Aug. 13, 1964 - For the second successive night, two New Jersey cities, Paterson and Elizabeth, were the targets of rioting mobs which roamed through wide areas of the communities, smashing windows, tossing bottles and Molotov cocktails, and looting.
The violent disorders continued into today’s early hours. In Elizabeth, several fires were started by the Molotov missiles. There were no reported injuries there, but in Paterson, at least three persons were hurt, including a newspaper reporter and photographer.
Early today, 20 adult Negroes were under arrest in Paterson, and 12 youths were taken in on juvenile delinquency charges. Eight persons were arrested in Elizabeth.
In Elizabeth, police insisted the rioting did not stem from any racial issue. It broke out in the multi-racial port area.
The renewed violence in Paterson came in the midst of a City Hall conference between Mayor Francis X. Graves and some 30 Negro civic and religious leaders to seek ways to avert further disturbances.
More than 150 helmeted cops roamed from trouble spot to trouble spot in a 20-square-block area in the city’s predominantly Negro Fourth Ward as mobs, composed mostly of youths, tossed bottles and Molotov cocktails at the cops and storefronts, smashing at least 40 windows.
At one point, the cops threatened to shoot, but they held their fire.
The injured newsmen, both from the Journal-American, were reporter Mike Pearl and photographer Mel Finkelstein. They were cruising through the riot-rocked area in Finkelstein’s convertible when a large rock was hurled through the side right window, smashing the glass.
Finkelstein, at the wheel, suffered rib bruises and cuts when the rock hit him. Pearl, sitting alongside, sustained buts of both hands from flying glass. Both were treated at Paterson General Hospital.
Mayor Graves himself, wearing a helmet as protection against the bottles tossed from windows and rooftops, was on the scene, warning the groups that they would be in real trouble if they didn’t disperse and go home.
At 10:15 p.m., Graves ordered all the bars in the area closed for the night.
“The taverns just breed trouble at a time like this,” he said. Graves then warned: “We will not tolerate violence. We will meet violence with total force.”
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