Before and After the Newark Riots

1531 Words4 Pages

Once called the Public Housing capital in the United States, Newark was receiving more money than any other city from the federal government to clear slums and build public housing complexes. People like Louis Danzig who was the head of the Newark Housing Authority (NHA) used the federal funds the city received to destroy low income housing of minorities in Newark, then build public housing on the outskirts of the city putting all the poor minorities in these areas. The police brutalized the cities African-American citizens numerous times with no repercussions. The city was being segregated and African-American Newark residents started to feel more and more marginalized. In 1967 things finally came to ahead as an African-American cab driver was arrested and beat badly by the Newark Police Department and when rumor spread that he had died in police custody. Though the cab driver was in fact brought to the hospital, a group gathered out in front of the police station and started throwing bricks and other objects at the police station. The riot went on for six days and has shaped the image of Newark to this day the riots have given the city a negative appearance that still lingers.
The major factors that led to the Newark riots were numerous urban renewal played a huge role in creating the tension which caused the riots. Louis Danzig the man in charge of clearing the slums in the central ward and providing public housing to those who would be removed from the areas marked for renewal by the city, played a large part in the unraveling of Newark. Danzig was split apart the African-American community in the central ward sending the residents from there all over the city to different public housing projects which were poorly placed an...

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...he city and has suffered as a result of losing so much of its tax base to the 1967 riots. The event should be used as a cautionary tale to other cities in transition to be cognizant of demographic changes and represent all of your citizens living within your city.

Works Cited

Bigart, H. (1967, July 16). Newark Riot Deaths at 21. New York Times.

Mumford, L. (1961). The City In History. New York: Houghton Harcourt Publishing Company.

Raab, S. (2008, July 16). The Battle of Newark. Esquire, pp. 69-73; 116-117.

Rutgers University. (2014, 4 6). Events. Retrieved from Newark Riots 1967: http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/n_index.htm

Smith, D. A. (1996). Third World Cities in Global Perspective: The Political Economy of Uneven Urbanization. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press Inc.

Tuttle, B. R. (2009). How Newark Became Newark. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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