The Crown Heights Riot of 1991
Anti-Semitism has been prevalent throughout the world since the establishment of the Jewish religion and unfortunately, traces of it can still be found to this day in the United States. What exactly is anti-Semitism? It is the intense dislike for and prejudice against the Jews; it can range anywhere from simple opposition to the Jews to vicious hatred displayed through physical torment. Some examples of the more publicized cases of violence against the Jews include the attack of Irish workers and police on the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1902, the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, the assassination of Alan Berg in 1984, as well as the Crown Heights riots of 1991. I have chosen to discuss the Crown Heights riots of 1991 simply because I believe the events are more recent and therefore, hold themselves to be more valid and up to date with the anti-sentiment shown towards the Jews today.
The Crown Heights Riot was a three-day riot in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York City that started on August 19,1991. To this day, we do not know the cause of the riots, what ignited the rioters or what the hidden meaning behind the actual incident was. Many deem this controversial riot as purely an anti-Semitic outburst, even calling it the “Crown Heights pogrom” (1). Besides anti-Semitism, anti-police sentiment was also displayed during this riot. What amazes me the most about this incident is that the events that led up to these riots, its legacy, and its record of ever happening have been politically and socially altered to meet everyone’s assertion. Background information allows us to see that tensions existed in the neighborhood on behalf of both parties; the Ha...
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... Halloween parade. There is a storefront mediation center, a black and Jewish mothers group, and an effort to add black youngsters to the private Jewish security patrols. Even though tensions still remain and are just buried beneath the surface, one cannot escape the fact that they live side by side and must face each other every day. Hopefully, with tolerance and education, both communities will learn to live at peace with one another for the right reasons, and not the wrong.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot
2 Shapiro, Edward S. Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. Brandeis University Press, New York: 2006. http://www.upne.com/1-58465-561-5.html
3 Kifner, John and Lee, Felicia R. “In Crown Heights, a Decade of Healing after Riots, but Scars Remain,” August 19,2001. http://www.racematters.org/crownheightsscars.htm.
A timeline of the 90s features similar white on black hate discrimination as found in The Watsons. In 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by white LAPD officers following a car chase. 1993 saw members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, who attempted to bomb a church in Los Angeles and kill Rodney King, get arrested for their plots (Ross). The year 1993 also featured the release of the very first black American Girl doll; her name was Addy Walker. This first doll was depicted ...
Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.
Once called the Public Housing capital in the United States, Newark was receiving more money than any other city from the federal government to clear slums and build public housing complexes. People like Louis Danzig who was the head of the Newark Housing Authority (NHA) used the federal funds the city received to destroy low income housing of minorities in Newark, then build public housing on the outskirts of the city putting all the poor minorities in these areas. The police brutalized the cities African-American citizens numerous times with no repercussions. The city was being segregated and African-American Newark residents started to feel more and more marginalized. In 1967 things finally came to ahead as an African-American cab driver was arrested and beat badly by the Newark Police Department and when rumor spread that he had died in police custody. Though the cab driver was in fact brought to the hospital, a group gathered out in front of the police station and started throwing bricks and other objects at the police station. The riot went on for six days and has shaped the image of Newark to this day the riots have given the city a negative appearance that still lingers.
Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
Throughout history, Jews have been persecuted in just about every place they have settled. Here I have provided just a small ...
The Newark riots of 1967 were very extreme and terrible time in Newark, New Jersey, one of the worst in U.S. history. The riots were between African-Americans and white residents, police officers and the National Guard. The riots were not unexpected. The tension between the city grew tremendously during the 1960's, due to lack of employment for Blacks, inadequate housing, police brutality and political exclusion of blacks from government.
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
Givan, Becky. Chicago Race Riot of 1919. 29 Apr. 2004 http://diaspora.northwestern.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/DiasporaX.woa/wa/displayArticle?atomid=602. New York Life. The History of Jim Crow.
“April 26th, 1992, there was a riot on the streets, tell me where were you!? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV, while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “First spot we hit it was my liquor store. I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford. With red lights flashin' time to retire, And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some justice. A video tape of four L.A.P.D police officers brutally beating a male (Rodney King) without any sympathy was made public, which started the bomb track. “Let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna wanna let it burn,” says the song when describing the riots. Throughout these days there was an estimate of more than 50 killed, over 4 thousand injured, and 12,000 people arrested. The damage caused in the city was about one billion dollars, damage that is believed was never fully repaired. The riots and destruction that went on for about a week that showed the people’s rage and that they were not going to tolerate the injustices committed by the authorities.
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
In New York during the 1940’s a non-violent act of civil disobedience occurred among blacks to protest segregation laws. Blacks were not allowed to live in white neighborhoods, had to ride in the back of buses, lived in poverty with poor schools, and were frequently beaten by police.
Shaskolsky, Leon. “The Negro Protest Movement- Revolt or Reform?.” Phylon 29 (1963): 156-166. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004 .
This investigation is centered on the question “To what extent did racism and anti-Semitism affect the court case of The People V Leo Frank?” The essay focuses on the effect of racism and anti-Semitism against Leo Frank, a Jew from Brooklyn, during and after the trial where he was found guilty. It discusses these forms of racism and anti-Semitism in context of the time period of the court case, from 1913 to 1915. The paper discusses the portrayal of the court case in the papers as well as the public view and their actions, such as the lynching of Leo Frank without any repercussions or charges. The sources used in this investigation were newspapers from this time, court records, as well as other information found in the 1913 Leo Frank Case and Trial Research library as well as in academic Journals. The investigation also references An Unspeakable Crime by Elaine Marie Alphin.
An analysis of the first 5,000 arrests from all over the city revealed that 52 percent were poor Latinos, 10 percent whites and only 38 percent blacks. They also know that the nation's first multiracial riot was as much about empty bellies and broken hearts as it was about police batons and Rodney King (Urban).
On July 27, 1919, a young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an invisible line of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several white bystanders, knocked unconscious and drowned, and his death set off one of the bloodiest riots in Chicago’s history (Shogun 96). The Chicago race riot was not the result of the incident alone. Several factors, including the economic, social and political differences between blacks and whites, the post-war atmosphere and the psychology of race relations in 1919, combined to make Chicago a prime target for this event. Although the riot was a catalyst for several short-term solutions to the racial tensions, it did little to improve race relations in the long run. It was many years before the nation truly addressed the underlying conflicts that sparked the riot of 1919. This observation is reflected in many of author James Baldwin’s essays in which he emphasizes that positive change can only occur when both races recognize the Negro as an equal among men politically, economically and socially.