The following event, Civil Rights and Civil Unrest:  Jews and Black in Conversation, organized by Max Herman of the The Jewish Museum of NJ, took place on May 20, 2007.  Participants were:  Dr. Clement Price, Dr, William Helmreich, Ken Gibson, Junius Wiliams, Sam Convissor, Morris Spielberg, and Linda Caldwell Epps)

It all began on a hot summer night in 1967. A black taxicab driver stopped for a traffic violation was beaten by police, and word of the incident spread throughout a city already boiling in racial tension and strained relations between police and the black community.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.

Rumors grew that the man had died, and the anger built to a fever pitch. Then it erupted. When the rioting, looting, arson and deadly violence were finally quelled five days later, 26 people, including a city police officer and firefighter, were dead. Another 1,500 were injured and about 1,600 had been arrested. An estimated $10 million worth of property was destroyed. Some 3,000 National Guard troops and State Police had to be called in to the city, and the riots sealed Newark's place in the pantheon of violent uprisings in America's cities during that unsettling era 40 years ago.

In a panel discussion yesterday at a Jewish temple, civic and city leaders recalled the harrowing Newark riots and the disintegrating relationship between the city's black and Jewish communities in the years before the nightmare.

Morris Spielberg was president of the merchants association along Springfield Avenue, the spine of largely Jewish-owned businesses that became the epicenter of the disturbance. His furniture store was the first business targeted by the rioters when a trash can was thrown through the front window. Spielberg escaped the violence by being rolled up in a rug by his black employees and slipped out of the store and onto the back seat of a car.  "There was quite a bit of tension," Spielberg recalled of the days leading up to the riots.   Jews owned many of the stores and much of the rental housing in a city whose black population grew while Jews and other whites were fleeing to the suburbs.

Junius Williams, who was then a young black activist with the Students for a Democratic Society, said the city's housing vacancy rate was just 1 percent, a shortage that was exacerbated by a proposal to tear down more than 100 acres of a predominantly black neighborhood to build a medical school that would become the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  "What do you need 150 acres for a medical school for?" Williams asked. "That would have been the largest medical school in the world."

Kenneth Gibson, the man who would become a four-term mayor of Newark three years after the riots, said the proposed displacement of so many black residents for the medical school was an affront that helped seal the rift between the black and white communities that led to the riots.   "That was viewed by many leaders of the black community as an attempt to decimate black political strength," Gibson said. In the aftermath of the riots, the medical school was built on a much smaller campus, with some 60 acres of land set aside for housing, Williams said.

Williams, Spielberg, Gibson and Samuel Convissor, a fourth panelist, all placed blame for the uprising squarely on the shoulders of then-Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio and what they perceived as his utter indifference to the worsening economic and social disparity between blacks and whites in the city. "There was no effort, none whatsoever, to recognize the growing separation between the black and white communities in the city of Newark during the early years of the Addonizio administration," said Convissor, a former aide to the mayor who resigned in protest.   "It was just a continual deterioration of community life and community spirit," Convissor said.

Though the tone of the panel discussion at Congregation Ahavas Sholom, the last surviving synagogue in the city, was sedate and analytical, there were some lighter moments.

Gibson elicited laughter from the audience of about 125 by recalling how, during his first term in office, he averted a second city riot by Puerto Ricans at Branch Brook Park by leading them in a two-mile procession from a festival at the park to a protest rally at City Hall.  "So I marched 2,000 Puerto Ricans out of Branch Brook Park, down Park Avenue, down Bloomfield Avenue, down Broad Street to City Hall, and by that time they were all tired," the former mayor said.

After yesterday's session, which was sponsored by the Jewish Museum of New Jersey, Gibson noted that while Newark has improved dramatically since the days of the 1967 riots, the city has never quite overcome the disturbing legacy of those five hellish days in July.  "Once you get that kind of bad image, an image like that never really goes away," the former mayor said.