(Cont'd.) One fellow said to me: "Hell, they rob us every day we live and breathe". A middle-aged woman said: "With all the Toms in soft political jobs and thousands of kids have nothing except to go to Vietnam and come back in boxes, what do you expect?", She added: "I don't approve of rioting, but what do you expect?" What do you expect? She put her finger on it. The whites are deaf. How else can you make them hear? Her friend chimed in: "I don't understand all this talk about 'looting'. They rob us every day. They rob us on the rent! They rob us on food, on the job! They rob our kids of education! Everything! What in hell do they expect!". "They're worried about their pocketbooks", she said. "It's just too bad our people have to get shot and killed!", Friday the National Guard moved in. It was a long night of hell. Automatic fire rent the air from all directions. People stayed under their beds, in bathtubs, cellars - any place where they thought they'd be safe from the wild, steady fire from the weapons of the clean-cut American boys from the suburbs upholding "law and order", The volume of sniping increased. Also the "self-service" from the smashed store fronts. All black-owned business places had signs reading "soul brother" or "black owned", A lot of those had their windows smashed in by the gun butts of white guardsmen, The so-called leaders are at least correct in their demand that the Guard get out. They're full of Klan and Birchite elements, Driving around the city I saw just two black guardsmen. Meanwhile the Mayor and Governor have been busy saying it was all the fault of "criminals", "hoodlums", "black insurrectionists who hate America", At the beginning some of the Mayor's people said the whole thing was started by Stokely Carmichael, who they insisted was in the city, Later he was reported to be in London, England. But this doesn't dampen their efforts to find scapegoats - "outside agitators". Now they're reporting "carloads of Negroes" arriving with guns from New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, everywhere, Addonizio has insulated himself with a coterie of self-seeking Negro politicians who do what they're told. Saturday they and the preachers were out with leaflets and loudspeakers urging the people to "cool it" and shake the hands of the cops and guardsmen in the spirit of true Christian charity, to help restore "peace" and "order". Negro-Owned Business But as of Sunday most people showed little confidence in them, Damned few accepted their leaflets, Some of the Negro-owned businesses got it too. On Clinton Avenue, above Bergen Street, there is a real estate office which used to have as part of its window display a beautiful white model house of dollhouse size. Until recently, one of the names on the window of that office was of the woman who was Addonizio's secretary when he was a congressman, Now she's in charge of the City Welfare Department. That nice realestate office was smashed,
JOOS Gececians