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More Than Khe Sanh. In Newark, where in last summer's rampage 23 persons lost their lives and the authorities expended 13,319 rounds of ammunition, there were no casualties and only one shot was fired—by a policeman, as a warning into the air. Mayor Hugh Addonizio crisscrossed the riot area in an unmarked prowl car. Some 200 Negro youths wearing the pink, silver and white badges of the United Community Corp., Newark's antipoverty organization, also patrolled the ghetto—and to better effect. The kids made an impressive contribution to cool; so did a courageous "Walk for Understanding" by 25,000 people, predominantly white suburbanites, who hiked through the city's smoldering Central Ward to show white concern with ghetto conditions. Nonetheless, some 270 fires were set (kerosene tins, shredded mattresses and broken Molotov-cocktail bottles were found in many gutted buildings), and as usual the hardest-hit were the Negro slum dwellers.
The nation's capital, afflicted for the first time since 1962 by racial turmoil, endured three days of pillaging and burning that brought a force of 15,246 regular troops to its defense—more than twice the size of the U.S. garrison that held Khe Sanh. Total damage to the capital's buildings and property: $13.3 million, highest in the U.S. Arsonists and looters were highly selective, hitting elegant clothing stores such as Lewis & Thos. Saltz, or else stripping liquor or grocery shelves and then burning credit records. Ten deaths were counted in the capital. The 711 fires that plumed the city afforded a pyrotechnical spectacle unmatched since British troops burned the capital in 1814. Police and soldiers alike kept their fingers off the trigger, and at week's end Vice President Hubert Humphrey pointedly rewarded troopers who were still on duty in Washington with a special screening of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?*
Tear Gas & Rumors. A few cities disregarded the lessons learned at such cost in previous summers. When 1,000 high-spirited Negro youths cut classes in Kansas City, Mo., and marched on city hall to complain that their brothers across the river in K.C., Kans., had been given a day off from school in tribute to King, Mayor Ilus W. Davis acted sensibly to calm them by linking arms with a band of black ministers and accepting the offer of a Roman Catholic priest to give the students an afternoon of rock music at a nearby church. Davis, aided by Kansas City Chiefs' Football Stars Curtis McClinton and Buck Buchanan (both black), cooled the crowd. But then, as the youngsters began boarding buses, Kansas City police responded to a thrown pop bottle with a popping of tear-gas bombs. During the rock concert itself, officers investigating a report of a glass-breaking incident heard the tumult from the church basement and hurled tear gas inside, routing the kids. That added fuel to a rampage resulting in 250 fires, $500,000 damage in looting and burning, 65 injuries and six deaths—all of them Negroes shot by cops.