Ghetto Riots and Others: the Faces of Civil Disorder in 1967
| Published date | 01 June 1968 |
| Date | 01 June 1968 |
| Author | Louis C. Goldberg |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234336800500202 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
GHETTO
RIOTS
AND
OTHERS:
THE
FACES
OF
CIVIL
DISORDER
IN
1967*
By
LOUIS
C.
GOLDBERG
Mc
Gill
University,
Montreal
1.
Introduction
Civil
disorders
in
American
cities
in
1967
were
not
all
of
the
same
kind.
The
term
’riot’
has
been
too
loosely
applied
to
denote
disturbances,
often
quite
varied,
which
oc-
curred
last
summer
and
in
the
previous
three
years.
It
has
been
used
to
refer
to
anything
from
a
group
of
excited
teen-
agers
breaking
windows
after
a
dance,
to
a
general
social
upheaval.
All
were
civil
disturbances;
but
only
a
few
warranted
the
label
’riot’.
It
is
misleading
also
to
think
of
the
civil
disturbances
simply
as
’Negro
riots’.
To
do
so
suggests
that
the
immediate
respon-
sibility
for
the
course
of
the
disturbances
and
the
extent
of
damage
lies
solely
with
the
Negro
participants.
It
is
necessary,
of
course,
to
underscore
the
reality
of
violent
and
aggressive
mass
actions
involving
looting,
burning,
and
defiance
of
local
authority
within
Negro
areas;
and
the
initiative
of
Negro
rioters
in
events.
But
the
threats
to
civil
order
and
innocent
life
and
property
did
not
come
only
from
the
Negro
side.
In
some
cities,
the
behavior
of
various
official
control
agents -
police,
na-
tional
guardsmen,
and
the
courts -
in
fact
constituted
official
lawlessness:
abuses
of
power
in
the
name
of
law
and
order.
For
the
largest
disorders
especially,
the
con-
cept
of
a
’tandem
riot’
-
a
riot
by
Negroes
against
public
authorities,
followed
by
a
riot
of
control
agents
against
Negroes -
is
appropriate.
In
other
cities,
’Negro
riots’
were
more
imagined
than
real.
For
such
disorders,
we
must
distinguish
between
actual
col-
lective
violence
by
Negroes,
and
the
per-
ception
of
a
riot
by
white
authorities.
There
is
much
evidence
that
in
several
cities
white
anticipation
of
Negro
violence
led
to
heavy-handed
uses
of
official
force
that
provoked
violence
which
might
not
have
otherwise
occurred.
The
news
media,
for
their
part,
some-
times
contributed
to
building
expectations
of
community
violence
by
over-dramatiz-
ing
disturbances
and
helping
to
create
an
emotional
climate
in
which
even
minor
incidents
were
seen
as
major
riots.
2.
Prominent
features
of
disorders :
Classifying
the
’riots’
A
sample
of
23
disturbances
which
occurred
last
summer
shows
clearly
that
the
particular
combination
of
circum-
stances
in
each
city
was
to
some
extent
unique.
But
at
the
same
time
certain
characterietics
of
different
disturbances
were
so
similar
that
we
may
group
the
dis-
orders,
particularly
the
largest
ones,
on
the
basis
of
their
most
prominent
features.
2.1.
General
upheavals
Over
a
period
of
time
a
disturbance
may
develop
into
an
upheaval
which
draws
in
thousands
or
tens
of
thousands
of
participants
from
a
Negro
ghetto,
exhausts
the
resources
of
local
police,
severely
taxes
the
capacities
of
city
institutions,
and
in-
volves
an
extraordinarily
wide
range
of
lawless
activities
on
the
part
of
both
Negroes
and
control
authorities. After
the
disorder
has
ended,
an
area
often
looks
as
if
it
has
been
through
a
state
of
civil
warfare.
Such
was
the
case
in
Detroit
and
Newark,
1967,
and
in
Los
Angeles,
1965.
117
These
disorders
were
so
massive,
events
so
much
beyond
the
control
of
either
civil
authorities
or
Negro
community
leader-
ship,
the
points
of
street
confrontation
between
police
and
Negroes
so
numerous
and
widespread,
that
it is
difficult
to
characterize
the
whole
complex
of
actions
over
the
course
of
a
disturbance
in
simple
terms.
In
all
three
cases,
however,
a
similar
pattern
of
development
stands
out:
the
violence
in
each
went
through
two
distinct
phases.
In
the first,
widespread
and
aggressive
action
by
ghetto
Negroes
overwhelmed
local
police
forces,
leaving
them
virtually
powerless
to
enforce
order
in
the
streets.
In
the
second,
re-
inforced
control
authorities
engaged
in
harsh
retaliatory
actions
to
reassert
dominance.
Phase
1:
Negro
rebellion
In
this
phase
collective
violence
was
initiated
by
Negroes.
In
Detroit
and
New-
ark,
as
well
as
in
Watts,
aggressive
action
by
Negroes
escalated
spontaneously
from
an
initial
confrontation
with
police
into
a
highly
generalized
rebellion
against
white
authority
and
white-owned
property
in
the
ghetto.
In
the
face
of
an
expanding
rebellion,
local
police
lacked
the
resources
to
act
with
the
even-handed
decisiveness
necessary
to
bring
the
violence
under
control;
their
efforts
inflamed
rather
than
quieted
Negro
participants.
As
the
ability
of
police
to
enforce
control
of
the
streets
diminished,
more
and
more
segments
of
the
Negro
community -
older
people,
women,
children -
joined
the
young
men
who
had
been
in
the
forefront.
At
the
peak
of this
phase
there
was
a
euphoric
realization
among
Negro
rioters
that
they
had
nullified
police
control
over
their
territory.
Overwhelmed,
the
police
floundered
helpless
and
frustrated.
Phase
2 :
Contral force
retaliation
Under
the
strain
of
widespread
rioting,
police
order
had
begun
to
dissolve;
many
officers
became
subject
to
the
same
prin-
ciples
of
crowd
behavior
that
motivated
Negro
rioters.
Deep-rooted
racial
pre-
judices
surfaced.
The
desire
to
vent
hos-
tility,
to
re-establish
dominance,
and
to
avenge
police
honor
became
compelling
motives.
Rumors
and
racist
attitudes
fed
into
each
other
as
determinants
of
police
behavior
with
the
breakdown
of
routine
arrest
procedure,
police
communication
systems,
and
police
leadership
control
of
their
men
on
the
street.
Once
reinforcements
arrived
in
the
form
of
state
police
and
National
Guard
units,
the
second
phase
of
disorder
was
inaugu-
rated.
With
police
discipline
severely
weakened,
many
lawless
acts
initiated
by
lower-echelon
police
officers
coincided
with
the
reassertion
of
police
dominance
over
Negro
rioters.
Many
National
Guardsmen,
ill-disciplined
and
afraid,
showed
little
restraint
in
using
weapons
in
areas
in
which
they
were
strangers.
This
period
was
characterized
by
a
marked
tendency
among
control
authorities
to
treat
all
Negroes
categorically
as
enemies.
The
presence
of
massive
official
force,
or
its
withdrawal,
or
the
exhaustion
of
Negro
rioters
and
control
authorities
alike,
would
finally
bring
the
violence
to
an
end.
Patterns
of
escalation
Detroit :
Phase
1.
These
two
phases
of
disorder
in
Los
Angeles,
Detroit,
and
Newark -
in
part
the
product
of
a
high
level
of
community
polarization
prior
to
the
upheaval -
directly
emerged
as
a
result
of
reciprocating
hostile
actions
by
police
and
Negro
activists.
In
Detroit,
the
first
phase
had
5
escalation
points,
each
occurring
within
12
hours
from
the
start
of
the
dis-
turbance.’
The
initial
event
was
a
police
raid
on
a
blind
pig2
that
mo-
bilized
a
crowd.
The
second
escalation
point
occurred
shortly
after
the
police
left
the
scene,
looting
beginning
as
agitator,
emerging
from
the
crowd
which
had
grown
angry,
broke
the
first
window.
This
was
followed
by
several
hours
in
which
the
police,
re-
turning
to
the
area
undermanned,
made
no
visible
effort
to
stop
the
looting
going
on
under
their eyes.
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