Part 10 (2/2)

In May the Veterans of Foreign Wars responded with a pro-war march. They predicted a turnout of 150,000. They only got 7,850. A ”Support Our Boys in Vietnam” parade down Fifth Avenue two weeks later was bigger-because it was secretly organized out of the White House. ”8 Hour Parade Backs GIs,” headlined the faraway Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, in Dewey-Beats-Truman-size type. Distinguished politicians were flushed out to pack the reviewing stands (”Where's the mayor?” angry marchers yelled of the absent and left-wing John Lindsay). These marchers burned a flag, too-the Russian one-and threw eggs at the French mission to the United Nations (de Gaulle had criticized the war). Children marched in army uniforms, toting plastic machine guns. A ”Flower Brigade” of East Village ”freaks” (the self-identification for what the dominant culture called hippies), led by Abbie Hoffman in a psychedelic cape, fell in behind a Boy Scout troop. They were attacked by the Flatbush Conservative Club; a mother pa.s.sed off her baby to a friend to get in a few kicks. in Dewey-Beats-Truman-size type. Distinguished politicians were flushed out to pack the reviewing stands (”Where's the mayor?” angry marchers yelled of the absent and left-wing John Lindsay). These marchers burned a flag, too-the Russian one-and threw eggs at the French mission to the United Nations (de Gaulle had criticized the war). Children marched in army uniforms, toting plastic machine guns. A ”Flower Brigade” of East Village ”freaks” (the self-identification for what the dominant culture called hippies), led by Abbie Hoffman in a psychedelic cape, fell in behind a Boy Scout troop. They were attacked by the Flatbush Conservative Club; a mother pa.s.sed off her baby to a friend to get in a few kicks.

The portion of Americans who thought the war had been a good idea was now below 40 percent. But between November and March the number of Americans in favor of ”total military victory” went from 31 percent to 43. An argument proliferated on the right: that winning would be easy-only, Reader's Digest Reader's Digest argued, ”Our government has not permitted it.” A woman reading that in a dentist's waiting room might sink down into the chair a confirmed hawk. But if she happened to choose argued, ”Our government has not permitted it.” A woman reading that in a dentist's waiting room might sink down into the chair a confirmed hawk. But if she happened to choose Ladies' Home Journal Ladies' Home Journal instead, she might read this letter to the editor: ”Before I went to Saigon, I had heard and read that napalm melts the flesh, and I thought that's nonsense, because I can put a roast in the oven and the fat will melt but the meat stays there. Well, I went and saw these children burned by napalm and it is absolutely true.” That might make you a dove. ”It makes you think,” a janitor who witnessed the Mobe (National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam) parade on his lunch break told the instead, she might read this letter to the editor: ”Before I went to Saigon, I had heard and read that napalm melts the flesh, and I thought that's nonsense, because I can put a roast in the oven and the fat will melt but the meat stays there. Well, I went and saw these children burned by napalm and it is absolutely true.” That might make you a dove. ”It makes you think,” a janitor who witnessed the Mobe (National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam) parade on his lunch break told the Was.h.i.+ngton Post, Was.h.i.+ngton Post, ”who is right?” ”who is right?”

The unity was only in ambivalence. One result was a surfeit of ritual invocations against ambivalence. ”Marine Dies Believing Viet War Is Right,” ran a typical headline in the Chicago Tribune. Time Chicago Tribune. Time featured a study by a retired newsman who pored over aerial photographs and decided reporters were doubling and tripling the attendance at peace demonstrations. George Wallace appeared on ABC's featured a study by a retired newsman who pored over aerial photographs and decided reporters were doubling and tripling the attendance at peace demonstrations. George Wallace appeared on ABC's Issues and Answers Issues and Answers on Mother's Day and promised, ”I would drag some of these professors by their beards.” Doctors King and Spock announced ”Vietnam Summer,” an organizing drive to train ten thousand antiwar activists across the country. The on Mother's Day and promised, ”I would drag some of these professors by their beards.” Doctors King and Spock announced ”Vietnam Summer,” an organizing drive to train ten thousand antiwar activists across the country. The Chicago Trib Chicago Trib responded, ”When American soldiers are dying daily in Vietnam, demonstrations that block traffic on busy streets are very likely to lead to violence”-and that this would be the demonstrators' fault. responded, ”When American soldiers are dying daily in Vietnam, demonstrations that block traffic on busy streets are very likely to lead to violence”-and that this would be the demonstrators' fault.

Ronald Reagan maneuvered to force Berkeley president Clark Kerr's resignation. Evidence suggests it may have been quid pro quo to J. Edgar Hoover. Reagan's security clearance form as governor required him to answer the question ”Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of any organization which has been designated by the United States Attorney General under the provisions of Executive Order 10450?” and warned that ”any false statement herein may be punished as a felony.” Reagan answered no, untruthfully, but the FBI looked the other way. Hoover was like most conservatives: they tended to cut Ronald Reagan slack. Though he had just proposed the largest tax increase in California history, they were promoting him for president. He answered a need: he humiliated the liberals. He would tell young people hara.s.sing him with signs reading MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR that the problem was that they looked incapable of doing either. To him, a hippie was someone ”who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah.” His national audience swooned. that the problem was that they looked incapable of doing either. To him, a hippie was someone ”who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah.” His national audience swooned.

CHAPTER NINE.

Summer of Love.

WHILE SOME A AMERICANS SWOONED ABOUT R REAGAN, AN ENTIRELY noncontiguous group, which included portions of the national commentariat, were swooning about something called the Summer of Love-in which, a noncontiguous group, which included portions of the national commentariat, were swooning about something called the Summer of Love-in which, a Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post reporter sent to its epicenter in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco wrote in his book reporter sent to its epicenter in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco wrote in his book We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against, We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against, ”youth drew attention to itself by cl.u.s.tering in large numbers in most major American cities, where they broke the narcotics laws proudly, publicly, and defiantly. At the same time, they enunciated a different social philosophy and a new politics, and perhaps even mothered into life a subculture that was new to America.” Legend had it that one day two freaks started interviewing each other. One was a reporter from ”youth drew attention to itself by cl.u.s.tering in large numbers in most major American cities, where they broke the narcotics laws proudly, publicly, and defiantly. At the same time, they enunciated a different social philosophy and a new politics, and perhaps even mothered into life a subculture that was new to America.” Legend had it that one day two freaks started interviewing each other. One was a reporter from Newsweek, Newsweek, the other a reporter from the other a reporter from Time. Time.

Love was in the eye of the beholder. At first downtown merchants welcomed the hippie district that sprang up on Plumb Street in Detroit; it was attracting people to their stores. Then they realized that the hippies liked their stores so much because they could panhandle from paying customers (”I wish we could have had the hippies without the dope,” said one merchant, after the forty-three shops on Plumb Street had shrunk down to six). A love-in on Belle Isle, organized by a local narcotics enthusiast and rock musician named John Sinclair, descended into a brawl: Sinclair's ”TransLove Rangers” promised they'd handle security themselves, perhaps by the power of the paper daisies they handed out; then had to call in the cops when leather-clad bikers started clubbing their way through the crowd.

John Lindsay granted a meeting to a group of white youth and Puerto Ricans seeking to clean up the East Village. A mob of six hundred landlords crashed the gla.s.s front doors of City Hall: ”Lindsay sees the hippies,” they said, ”but he won't see the taxpayers.” Paul Fino, the antibusing congressman from Queens, said Lindsay was giving ”the city's punks, Vietniks, and banana-sniffers flag-burning rights in Central Park.” Lindsay's parks commissioner, August Heckscher, the patrician Republican former head of the charitable foundation the Twentieth Century Fund, replied that the law-and-order types were ”scared by the abundance of life.”

The month of March came in like a lamb with Frank Sinatra sweeping the Grammy Awards and went out like a lion with Jimmy Hendrix in the hospital after burning himself while immolating his guitar. Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys was arrested by the FBI for refusing his military call-up; Mick Jagger was railroaded for possession of legally bought Benzedrine tablets, and his Rolling Stones band mate Keith Richards was on trial for smoking pot. Hendrix was dropped as the opening act for the Monkees after complaints from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Some suspected this last move was PR-agent cover for a commercial decision; insurrection was now the stuff of which hit records were made.

At the beginning of June an alb.u.m had come out that was more than a record alb.u.m: the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a staging ground for the new kind of cultural war. Critic Kenneth Tynan called it ”a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization.” Paul McCartney said in an interview in a staging ground for the new kind of cultural war. Critic Kenneth Tynan called it ”a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization.” Paul McCartney said in an interview in Life Life of LSD: ”It opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brains. Just think what we'd accomplish if we could tap that hidden part. There wouldn't be any more war or poverty or famine.” People were saying that LSD brought them closer to G.o.d. Then Billy Graham, jealous for his hold over his flock, rebuked that there was only one way to G.o.d and that ”LSD should be shunned like the plague by young people.” of LSD: ”It opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brains. Just think what we'd accomplish if we could tap that hidden part. There wouldn't be any more war or poverty or famine.” People were saying that LSD brought them closer to G.o.d. Then Billy Graham, jealous for his hold over his flock, rebuked that there was only one way to G.o.d and that ”LSD should be shunned like the plague by young people.”

But Sgt. Pepper's Sgt. Pepper's was not merely some marker in a generational war. It was also great art, staging that war within itself. Its most beautiful moment was a song called ”She's Leaving Home,” a haunting cry of sympathy for the Depression-generation parents who wished nothing more than to love their children, and whose alienated children's thanks was to run away-perhaps to a place like Haight-Ashbury. was not merely some marker in a generational war. It was also great art, staging that war within itself. Its most beautiful moment was a song called ”She's Leaving Home,” a haunting cry of sympathy for the Depression-generation parents who wished nothing more than to love their children, and whose alienated children's thanks was to run away-perhaps to a place like Haight-Ashbury.

All you need is love: an injunction easier to honor in the breach. Perhaps especially in the midst of a summer of love. For simultaneously, the other abiding media obsession was a hawklike watch over which city would be the first to erupt in a riot. ”It would be ironic, indeed,” George McGovern said on the Senate floor, ”if we devoted so heavy a proportion of our resources to the pacification of Vietnam that we are unable to pacify Los Angeles, Chicago, and Harlem.”

Maybe it would be Cleveland.

On May 2 the chief of the city's subversives squad testified to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that Cleveland Black Power organizations had merged under the leaders.h.i.+p of a mysterious figure known as Ahmed, who preached the solar eclipse set for May 9 would be the opening of a war between Communist China and the United States and called, the officer said, ”for a Negro uprising at a time when such a war will leave local cities helpless before a revolutionary movement.”

Or would it be Chicago? On May 4 the sheriff of Cook County, Joseph Woods, accepting an award from the Kiwanis Club, predicted ”the longest, hottest summer in history.” On the twenty-first, two undercover policemen were chased from a rally to change the name of Was.h.i.+ngton Park to Malcolm X Park. ”The crowd rose like a tornado,” one of them reported. Sheriff Woods, the brother of Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods, relished such incidents as opportunities. When black students acted up in the Negro suburb of Maywood, he rushed to the scene with a bullhorn, telling officers to fire upon any rioter who raised his hand above his head, and to shoot carefully because they didn't have extra men to take the wounded to the hospital. ”The bystanders got my message,” the sheriff proudly told a reporter.

Perhaps it would be Milwaukee, where the inner-city civil rights priest James Groppi was arrested on May 5 for interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty, so his copastor sermonized: ”Dig your trenches. Shutter your windows. The harvest is near.... Are we so blind and stupid as not to realize that?”

Or Louisville, where the governor called out the National Guard and the mayor defiantly p.r.o.nounced, ”The Kentucky Derby will be run,” despite threats by militants to shut it down if an open-housing law wasn't pa.s.sed. Martin Luther King arrived. Heckled by a mob of whites, he had his driver pull to the curb for an impromptu sermon. ”G.o.d has given us an opportunity,” he began-and was interrupted with the interjection ”G.o.d has put a curse on the Negroes!” then saw his car slammed with a rock.

Perhaps down South, in Jackson or Houston, where students at Negro universities exchanged gun salvos with police. Or Birmingham, where Stokely Carmichael visited in June and said when they draft a black man and ”tell him to shoot his enemy, and if he don't shoot Lurleen and George and little junior, he's a fool.” Or New York, where sixteen members of the Revolutionary Action Movement, including the a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al of P.S. 40 in Queens, were arrested and charged with plotting to kill Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins and with possession of a thousand rounds of ammunition and 275 pounds of heroin. (At the NAACP convention in Boston, one militant leader mocked the news by picketing with a sign reading KILL THE TOMS. KILL THE TOMS.) Or maybe Oakland. That seemed, in fact, quite likely.

A new group had emerged there in the fall of 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Its founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, were the sons of among the fifty thousand blacks who had migrated to Oakland during World War II. By 1960, they were a quarter of the population, but a city council election-at-large scheme kept them politically toothless, and the most ferally racist police force outside of Mississippi-from which, in fact, many of the police were recruited-worked to keep them cowed. On Friday nights officers lay in wait outside the bars that served as the ghetto's de facto banks. A factory worker would emerge, find himself arrested for drunkenness, and be robbed of his week's wages on the way to the precinct house. Such was the city in which Seale and Newton grew up.

Since Huey Newton had grown up on the streets sharing a name with Donald Duck's nephew, with a squeaky voice and light skin at that, ”throwing hands,” preemptively and with the biggest dude he could find became a survival reflex. In 1964 he stabbed a man at a party with a steak knife for calling him Negro Negro instead of instead of black black-Malcolm X's preferred locution. Bobby and Huey began splitting their spare time between burglarizing houses in the Berkeley Hills and discussing Sartre, Camus, and radical African psychoa.n.a.lyst Frantz Fanon. They set out to consolidate their control of the Soul Students Advisory Council at Merritt College by packing a meeting with armed street thugs. Then they retired from campus politics to form an organization of their own. The bourgeois brothers at Merritt were all talk. Their group would be men of action.

On April 1, 1967, in the adjacent, largely black town of Richmond, a child was shot dead by the cops. According to the white press, he was caught in a burglary, fled, and violently resisted; according to his neighbors, he had a hip injury that made the notion of Denzill Dowell ”fleeing” a farce. The coroner's report was proved to contain fabrications. The Panthers came up from Oakland to investigate, bearing guns. The locals told them that white teachers slapped their black students. So Panthers in paramilitary uniforms formed armed ranks outside the elementary school while the parents confronted the teachers. (”The Dog Cops made no attempt to break up the meeting like they generally do when Black people get together to sound out their grievances against the white power structure,” the mimeographed Black Panther Black Panther newspaper related.) The Panthers demanded a new investigation of Denzill Dowell's death. The county sheriff's response was flippant: ”You should go to the legislature.” It gave them ideas. newspaper related.) The Panthers demanded a new investigation of Denzill Dowell's death. The county sheriff's response was flippant: ”You should go to the legislature.” It gave them ideas.

Here was one of the things that made these young men remarkable: beneath their berets and leather jackets, behind their bandoliers, they were also naively earnest. They believed implicitly in the majesty of the law. Revolutionaries in an only-in-America kind of way, they perceived themselves as a fully functioning ghetto counterconstabulary, apparently surprised when the response of the police-whom they called an ”army of occupation”-was to wish them dead.

”What are you doing with the guns?” a patrolman would ask them, a little afraid.

”What are you doing with your your gun?” Huey Newton would shoot back, and pull out one of the law books he always carried with him as others stood by with cameras and tape recorders. Huey would step out of his car and snap a live round into his chamber: California law only outlawed the carrying of loaded weapons inside a motor vehicle. The cops would slink; the Panthers would call them ”pigs”-another fruit of Newton and Seale's research: it wasn't an obscenity, so you couldn't be arrested for it. The Panthers harvested recruits from the gawking young male bystanders. It was a miracle Bay Area cops and Panthers hadn't shot one another yet. After the riots in San Francisco at the end of October, one precinct had taken to displaying a poster of Klan leader Robert Shelton with the caption ”Our Hero.” gun?” Huey Newton would shoot back, and pull out one of the law books he always carried with him as others stood by with cameras and tape recorders. Huey would step out of his car and snap a live round into his chamber: California law only outlawed the carrying of loaded weapons inside a motor vehicle. The cops would slink; the Panthers would call them ”pigs”-another fruit of Newton and Seale's research: it wasn't an obscenity, so you couldn't be arrested for it. The Panthers harvested recruits from the gawking young male bystanders. It was a miracle Bay Area cops and Panthers hadn't shot one another yet. After the riots in San Francisco at the end of October, one precinct had taken to displaying a poster of Klan leader Robert Shelton with the caption ”Our Hero.”

The Panthers started patrolling in rich white neighborhoods: let them them find out what it was like to have hostile forces stalking your streets with guns. Which was how they caught the attention of Don Mulford, the a.s.semblyman who had conspired with the FBI to help Reagan get elected. He introduced a bill to ban the carrying of loaded firearms in public places. It was set for its first committee hearing on May 2. find out what it was like to have hostile forces stalking your streets with guns. Which was how they caught the attention of Don Mulford, the a.s.semblyman who had conspired with the FBI to help Reagan get elected. He introduced a bill to ban the carrying of loaded firearms in public places. It was set for its first committee hearing on May 2.

”Gunmen Invade W. Coast Capitol,” read the front-page banner in far-off Chicago: ”The Negroes, shouting they were members of the Black Panther party, forced their way into the a.s.sembly chamber while the legislators were in session, and scuffled with state highway patrolmen.”

Upon their arrest Huey Newton read the Black Panther Executive Mandate No. 1, which called on ”Americans and particularly Negroes to take careful note of the racist California legislature which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless.” For many whites this statement settled it: Black Power Black Power meant arming black people. meant arming black people.

Which only made sense, if you were a Black Panther. A rumor was spreading across America's ghettos: the government was preparing concentration camps for blacks. The Panthers took it for settled fact. Which was why the Executive Mandate continued, ”At the same time that the American government is waging a racist war of genocide in Vietnam, the concentration camps in which the j.a.panese Americans were interned during World War II are being renovated and expanded. Since America has historically reserved the most barbaric treatment for nonwhite people we are forced to conclude that the concentration camps are being prepared for black people who are determined to gain their freedom by any means necessary.... The Mulford Act brings the hour of doom one step closer.”

In Was.h.i.+ngton that same day, a police official from Ohio told U.S. senators of Black Power militants' plans to take Cleveland by force of arms.

Two scared sides, black and white, each convinced the other was about to fire the first shot. The long, hot summer could not end well. The only question was, where would it begin?

In Newark.

The biggest city in New Jersey was a frighteningly corrupt town. Mayor Hugh Addonizio, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, once explained his career change this way: ”There's no money in being a congressman, but you can make a million bucks as mayor of Newark.” Its tenements, purchased at fire-sale prices during the Depression, were gold mines for their owners, so long as they didn't sink any money into them. So Newark had the highest percentage of substandard housing of any American city: 7,097 units had no flush toilets; 28,795, no heaters. Twenty-eight babies died in a diarrhea epidemic in 1965, eighteen of them at City Hospital, which was also infested by bats. The city's major industry was illegal gambling. Cops ran heroin rings. Food stores raised prices the day welfare checks arrived. All the same, downtown was filled with construction cranes. ”Urban renewal” served Mayor Addonizio's political purpose: by continually scattering Negroes, who were 65 percent of the population, it radically reduced their power.

Wednesday, July 12, 1967, police manhandled a cabdriver during an arrest. He had bushy hair, and they might have thought that made him a Black Muslim, whose lairs they had recently been raiding. A false report got around that he had died in police custody. Angry citizens ma.s.sed at the Fourth Precinct. Shortly before midnight, a Molotov c.o.c.ktail burst against the wall. Police in riot helmets surrounded the protesters. The two sides yelled racial slurs. Kids started throwing rocks. The first liquor-store windows were broken. The looting began; that was always next. Cars with makes.h.i.+ft towlines ripped the iron grates from store windows so their contents could be stripped; junkies cleaned out drugstores; ordinary citizens by the thousands took what they liked from white businesses as fast as they could carry it. Some skipped black-owned stores with SOUL BROTHER SOUL BROTHER signs marking their status like lamb's blood. Others didn't. A disgusted Urban Leaguer rued the ”carnival air.” Social scientists spoke of ”the revolution of rising expectations” as one cause of riots: more and more Great Society abundance all around, success without squalor, beauty without barrenness-just not so much for blacks. Looters, too, took America's promises seriously. signs marking their status like lamb's blood. Others didn't. A disgusted Urban Leaguer rued the ”carnival air.” Social scientists spoke of ”the revolution of rising expectations” as one cause of riots: more and more Great Society abundance all around, success without squalor, beauty without barrenness-just not so much for blacks. Looters, too, took America's promises seriously.

The mayor and the director of police temporized. That made everything worse. Certain dysfunctional civic responses would become a pattern in urban riots. The only preparations Newark officials had made had been orders to street cops for restraint: maybe that would tide things over. But police who perceived they'd been ”handcuffed” tended to act in a less, not more, restrained manner. (The hapless cabbie had been kicked so repeatedly in the groin that by the time he had arrived at the precinct house he couldn't walk; that was before he was a.s.saulted with gun b.u.t.ts, nightsticks, and dirty water from the jailhouse toilet.) Police were ordered to avoid arrests for looting, for arrests would be an acknowledgment there was a ”riot.” Insurance companies didn't cover riots. Maybe it would die out before anyone went on record using the word. ”The situation is normal,” police director Dominick Spina announced, piles of broken gla.s.s lying at his feet.

A second wave flared, then burned itself out around midnight Thursday. Relieved officials decided the crisis was over. Mayor Addonizio soon had to admit it wasn't. At 2:30 a.m. he called Governor Richard Hughes in a panic to call out the state police and the National Guard. Spina announced over every police radio, ”If you have a gun, whether it is a shoulder weapon or whether it is a handgun, use it.” The same Governor Hughes who had determinedly refused to interfere with the tenure of the Communist history professor Eugene Genovese during his reelection fight in 1965 announced, ”The line between the jungle and the law might as well be drawn here as any place in America.” By 4:30 a.m. the first state police had appeared. By 7 a.m. National Guard units had rolled up Springfield Avenue, the Ess.e.x County main drag that started in leafy Short Hills and ended in Newark's heart of darkness. White residents set up shotgun patrols, standing ready for Negroes ”to spill over onto white ground.” They shouted at the pa.s.sing military trucks, ”Go kill them n.i.g.g.e.rs.”

And that is what they did. Thus began the second Newark riot: not looting, not arson, but scared offices of the law committing officially sanctioned murder.

Three were dead by daylight Friday. One was Rose Abraham, a forty-five-year-old mother of five, out looking for one of her children. Tedlock Bell Jr., twenty-eight, a father of four, a former basketball star, had just told his companions to submit quietly to the police when he was killed. A young man named James Sanders was shotgunned in the back while running from a liquor store. The commander o

<script>