civil rights

A statement prepared by the Newark Area Planning Association (NAPA) and law volunteers from Vista (Volunteers in Service to America) that put forth a comprehensive argument for an alternate plan for the development of the College of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark’s Central Ward. NAPA led the charge to develop an alternate plan for the College of Medicine and Dentistry that would have originally displaced approximately 20,000 Black and Puerto Rican residents of the Central Ward. — Credit: Junius Williams Collection

Photo of Amiri Baraka in the foreground, with Ken Gibson just behind him. Baraka and Gibson were both members of the United Brothers, a coalition of Black leaders in Newark organized to develop a “Black United Front” to take power in the mayoral election of 1970. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Article from the Star-Ledger on June 25, 1968 covering the nomination of Theodore Pinckney and Donald Tucker for City Council positions during a political convention held by the United Brothers. The article contains brief biographies of both Pinckney and Tucker.

In this essay, Stanley Winters, a veteran organizer in the Clinton Hill neighborhood, describes the interrelated nature of urban renewal politics and struggles for civil rights. Because the vast majority of urban renewal policy makers were white, Black and Puerto Rican communities had little representation in projects that they were disproportionately impacted by. Winters also argues that urban renewal projects were being utilized for the benefit of business interests, rather than community interests.

Clipping from an unmarked newspaper, covering the plans of the Newark Coordinating Council (NCC) to picket city construction sites if city officials did not take action against employment discrimination of Black and Puerto Ricans in the building and construction trades. The article includes a list of demands issued to Mayor Addonizio by the NCC, which was comprised of various civil rights organizations in the city. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Proposal for the establishment of the Newark Legal Services Project as a Community Action Program within the United Community Corporation (UCC). The Newark Legal Services Project (NLSP) was designed to provide poor communities with access to otherwise costly legal services. In addition to providing legal services to the poor in civil and criminal law, the NLSP also offered legal support to civil rights organizations and individual claims in Newark. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Pamphlet produced by the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund For Racial Equality in July of 1967 to inform Newark’s welfare recipients of their rights in the welfare system and how to get assistance. — Credit: New Jersey State Archives

Clipping from an unmarked newspaper covering a meeting of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) on October 11, 1965. The meeting, attended by roughly 100 people, was held to address Mayor Addonizio’s responses to community demands for a police review board in Newark. Those who attended the meeting, including Robert Curvin, Fred Means, and Carl Katidus, criticized the shortcomings of Addonizio’s proposals for police reform. Newark Human Rights Commission director James Threatt was “booed repeatedly” when he spoke in support of Addonizio’s plans. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Photograph of a march held by the Newark Community Union Project (NCUP) to protest police brutality after the killing of Lester Long by Newark policeman Henry Martinez. The shooting of Lester Long was one of the most well-known and contentious cases of alleged police brutality in Newark during the 1960s and reinvigorated community demands for a police review board. — Credit: Doug Eldridge Collection