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July 29, 1964 - Image 3

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Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1964-07-29

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Jl UL 9

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Rochester--How Did It Happen?

MONTHLY MEETING
Regents Set Appointments

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (P) - Why
did it happen here? Days after
racial riots reduced parts of this
quiet upstate city to an armed
camp, this question still was un-
answered by city officials, by most
residents, and especially by out-
siders who think of Rochester as
an ultra-respectable community,
famed for good works and a sort
of built-in, indestructible brand
of prosperity.
Rochester erupted the night
after the flames died down in
Harlem. Everyone had expected
trouble in Harlem. No one, es-
pecially city officials, had expect-
ed anything really serious in
Rochester.
Second-guessing has produced
the usual crop of omens and ru-
mors: Black Muslims systemat-
ically preaching hate in a housing
project; a truck driver who took
his rig home for the night because
there was going to be "trouble",
vague threats of "big trouble" just
around the corner.
Not N.Y.C.
But Rochester is not New York
Ciuty.Its prosperitynin terms of
employment, wages, housing and
sales, usually is at the top of
most indices. Furthermore, Roch-
ester has a well-deserved reputa-
tion as a city of good will, a bit
parochial, perhaps: a city long in
Ithe black book of any hell-bend-
ing traveling salesman because of
its penchant for pulling in the
sidewalks at sundown.
The Harlem riots were trig-
gered by the controversial killing
of a boy by a policeman. Roch-
ester's weekend of terror started
with an ordinarily routine at-
tempt to handle a drunk at a
block'dance.
Harlem's half million Negroes
live in - tall tenements. Most of
Rochester's 30,000 Negroes (about
one tenth of the city population)
live in two or three-story dwell-
irigs, many of them decrepit, in-
herited on one side of town from
earlier and more fortunate immi-
grants and on the other side from
the aristocrats of the last cen-
tury, whosedescendants long ago
moved to the suburbs.
Since 1950
Most of Rochester's Negroes
camensince 1950 and they came
suddenly and in great numbers
to a community which, for all its
generosity, was unprepared to
deal with them. For example:
Rochester has, more jobs -
steady jobs, at good pay-than
almost any city of its size in the
world. But these jobs, making
photographic, optical and elec-
tronic goods and the more sophis-
ticated parts of automobiles, are
for skilled workers. There are few
openings for the strong-backed
men of little education or skills
who drifted into town after the
orchards and truck gardens had
been harvested.
Some people think that Roches-
ter has been a soft touch: that
public housing and ample relief
have attracted a steady stream
of Negroes who had no real hope
of making out here. The new im-
migrants have no ties with those
who came before them - unlike
the Irish, the Germans and the
Italians, who have done so well
here. The long-established settle-
ment houses and the well-
financed agencies of all kinds
have done their best to meet
brand new problems. Almost over-
night the old Negro leadership
was overturned. The successors
seem to have little influence.
Discrimination
Unquestionably there has been
some covert discrimination in
both jobs and housing. On the
other hand, the city has replaced
the worst of the old slums with
both high rise and garden type
apartments (integrated), and re-
cently the council approved new
programs for both public housing
and urban renewal. Realtors are
pledged to obey the laws against
discrimination. Most of the big
employers have made a deliber-
ate effort to recruit Negro work-

ers.
/ The board of education is deep-
ly committed both to improving
the teaching and facilities in pre-
dominantly Negro areas and to
open enrollment and pupil trans-
fers, despite the active opposition
of some white parents.
'Monroe County has a human
f'elations commission and a
branch office of the human
rights commission which admin-
isters the sweeping state civil
rights laws passed nearly 20 years
before the federal program. Neith-
er has -had many complaints to
process.
Bi-Racial
A bi-racial police advisory
board (one of the Harlem group's
demands) was set up 18 months
ago. It has yet to bring charges
against the police. There have
been no mass demonstrations-
sit-ins and lie-ins-because res-
taurants and hotels here long
have been open to all able to pay
and willing to behave.
The city's newspapers and
broadcasting stations for years
have reported the racial problem
sympathetically and in depth. The
newspapers are members of the
Gannet group, whose continuing
series of stories on "the road to

held their fire-and took a most
brutal beating. When tactics were
changed and the police, backed
by national guardsmen, began to
enforce the law, the situation
came under control.
Weather may have played a
part. This has been one of the
hottest, stickiest, and ugliest Julys
in Rochester history. Last Friday
was another one of those nights.
There is some evidence of well-
organized evil forces fanning the
flames once trouble started. Most
Negro-owned stores escaped dam-
age.
Both Rochester newspapers
have editorialized vigorously- from
the beginning for strict law en-
forcement. And as the Rochester
Times-Union put it:
"Rochester can now demon-
strate what must be done when
hoodlums, under the guise of a
racial problem, or civil rights leg-
islation, seek to defy the law and
place themselves above author-
ity.,
"There are many voices of ra-
cial reason in Rochester. They
were drowned out by the shatter-
ing glass and the jeering, looting
crowd. They are being heard_
again, even now, and progress will
be resumed when order has been
restored."
The Democrat & Chronicle
said: "We must not end any of,
the excellent inter-racial projects
that have made Rochester fa-
mous ... But we must blend with
it a new kind of intolerance.
intolerance of phonies, of dema-
gogues, of headline-seekers, of
smoke-screen experts, of flouters
of the law, of hoodlums."
OK's .Plan for
Ilirmingham
BIRMINGHAM (P) --A federal
judge approved without modifica-
tion yesterday the accelerated
school desegregation plan of the
Birmingham school board.
In approving the plan for the
state's largest school system, U.S.
District Judge Seybourn H. Lynne
overruled Negro contentions that
the plan was too slow.
School board attorneys assured
the judge in a hearing earlier
yesterday that all applications for
transfer to the four grades affect-
ed would be promptly processed.
The plan was not modified be-
cause, the judge said, it contains
provisions for advertising. proced-
ures for Negroes to follow in ap-
plying for transfer.
Lynne had withheld ruling until
he could study a decision handed
down Monday by U.S. District
Judge H. H. Grooms on similar
cases involving the school boards
of Gadsden, Huntsville and Mad-
ison County.

(Continued from Page 2)
P. Work, both for three-year terms
beginning Sept. 1.
To the Committee on American
Institutions Lectureship and Pro-
fessorship: Prof. Samuel J. El-
dersveld for a three-year term be-
ginning July 1.
To the executive committee of
the Program in International Bus-
iness: Prof. Alfred F. Conrad, for
three years beginning July 1.
To the executive committee of
the Michigan Memorial-Phoenix
Project: Prof. Walter J. Nung-
ester and Prof. Maurice J. Sinnott,
both for four-year terms begin-
ning July 1.
To the executive committee of
the Center for Research on Eco-
- -

nomic Development: Dean Wil-
liam Haber and Dean Floyd A.
Bond, both for three-year terms
beginning July 1.
To the University Committee on
Broadcasting: Assistant Dean Her-
bert W. Johe and Dr. Harry A.
Towsley, both for three-year terms
beginning July 1.
To the Board of Governors of
Residence Halls: Prof. Frank X,
Braun for a three-year term be-
ginning July 1; and students Max-
ine Loomis and John Eadie for
one-year terms, also beginning
July 1.
To the Board of Governors of
Religious Affairs: Mrs. Wilbur C.
Nelson, as an alumni member, for,
CAMPUS BOOTERY

a two-year term beginning J
1.
To the Committee on Honor
Degrees: Prof. Alfred S. Si
man for a two-year term beg
ning July 1.
Changes in Status
Robert T. Deck, from assoc
research physicist to instructor
physics, effective with the
term.
James Edward Harris, promo
from research associate to ass
ant professor of dentistry, ef:
tLive July 1. Dr. Harris has
ceived a Research Career Dev
opment Award from the Natik
Institute of Dental Research.

-Associated Press
GOV. NELSON ROCKEFELLER of New York wants to know the same answer as the author of
this article: why did racial violence break out in Rochester? The quiet upstate city in New York has
relative prosperity measured in wages, employment and housing. It is not Harlem and yet it be-
came a second Harlem. Why?

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