Aug. 3, 1964 - Scores of Negroes rioted in Jersey City, N.J., last night and early today, hurling debris, looting stores, and hurling missiles at police. (Pictured below is Bernie’s Delicatessen, wrecked in the riot.)
At least 30 persons, including 10 policemen, were injured. Three of those hurt were white persons whose car was stopped by a mob.
All of the city’s 150 available policemen were sent to the scene, in the predominantly Negro Lafayette section.
The police said that about 500 Negroes were concentrated in several spots in the area at the height of the rioting but that many of them were only onlookers. Observers said 200 people, most of them young toughs, made up the core of the rioters.
The trouble, which started shortly after 8 p.m., was generally under control at 1 o’clock this morning.
The trouble began when Miss Dolores Shannon, 26 years old, a Negro, was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge. The police said she was drunk and had been shouting and screaming. As they took her into custody, a man identified as Walker Mays was said to have interfered. He too was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge.
Both were taken to the Fourth Precinct station house. Soon afterward, about 40 Negroes marched on the station house, chanting charges of police brutality.
The crowd left about a half hour later. But at about 10 p.m., the crowd re-formed in greater numbers at Priore and Grand Streets, the scene of the arrests, at the Lafayette Gardens city housing project.
One hundred policemen were sent to the corner. The policemen, wearing helmets, faced the Negroes, who were shouting epithets.
“We’re ready for you,” the crowd shouted. “Come on! Come on!”
Garbage can covers, bricks, and bottles began to shower down on the police, who moved in to disperse the crowd with nightsticks.
The police succeeded in clearing the intersection, but not before an angry mob of 50 Negroes had swarmed around a passing car driven by a white woman, stopped it, broken its windows, and beaten its three occupants. They were rescued by the police and sent to Jersey City Medical Center.
Soon after the crowd was dispersed, sporadic looting began. Gangs of youths started ransacking stores throughout the 10-block Negro district, which is adjacent to downtown Jersey City.
Mayor Thomas Whelan, who was on vacation in Sussex County, returned to the city about 1 a.m.
He said the violence was not surprising in view of “what happened in New York.” He said that rioting in other cities had created tensions in Jersey City and that “rioting is contagious.”
“We are not going to tolerate violence by any persons or groups,” the Mayor said.
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