The Harlem Uprising Ignighted The Long Hot Summer Of 1964

 

Police watch protesters at Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School on East 76th Street, July 17, 1964. Photo by Marion S. Trikosk, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

July 18, 1964, Harlem ~ It began, as it so often has, with the shooting of a Black youth and ended in burned buildings, hospitalizations, and arrests. The Harlem Riots of 1964 were four days of a violent uprising that changed little between the police and Black citizens.

On July 16 several Black youths were on the stoop of a building across the street from Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School on East 76th Street. This was normal but did aggravate the building superintendent Patrick Lynch and on the afternoon of the 16^th he had, had enough and sprayed the assembled boys with a hose, he reportedly shouted, “Dirty niggers, I'll wash you clean," at them. James Powell a 15-year-old who was a student at the school ran inside chasing Lynch. The other boys had been throwing bottles and trash at Lynch.

Drawn by the noise an off-duty police Lieutenant, Michael Gilligan, who was White, came out of a store next to the brownstone when he saw the commotion he drew his gun. Gilligan said he held up his badge and came up the stairs to find Powell running out of the building, then he shot Powell twice killing him. The facts of the shooting are disputed with Gilligan swearing Powell lunged at him with a knife and witnesses claiming Powell did not have a weapon. A pocketknife was found in the street gutter later.

At the same time of the shooting the students of the junior high were released for the day, and they rushed to support their fellow students. This led to a tense situation with the police now on the scene. At least 75 officers had to come to the scene to quell the disturbance. No arrests were made at the time.

The morning following the shooting saw peaceful protesting in Harlem at the school led by the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. The protesters at the school chanted “Stop killer cops!”, “We want legal protection” and “End police brutality!” They were met by 50 officers with nightsticks but there was no violence. CORE was calling on the police department to fire Lt. Gilligan or for him to resign.

The backdrop to all of this was how Black New Yorkers were mainly segregated in worn-out neighborhoods, denied employment opportunities, and frequently profiled and mistreated by police. The summer Powell was killed the majority of Black New Yorkers were angry and ready for rebellion.

On the third day, July 18, the situation was still tense and escalating. It was hot and humid, and the police were being unnecessarily aggressive and provocative. James Powell’s funeral was that morning and the police had installed barricades but also held a rally to protest the crime rate in Harlem. After the funeral, CORE held a peaceful rally, and the Reverend Nelson C. Dukes called for protestors to march on the 28th police precinct. At the precinct rally organizers attempted to meet with precinct commander police Inspector Pendergast. However, whatever was said between organizers and Pendergast was lost as the crowd turned violent. They started throwing bottles, bricks, and anything they could find, others had gone to the rooftops to bombard the police. Pendergast told officers to stop the violence and clear the streets.

By ten that night over a thousand people had gathered at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. Police were using megaphones and speakers to tell the crowd, “Go home, go home." The crowd was recorded screaming back: "We are home, Baby!" The police tactical team was called in as rioting began, the mob marched down 123^rd Street wrecking storefronts and destroying city property. Some police fired into the air while others went directly into the rioters. By 8 am when this first major burst of violence settled one man had been killed, 19 others injured as well as 14 police officers injured enough to receive care. This was another disputed fact as area hospitals reported over 100 serious injuries tied directly to the rioting.

As the morning of the 19^th went on, a statement from Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy was sent to all the churches in Harlem that read, “In our estimation, this is a crime problem and not a social problem!" No less than Malcolm X responded to this with what many considered a warning or a threat. "There are probably more armed Negroes in Harlem than in any other spot on earth. If the people who are armed get involved in this, you can bet they'll really have something on their hands," said the famed civil rights leader.

Tensions remained high with both sides allegedly taunting the other and by afternoon the riot was full scale again. This time the chaos appeared to settle by 1:30 am with another 200 people being treated in hospital reports, while the official police report only said 93 people. 103 arrests were made.

The next two nights and days were very much the same with peaceful protests being disrupted by police who charged into protesters and began indiscriminately beating people. Also, the police announced a major investigation targeting protest organizers and Black Nationalists such as the Harlem Progressive Labor Club, the Harlem branch of the Progressive Labor Party.

The violence seemed to burn itself out by the night of July 22 and clean-up began. The uprising had an incredible cost with 500 shops damaged, and many destroyed. One person was listed as killed in the official police records with 465 men and women arrested. There was between 1 million and 2 million dollars in damages, approximately $19 million in 2024 dollars.

Two months after the shooting, Lt. Gilligan was cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury. He maintained Powell had lunged at him with a knife. Coincidently the riot broke out one month after President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and at the same time as Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, an opponent of the Civil Rights Act was being named the Republican candidate for president in 1964. Goldwater was promising to be tough on crime, a theme every Republican presidential candidate has carried since.

Two reform attempts were made to help the Black residents of Harlem and New York City at large. The first was “Project Uplift” which was funded by Johnson’s Great Society program. For the summer of 1965 thousands of young Blacks were able to get jobs and job training, but it only lasted that summer. In 1966 New York City Mayor John Lindsay changed the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the board that investigated complaints against the police. Lindsay added four civilians to the board which had previously been all police, The move outraged the Police union which organized with business owners and the Chamber of Commerce to reverse the decision by a public vote. The police campaign was run on fears of rising crime and racism.

Sadly the Harlem Uprising was just the first outbreak of violence in major American cities in the summer of 1964 which eventually became known as the “Long Hot Summer” in our history books.

 

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Harlem-race-riot-of-1964

https://crdl.usg.edu/events/ny_race_riots

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/harlem-race-riot-1964/

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/inside-harlem-uprising-1964

Rumors Of Police Killing Lead To Riot In War Time Harlem

 

On the warm summer night of August 1st an African American solider Robert Bandy met his mother for dinner at the historic Hotel Braddock in Harlem, as they walked through the lobby, and saw a White officer trying to hit an African American woman with his nightstick as he tried to arrest her. Bandy attempted to intervene and was shot by the officer.

Rumors then flew through the city like fiery embers and Blacks started throwing rocks and breaking out the windows of businesses. Although Bandy received just a superficial wound the rumor was that he had been killed, and thousands of people filled the streets attacking not just shops but the 28th Street Police Precinct and Sydenham Hospital. 

Because of the rationing, price gouging, and racism, the African Americans of Harlem were acutely feeling the economic effects of the war. Blacks had hoped that their service to the country would change some of the segregation laws and open opportunities, however, this did not happen sending citizens into a violent rage.

Rioters looted shops, broke hundreds of windows, and vandalized street lights and other public utilities. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia sent in nearly 6,000 officers and 8,000 National Guardsmen to quell the riot He also met with Black leaders and set a curfew. He went on the radio and requested rioters to stand down and observe the curfew. The riot did end in the early morning of Aug, 2nd. 

In the aftermath, La Guardia continued to meet with the NCAAP and immediately had city works and sanitation start on clean up. He ordered the taverns to stay closed until the 4th of August and made sure the hospitals were able to meet the demand by asking for aid from other hospitals outside Harlem.

Six people were killed in the night, 700 were injured and another 600 were arrested. It was estimated 4,000 windows were broken out. The Mayor had food delivered to the residents of Harlem and the Red Cross provided lemonade and curlers. 

To meet some of the underlying issues exposed by the riot and how many African Americans felt like second-class citizens. The Federal Office of Price Administration set up an office on 135th Street in Harlem and was soon flooded with complaints. La Guardia pressured all city agencies to make sure rent controls were practiced and forced landlords to go ahead with renewals of leases. These small acts it is believed forestalled another riot

Sources:

https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/disasters/riots-harlem_1943.html

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Harlem-race-riot-of-1943

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40999915

Top Image: Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

The Tompkins Square Outrage: Brutal Police Assault Against Out Of Work Immigrants

 

Jan. 13, 1874, the ‘Panic of 1873’ led to one of the worst economic depressions in world history as it impacted all industrialized nations and helped end the Reconstruction era in the United States. Conditions were bad with millions out of work in the major cities and thousands facing eviction and potential starvation. In New York City this came to a head this morning when over 7,000 unemployed workers gathered in Tompkins Square in New York City to protest and demand for more public spending and public works to get them back to work.

Formed in December 1873, The Committee of Safety in New York City was the main body to organize workers and tradesmen into cohesive groups to work towards better contracts and conditions. The leadership of the group had tried to organize a meeting with city officials but was denied any such opportunity

Labor rights were the last thing on the minds of city leaders. They were embroiled in personal and petty conflicts between the mayor and the aldermen and with ongoing corruption by Tammany Hall. The mayor, William Frederick Havemeyer, in his third term was battling to fill many civic offices. This battle got so petty and personal at times that the aldermen sent a petition to the governor the use emergency powers to remove Havemeyer from office.

Newspapers of the day declared themselves neutral reporters but in general continued to report that the worker demands were ‘Utopian’ and ‘impractical” some like the New York Herald intoned that the organizers were ‘Communists threatening to change the order of the nation’

Because some other protests and processions in recent weeks had attracted violence and disorder the police commissioners decided to pull the permit that the Committee of Safety had been granted, however, they failed to tell the leaders of the group and they continued to promote and recruit so that by 11 am there were 7,000 people in the park, and there were 1,600 police both mounted and on the ground. Soon there were orders to disperse the crowd and so the police descended on the group.

Police charged into the square, dispersing most of the crowds with brutal force, beating thousands with clubs. Police on horseback rode through the surrounding streets also beating people wherever they found them. Hundreds of men, many from the German Tenth Ward Workingmen’s Association, fought back, attempting to defend the people who were under attack.

Rumors spread panic across the city that day. Schools were placed under ‘police protection’ after rumors spread that ‘immigrants’ were planning to burn down the schools. City Alderman John Kehr, a strong opponent of the mayor, claimed that he had to jump off a streetcar to escape from angry immigrants.

In the end, it was reported that forty-six workers were arrested, thirty-five of them being ringleaders. the workingmen’s movement lost its momentum. There were other efforts to organize a march for the unemployed, but it proved futile. Thus, the Committee of Safety soon floundered and dissolved into the Industrial Political Party, which then disbanded a year later.

John Swinton, editor of the New York Sun exposed the complacency of City Hall and denounce the underhanded tactics used by police against the protestors. He also made comments before the New York State Assembly’s Committee on Grievances requesting an investigation into police conduct and afterward his comments and concerns were published in a pamphlet titled 'The Tompkins Square Outrage'. However, attempts undertaken to fire members of the Police Board for the Tompkins Square Park riot failed.

This act of violence, along with no consequences primed the police for many years of violence and surveillance of political and worker organizations. 

Sources:

https://www.geriwalton.com/tompkins-square-park-riot-of-1874-the-workingmens-fight/

https://peoplesworld.org/article/jan-13-1874-tompkins-square-riot/