The summer of 1966 threatens to yield one of the ugliest harvests of racial violence in memory. Partly because of the desperate new militance symbolized by the rallying cry of black power, partly because of the white man's ineptitude and uncertainty in meeting the Negro's legitimate needs, there is hardly a major city in the U.S. that does not live with the fear of turmoil in the streets. Last week the train of death and destruction slashed deep scars in Cleveland, where Mayor Ralph Locher had ignored persistent warnings of Negro unrest, and scratched New York City, where Mayor John Lindsay had set a notable pattern of personal concern for ghetto residents.
The savagery that gripped Hough, a garbage-strewn, rat-infested Negro section of Cleveland that is known as "Rough Hough" or simply "The Jungle," was a flagrant example of irresponsibility on the part of both Negroes and white officialdom. If ever a slum was predictably ripe for riot, it was Hough. Some 60,000 Negroes are jammed into a two-square-mile warren of squat apartment houses and decaying mansions carved up into flats; the area's crime rate is the highest in the city; flocks of prostitutes hustle passers-by at every chance; and hatred for the city's cops runs deep—the more so because the 2,140-man force has only 130 Negro members and only two above the rank of patrolman. The urban-renewal program in Hough has been labeled one of the nation's worst.
Though Mayor Locher (rhymes with poker) announced last year that he saw "no impending furor" in his city, a U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigation there last April convinced at least one commissioner, the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, that conditions in Hough were "the worst I have seen." After the commission urged city officials to show "a more positive attitude" toward Cleveland's Negroes, Mayor Locher's response was to appoint a committee to report on the commission's report.
Goodwill Arson. It took only a small spark to ignite Hough. Early one evening, the bartender in a sleazy, white-operated tavern called The 79ers refused to give a glass of ice water to a Negro, who then ran angrily into the street shouting the news to his street-corner cronies. A muttering crowd gathered outside the bar, stormed the place, and wrecked it. The rampage was on. Chanting "Black power! Black power!", hundreds of Negro hoodlums charged up and down the streets, smashing and looting white-owned shops at will.
Police Chief Richard Wagner ordered a force of 400 cops into the area. They were outnumbered and all but engulfed. Dozens of fires flickered eerily over the sweating mob. Soon parts of Hough were plunged into darkness as electric power lines and street lights were shorted by flames. Negro snipers manned the rooftops and began shooting at random in the dark. Police tried desperately to herd people off the streets to protect them from crossfire between snipers and police. One young Negro woman, Mrs. Joyce Arnett, was searching frantically for her children when policemen pushed her into an apartment building. Hysterical, she ran to a window and screamed into the chaos below: "My God, I want to go home to my kids!" A bullet smashed into her head, killing her.