THE NEWARK REBELLION - A FIRST-HAND REPORT based on Militant (U.S,A.) report
We have reproduced the following report because of the extreme importance of the socialist movement in this country understanding the real nature of the so-called race riots in the U.S.A, The article is by Lawrence Stewart who has lived in the Newark ghetto for the past 25 years. He wrote this report while the rebellion was still going on. NEWARK - It is now 2 a.m. Monday morning. I was last on the streets 7 p.m. Sunday night. The street where we live is quiet now. But from time to time shots, like fire crackers, puncture the air; singly and sometimes in series, They seem to come mostly from Hawthorne Avenue and Clinton Place, a business area. I've moved the table at which I'm typing away from the window to the center of the room. My wife and son are in bed ... asleep? I don't know. "A City's Shame." That was the heading on a Newark News editorial. But black people aren't buying that line. Our racist governor managed to get one thing straight when he said it's like people laughing at a funeral. There's a feeling of elation at having struck back at the criminal, hypocritical power structure that has ground us down for so long, Last Thursday night, without knowing it, I was about six blocks away from where it all started. A black cab driver was arrested over some trivial business of following too close behind a squad car. The police were seen to brutally beat him and drag him to the Fourth Precinct a few blocks away, Any number of people testified to this. Some of the local "Negro leaders" appeared and attempted to calm the people who gathered at the station house, Most of them were from the big Hayes Project which is just across the street. The "leaders" weren't successful and the people attacked the precinct with rocks and bottles and whatever else they could lay hands on. It was the climax of a long series of insanely brutal acts by the cops. The "riot" was on. That night was bedlam. There was widespread burning of buildings owned by white businessmen. Molotov cocktails were used, All kinds of stores were smashed to hell and were looted. Snipers holed up in abandoned buildings and opened fire on the hated cops. In my neighbourhood sirens screamed and the police cars were constantly on the move. On Friday morning I drove as close to the center of the outbreak as I could get. At Belmont and Avon Avenues I pulled over behind a car with the trunk lid open. Two men were loading it with an assortment of goods from one of the ravaged stores. At first I thought the owner was selling things at a discount because of damage, But it soon became apparent the men were appropriating the goods. ‘They were quite casual about it, I got out and asked if they weren't worried about being arrested or shot at by the cops. They replied "F,.. the cops". I stopped in at a tavern. The order for closing hadn't been made official yet and the place was crowded, The owner was selling whiskey like a Saturday night. He meant to make all he could before closing, Then too, he didn't know but what these same customers might wreck the place later on. Of course everyone was discussing the riot. There was a real feeling of elation. They were making their presence as human beings felt by the "white bastards" who run things.
[Cont "ds swass