 Rochdale Village was originally between 10 and 20 percent African American and 80 to 90 percent white.This caused controversy before the start of construction, as black people could not participate in Rochdale Village's construction.The Rochdale Village complex was supposed to be the model for mixed-race housing in the U.S., but then became symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement, which was ongoing during the complex's construction; for instance, twenty-three protesters were detained for disrupting the construction in 1961, including William Booth, the future head of mayor John V. Lindsay's Human Rights Commission.