new-jersey-uprising-1964 Mack, W. (2014). 1964 Paterson, New Jersey Uprising (1964). BlackPast.org. Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/aah/1964-paterson-new-jersey-uprising-1964