(8 of 9)
The expanding political power of blacks in cities with large minority populations has helped somewhat to ease tensions. There are almost 200 black mayors holding office in U.S. cities. Among them: Washington, Los Angeles, Atlanta. Some police forces have wisely hired more black officers. In Detroit, which also has a 'black mayor, fully 40% of the force is black, compared with a mere 6% in the late '60s. (By contrast, only 106 of Dade County's 1,501-member force are black.) Yet even in Detroit, Mayor Coleman Young says of racial violence in his city: "The threat is real. The unrest is real."
After the Miami riots, which Jesse Jackson called "the most bitter and mean I've ever been in," the Chicago activist warned that "Miami cannot be isolated. The storm clouds are rising and we blacks need help." Warned Arthur Barnes, president of the New York Urban Coalition: "You can stretch a rubber band just so far and then it breaks."
Although there was scattered racial violence last week in Tampa, related to the McDuffie verdict, the nation's largest cities remained the prime points of danger. Said New York Mayor Ed Koch: "Any city in this country could experience that incident. I hope it won't happen here." New York police feel that they have worked hard to improve relations with blacks since the Harlem riots of 1964, but as one veteran officer explained, "There's a group out there that nobody reaches. They don't talk to us; we don't talk to them. They're just waiting for the first loud noise."
Says Sociologist Philip Hauser of Chicago: "There isn't a central city in this country where the mood of the black community isn't the same as in Miami." In Chicago police believe that friction over black contentions of police brutality has eased, but nobody is really sure that this is so. Says James Compton, executive director of the Chicago Urban League, about rioting in the city: "The potential is definitely there. It is just a question of what will touch it off." Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black, contends that black antagonism toward his city's police has dropped. "We used to have a shooting policy," he says of the department. "Now we are working with the community." But Harry Dolan, director of the former Watts Writer Workshop, disagrees. Says he: "The resentment is building again. You just can't keep shooting people without someone some time shooting back." In Boston, Buford Kaigler of the Human Rights Commission feels that in cases of police brutality, blacks "have shown a willingness to wait for a ruling from the judicial process." But he warns: "When there's an appearance of a perversion of the judicial process, people take to the streets." Agrees Joseph D. Feaster Jr., president of the Boston branch of N.A.A.C.P.: "If you get the right circumstances and the ignition, then you're going to have the problem."