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Read TIME’s Report on the Crown Heights Riots of 1991

2 minute read

The incident that set off the 1991 Crown Heights riots was easy to pinpoint: on Aug. 19, a car driven by a Hasidic Jew hit and killed a young black child. As a private ambulance took the driver away from the scene and emergency responders worked to free the victim and another child pinned under the car, the area’s black and Jewish residents–who had long been tense neighbors–erupted in anger. As TIME later noted, the result was the worst episode of racial violence in New York City city since 1968, after the death of Martin Luther King.

But as with any cataclysmic event, the underlying causes of the riots were far more complicated than a single moment.

As TIME’s story on the riots explained, the side-by-side life of the two communities in Crown Heights was already tense—and the fighting did little to diffuse the situation:

Behind the violence lay decades of uneasy coexistence between local blacks and members of the Lubavitcher sect, who established their world headquarters there in 1940. Lubavitcher Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky claims that ”Crown Heights is a model community of integration where whites and blacks live in peace together.” But blacks describe a different atmosphere. ”The Hasidim set up an apartheid situation in Crown Heights,” says Dr. Vernal Cave, a black dermatologist who has lived in the area for 36 years. Cave claims that the Lubavitchers have long received preferential treatment from police and city authorities. In particular, he says, the sect caused resentment in the past by pressuring Jewish shopkeepers in the neighborhood to close their doors on Saturday and by prevailing on police to block off the streets near their synagogues during the Sabbath. Said another local black man: ”You’ve got to be blind, deaf and dumb not to know about the problems here with the Hasidim.”

One thing is clear: there is little common ground between the two groups. Nor have leaders from either side reached out to the other in an effort to defuse the situation. Instead they have engaged in a bitter public debate in which heated rhetoric far outweighs the language of reason and compromise. While blacks like Cave speak of apartheid, Lubavitcher leaders evoke visions of pogroms and Kristallnacht.

Read more from 1991, here in the TIME Vault: An Eye for an Eye

Hipsterless Brooklyn: Vintage Photos From a Vanished World

View of the Manhattan Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with that island across the East River, 1946.
View of the Manhattan Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with that island across the East River, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
From photographer's notes: "Trolleys & tracks at corner of Flushing Ave., Graham & Broadway."
From photographer's notes: "Trolleys & tracks at corner of Flushing Ave., Graham & Broadway."Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, New York, 1946.
Brooklyn, New York, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Corner of Middagh and Hicks, Brooklyn Heights, 1946.
Corner of Middagh and Hicks, Brooklyn Heights, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Jumping rope on Siegel Street near Humboldt, Brooklyn, 1946.
Jumping rope on Siegel Street near Humboldt, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
City veterans housing project, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1946.
City veterans housing project, Canarsie, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Laundry out to dry, Brooklyn, 1946.
Laundry out to dry, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn street scene, 1946.
Brooklyn street scene, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Unidentified Brooklynite, 1946.
Unidentified Brooklynite, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Taking the sun on a Brooklyn rooftop, 1946.
Taking the sun on a Brooklyn rooftop, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Listening to a Dodgers-Giants ballgame on the radio, Brooklyn, 1946.
Listening to a Dodgers-Giants ballgame on the radio, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Ebbets Field, 55 Sullivan Place, Brooklyn, 1946.
Ebbets Field, 55 Sullivan Place, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Dodgers ballgame, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.
Dodgers ballgame, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Dodgers fans, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.
Dodgers fans, Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Jack Kaufman outside his barber shop on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn in 1946, holding a signed baseball that once beaned future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.
Jack Kaufman outside his barber shop on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn in 1946, holding a signed baseball that once beaned future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Subway entrance, Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.
Subway entrance, Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn, 1946.
Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.
Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, 1946.
Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
On the waterfront, Brooklyn, 1946.
On the waterfront, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Moore Street near Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.
Moore Street near Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey Boulevard) near Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, 1946.
Sumner Avenue (now Marcus Garvey Boulevard) near Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Grocery shopping, Brooklyn, 1946.
Grocery shopping, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Unidentified boys, Brooklyn, 1946.
Unidentified boys, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Under the elevated tracks, Broadway at Lynch, Brooklyn, 1946.
Under the elevated tracks, Broadway at Lynch, Brooklyn, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Brooklyn Bridge, 1946.
Brooklyn Bridge, 1946.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

 

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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com