Reflections of the Summer of 1967

Dr. Clement Price Director Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University-Newark

It was a summer like none other before or since. In 1967, beginning on July 12th, civil disorders in Newark ultimately took the lives of twenty-six citizens. Those who bore witness to the violence, the physical destruction and near collapse of an old American city still place it among the most vivid memories of their lives. It was an inter-ethnic, inter-racial, inter-generational near catastrophe played out on the streets of one of the nation’s oldest and most ethnically diverse cities. It occurred at a time of national anxiety, brought on by seemingly endless warfare in Vietnam, and when the modern civil rights movement had achieved its initial objective only to be confronted by the harsh reality that the right to vote was a meager first step toward enjoying a full measure of the American Dream.

What occurred in Newark from July 12th to July 17th was at once an enduring tragedy, the near end of an era of civic irresponsibility and racial injustice and the near beginning of an era in which Newark became a city deserving of empathy for what it has endured and what it seeks to accomplish in the future. Much will be said this season about Newark’s 1967 Summer of Discontent, and an array of local not-for-profit organizations will respectfully acknowledge that the disturbances and legacies of that summer should be remembered and inform the new Newark that is now taking shape. Now is a time to remember that the hoped for future of Newark will require a reconciliation of contested memories, an agreement that Newark is deserving of our fealty in this year of the fortieth anniversary of the difficult summer of 1967.

Commemorative Events

A Conversation in Commemoration of Newark’s 1967 Summer of Discontent
Featuring Governor Brendan T. Byrne and Ms. Paula Dow
July 12, 2007
The Newark Museum’s Ballantine House, Trustees Room

The Institute sponsored a public conversation between former Governor Brendan Byrne and Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow that explored Governor Byrne’s memory of the 1967 disorders, when he was Essex County Prosecutor. The hour-long conversation took place in the Trustees Room of the Ballantine House, Newark Museum, and was attended by a standing-room-only crowd of invited guests, dignitaries, and concerned citizens. The program was videotaped, edited and aired on NJN Public Television during the summer of 2008.

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The Long Hot Summers in Retrospect, Part II:
Urban Unrest in 1960s New Jersey
October 6, 2007
The Center for Law and Justice, Rutgers-Newark campus

The New Jersey Historical Society and The Rutgers University Institute for Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience held a one-day conference Saturday, October 6, 2007 and subsequent publication on topics relating to race, ethnicity, politics, and the urban environment in New Jersey from 1967 to the present. The conference took place at the Center for Law and Justice, 123 Washington Street, Newark, NJ on the Rutgers-Newark campus.

The keynote speaker for the conference was Roger Wilkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University.

The conference explored race, ethnicity, politics, and the urban environment in post-1960s New Jersey. A series of four panel discussions addressed the spread of urban rebellion in the 1960s, the immediate aftermath, the role of politics and civic responsibility, and the nurturing of a new paradigm.

For more information on the conference, contact the New Jersey Historical Society at www.jerseyhistory.org.

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NYU 2007 Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts Roundtable:
Straight Outta Newark: Urban Creativity and Culture Forty Years After 1967
October 12, 2007
NYU Kimmel Center, New York City

This panel, comprised of first and second generation arts and cultural leaders in Newark in the years following the nearly catastrophic civil disorders of July 1967, explored how a backdrop of urban crisis can inspire ingenuity, cultural democracy, and community engagement in cultural organizations. While many American cities witnessed civil discord and violence during the summer of 1967, few were as adversely affected as Newark by the resonance of ill will, adverse publicity and enduring decay. The panelists, leading representatives of Newark’s most important, yet very different, cultural organizations located the creative sector at the center of Newark’s civic revitalization.

Roundtable Moderator:

Dr. Clement Alexander Price, Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University-Newark

Roundtable Participants:

Cephas Bowles, WBGO Jazz FM Radio
Mary Sue Sweeney Price, The Newark Museum
Victor Davson, Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art
Dr. Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University-Newark
Linwood Oglesby, Newark Arts Council

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We Should Have Listened:
The Lilley Commission's 1968 New Vision of New Jersey
A Panel Discussion to Re-Visit The Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders, State of New Jersey, 1967-68
October 30, 2007
The Billy Johnson Auditorium, Newark Museum

In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of New Jersey’s 1967 civil disorders, the Institute presented a special panel discussion on October 30, 2007 at 5:00 p.m. at The Newark Museum, a symbolic “reconvening” of the surviving members of the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders, also called the Lilley Commission, in recognition of the leadership of its chairman Robert Lilley, then the CEO of New Jersey Bell. The program was co-sponsored by the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the New Jersey Department of State, and The Newark Museum. Created originally in response to the Newark riots of 1967, the Lilley Commission was comprised of civic and corporate leaders who produced a report on Newark’s poverty, race relations, and economic status, concluding with recommendations for change. The truly distinguished panel of citizens and former members of the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders included: the Honorable John J. Gibbons, Commission member; Sanford M. Jaffe, Executive Director, Robert B. Goldmann, Deputy Director, Jennie D. Brown, Research Associate, and Dr. Julia M. Miller, Research Associate. The panel was moderated by Ronald Smothers, former reporter for The New York Times and currently distinguished professor of journalism at the University of Delaware. The Honorable Nina M. Wells, New Jersey Secretary of State, brought welcoming remarks.

The program re-visited the recommendations made in the 1968 Report For Action and the Commission’s vision of reform in many areas of civic life and to take an account of the progress that has been made since New Jersey’s and especially Newark’s 1967 “Summer of Discontent.”

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Enough About the Cab Driver, Already:
Forty Years of Newark Riot Coverage Brad Parks, reporter, Star-Ledger
November 7, 2007
Dana Room, John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers-Newark Campus

Guest speaker, Brad Parks, a reporter with the Star Ledger, has written a series of articles on the Newark riots in July 2007, which broke new ground in its retrospect of Newark’s civil unrest. Mr. Parks discussed the media’s construction of Newark and its riots over the years. His series of articles are available online at: http://blog.nj.com/ledgernewark/2007/07/crossroads_part_1.html