Word: plainfield
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Similarly, in Plainfield, N.J., officials contended that TV coverage egged on the rioters. "They gave the impression that the whole town was going up in flames," says Mayor George F. Hetfield. "Soon we had busloads of people coming in from Philadelphia and Newark who were professional manipulators." In turn, TV interviewed the newcomers as if they were experts on Plainfield. A Negro identified by NBC as the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church claimed that the police were prolonging the riots in order to beat more Negroes. Plainfield clergymen complained to NBC that the man was a recent arrival...
...certainly sounded bad enough. Mounting a car hood in Cambridge, the scene of prolonged racial demonstrations three years ago, Brown delivered an incendiary 50-minute harangue to a crowd of some 300 Negroes. Recalling the death of a white policeman during Plainfield, N.J., riots last month, Brown bellowed: "Look what the brothers did in Plainfield. They stomped a cop to death. Good. He's dead. They stomped him to death. They threw a shopping basket on his head and took his pistol and shot him and then...
Fifteen miles to the southwest, a Negro mob in Plainfield, N.J., surrounded a white policeman and stomped him to death. Trouble erupted in nearby Elizabeth, New Brunswick, Jersey City and Englewood. Halfway across the nation, gangs of young Negroes in Cairo, Ill., hurled fire bombs and sniped sporadically for two nights, until Illinois Governor Otto Kerner ordered in 50 National Guard troops. Six hundred guardsmen were mobilized in Minneapolis, whose Negro population is only 2%, after two nights of rock throwing and arson. Gangs in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, lobbed rocks and vitriol at Whitey. In West Fresno...
While Newark swept its streets, assessed its losses (upwards of $30 million) and buried its dead (24 Negroes, two whites), Plainfield bordered on anarchy. Ghetto spokesmen warned during a meeting with city officials that unless looters and minor offenders were released on their own recognizance, "we will tear this town apart." "Is that a threat?" asked one reporter. "This is no threat, baby," replied a Negro. "It's a promise." Most minor offenders were duly sprung...
...Paul Ylvisaker, 45, New Jersey's commissioner of community affairs, was busy last week trying to repair the damage wrought by the Newark and Plainfield riots-and ran into jeers of "Communist!" and "Nigger lover!" from some Northern rednecks when he restrained National Guardsmen from tearing apart one neighborhood in a search for arms. As a Ford Foundation director for twelve years, he distributed more than $200 million to city and state governments. Now, on the other end, he is attempting to show that states can play a vital role in uniting cities and suburbs. To take care...