With the summer getting hotter and the conditions in the black community worse than ever, more and more riots and uprisings have come down across the country.
These days, however, the straight press and TV generally keep the news hidden in the back pages, so it is hard to keep the picture straight.
This year riots have been happening in places that have not had large-scale insurrections before, but the anger and the tactics have been at a higher level. The people are moving more like guerrillas now with more sniping and more late-night fire-bombings.
This is a run-down (incomplete, to be sure) of some of the riots so far this year:
River Rouge, Mich., late March. Race fights developed in the high schools for a period of weeks after white school board members ripped down posters of Black heroes. Blacks eventually moved downtown for three days of looting, tear gas, fire-bombings and battling pigs with rocks.
Augusta, Ga., May 9-11. A weekend of looting and trashing followed the fatal beating of a 16-year-old boy in jail by a guard. Pigs murdered six Blacks.
Miami, Fla., June 16-19. Rebellion described by pigs as guerilla type warfare. Sniping, firebombing, looting, trashing; at least 5 were shot by pigs.
Ashbury Park, N.J., July 3-7. Pigs shot over 45 people in the streets to stop mass firebombings of downtown-area white-owned businesses. Over 160 were injured, including many pigs, and over 225 arrested, while rioting also hit nearby Red Bank and Freehold.
Philadelphia, Pa., July 4. 400 black prisoners went on a rampage, before surrendering to several hundred police armed with tear gas, riot guns, dogs.
New Bedford, Mass., July 8-13. A fight broke out in which ten pigs were injured after a pig brutally beat the driver of a car in the Black community. Firebombings and rock-throwing followed in the next days and one youth was killed.
Michigan City, Ind., July 11-12. Looting, trashing, 15 arrests, 150 National Guards called in.
Highland Park, Mich. See story in this issue.
Reuters (a news agency) reported that a total of 6,592 U.S. aircraft were lost in Vietnam since the beginning of the war—which makes an average of 1,000 planes downed per year or three downed each day… On June 26 a U.S. plane was downed 155 miles northwest of the DMZ…. Within a month, Sweden will become the first Western nation to open a full and permanent diplomatic mission in North Vietnam.
41 Iranian students residing in the Bay Area were arrested June 26 following a struggle with police during a protest against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the shah of Iran. The action took place at the Iranian consulate in San Francisco. Eight students were injured, two seriously.
The students were protesting the visit of an Iranian princess who is a smack pusher, by the way. Their total bail was $94,000 and many of the students still face deportation.
In Africa, liberation struggles have developed over the past ten years in three Portuguese colonies—Angola, Mozambique and Guinea. Recently, a world-wide support conference was held by the three revolutionary organizations that are leading those struggles, the MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique, and PAIGC in Guinea. During the conference, which was held in Rome, representatives met with the Pope in the Vatican. Naturally, Portugal freaked and recalled its ambassador to the Vatican on July 3.