As in many race riots, the explosion in Miami appeared to those most centrally involved in it as a sudden swirl of senseless violence. And when it was over, the main victims were those who could least afford it: the blacks of Liberty City. Some views from people inside the ghetto:
"A DUMB RIOT"
Linda Fullwood, 27, who supports herself and two children on $195 a month from welfare, was standing in front of her dilapidated housing project on 62nd Street, when she saw a white youth run down the street toward her, chased by a crowd of angry blacks. "He was messed up real bad," says Fullwood. "A bunch of blacks surrounded him and hit him a couple of times, but he didn't fall.
Then a black guy drove up in a big truck and got the white man inside and got him away. He had to pull a pistol to get people back from his truck." Fullwood tried her best to stay out of the melee, but she was later hit by a bottle and now has a gash on her left arm.
"It was a dumb riot," says Fullwood. "You get hurt taking other people's stuff. It ain't like they put it in the street and say 'Come and get it.' The only thing they tore up was the black area. Now I got to go way across to Hialeah to shop."
She hopes to start work in a computer keypunch training program soon "so maybe I can get a good job and move away from here." Says she: "These apartments are ragged. They need to just tear 'em down. You can come around here at night and see all the rats. We haven't had any mailboxes the whole time I've been living here. We used to have to go to the post office to get the mail. Well, now the post office has been burned."
THEY BUST HIM"
"Mostly I just worked on cars during the trouble," says Oliver Andrew, 42, the owner of a small auto repair shop that stands on the eastern edge of Liberty City. Andrew says he did not feel that he was in great danger, at least not from fellow blacks, " 'cause I'm pretty well known in this neighborhood."
As the rioters rampaged across the street, the owner of a grocery store watched outside Andrew's shop. "After they busted into the liquor store next to his, he went inside to ask them not to set it on fire," says Andrew. "He was worried that the fire would spread to his store. After they left, he started boarding up the store so nobody could throw no fire inside. While he was there two National Guard drove up. They bust him 'side his head and pointed their guns at him, just like he was a looter." Although Andrew condemns the police action, he also criticizes his own people for their part in the violence. Says he: "We only speak up after something happens."
"TIMES ARE GOING TO GET HARDER"
Lamar Rushion, 21, watched neighbors take part in the riot but refused to join them. Says he: "My friends liked it.They really enjoyed it. They got some thing out of the looting like some car parts or some clothes. But how far is that going to take them? What are they going to do tomorrow?" Rushion is a high school dropout who works as a baker in downtown Miami and wants to go back to school to study photography. "This thing messed up the whole area," he says. "What little business we had is gone. So now where is everybody going to work?