Nation: SCORECARD FOR THE CITIES

IN the first few days after the assassination of Martin Luther King last April, the rioting that swept American cities was almost as widespread and destructive as in all of 1967. Last year, 233 racial upheavals in 168 cities and towns caused 82 deaths, 3,400 injuries and 18,800 arrests. By comparison, in April alone this year, 202 racial disturbances hit 172 cities, resulting in 43 deaths, 3,500 injuries and 27,000 arrests. Leaders among both blacks and whites feared that the emotional orgy of those few days would prove to be only a prelude to the nation’s longest, hottest summer of urban mayhem.

So far, those fears have not been realized. Last week, as millions of youngsters left the ghetto streets to return to school, the usual riot season more or less ended. During the summer there have been no disorders as big or bad as the holocausts that gutted Watts, Newark or Detroit in previous years. The U.S. had 286 racial disturbances from May through the end of August, but most were relatively small and short. Though practically any city could still blow, the summer of 1968 now ranks as the most tranquil since 1964.

They Mean Business. Part of the reason is that many angry Negroes spent their steam in the cathartic aftermath of the King murder. Another is that few cities have been hit by more than one major riot in any year—or two years in a row. More deeply, Negroes have discovered that they are the worst hurt victims of ghetto violence. Along with their desire for self-preservation goes a strong drive for self-determination. Instead of incinerating their neighborhoods, many have begun concentrating on building them up. Dr. Hiawatha Harris, head of a psychiatric clinic in Watts, echoes the common belief that “the rioting phase, where we burn down businesses in our own areas, is over now. The whole movement is in another direction—toward implementing black power and finding our dignity as a people.”

Black power has translated into black pride, and with it the drive for business power and ballot power. Many Negroes have channeled their energies into black-run businesses, black cultural festivals, black historical groups, black community organization—all of which have released some tensions. Negro Playwright LeRoi Jones has shifted from promoting violence to campaigning for the election of Negro candidates to fill two of the three vacancies on the Newark city council. Black Militant Ron Karenga has also become an advocate of ballot power. He worked hard and effectively to prevent rioting from breaking out in Los Angeles after King’s death.

In Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and many other cities, ghetto community groups have opened black-run shops and factories, with big white-run companies providing the capital, training or markets. Significantly, both presidential candidates have pledged major Government help for this movement. Nixon began promoting the cause of “Black Capitalism,” and Humphrey called for “Black Entrepreneurship.”

A Voice in Policy. White political, police and business chieftains have aided in other ways. Wisely, high officials in New York, Newark, Chicago, Detroit and other potentially explosive cities have begun holding regular dialogues with black militants and giving them a voice in schools, welfare, urban renewal, law enforcement and other policy matters that crucially affect Negro neighborhoods. In Detroit, which has only 328 blacks on its 4,656-man force, 40% of the cadets now in the police academy are Negroes. In several cases, black militants have been given local government jobs and other incentives to cool it.

Chicago street gangs—among them the Vice Lords, the Cobras and the Roman Saints—have probably been too busy and involved to riot. With money from the Government, foundations, churches and private companies, they have opened their own stores, mounted clean-up and paint-up campaigns, and organized recreational centers. Through programs sponsored by the Government, the National Alliance of Businessmen and the Urban Coalition, summer jobs were provided for 821,000 young people, most of them Negroes.

Whether or not the cities will remain relatively calm depends largely on what happens to those programs. “It’s an oversimplification to think that there will not be more rioting,” says CORE Chief Roy Innis. Like some other Negro leaders, he argues that warfare in the ghettos will expand from a warm-weather phenomenon to a year-round activity unless white leaders give an even higher priority to creating more jobs for blacks—and realize that slum dwellers, particularly the young, have just grievances during the long, cold winter as well.

From Spontaneity to Sniping. There is, however, another ominous trend in the land. Violence as a form of Negro protest appears to be changing from the spontaneous combustion of a mob to the premeditated shoot-outs of a far-out few. Many battles have started with well-planned sniping at police.

The summer’s bloodiest confrontation occurred in Cleveland, where an ambush of police by black extremists led to an uprising that took eleven lives. Since then, groups of policemen have been wounded by Negro guerrillas in Seattle and Peoria, Ill., and lesser sniping skirmishes have been reported in a dozen other cities. But this has apparently been the work of a handful of fanatics, and they have failed to rally much of a following. While the extremists speak loudly, and often gain the headlines, they do not come near to representing the peaceful and constructive majority of the rapidly changing American Negro community.