First National Guard Presence in a Northern City, 1964 (Not so MPS)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It was just 50 years ago that the National Guard was first called to a northern city.

That city was Rochester, New York.

It was called a “riot” but most riots don’t last three days. Some have called it a rebellion instead.

I was just 13 by three weeks when it started. Back then, all I could think of was how horrible it was, and how glad I was to be fairly far away from even the nearer of two key neighborhoods. One of my two older sisters was, at nearly 21, already an R.N. at Genesee Hospital and was served with a police escort to work.

I had no idea what sort of discrimination and fearful living conditions, together with prior bad treatment by the police, was behind it.

In a film shown around town for a few months now, I and my friends saw what kind of attitude the police had toward “those people” including a certain ministerial staff. A clearly identified man and woman approached the nearest police station and asked to be an exception to the curfew. They wanted to minister to the rioters in the interest of peaceful resolution.

An intercom from an inner office was left on. The police chief was heard by them to say that they could stick to their own neighborhood, but that if they were to venture to downtown (“Main Street”) they, the [epithet used when murdering] should be shot on sight.

What is perhaps most disturbing about “1964” is the current situation here in Rochester, despite years of fighting against discrimination and poverty by many organizations.

We are currently among the most geographically segregated communities in the nation. And it’s a surprisingly poor one.

ETA: At 4pm EDT, I will be attending a retrospective tour at the Lincoln Branch library in the Joseph Street area, the nearer of two neighborhoods heavily involved. I may have more to write after that.

2

I was rather surprised yesterday by the presentation at the beginning of the Joseph Street neighborhood tour. The presenter, a scholar at a local college, emphasized that we would not be focused on seeing key event sites during that “Long Hot Summer” but rather the emphasis would be on current businesses and other features of the neighborhood!

An example of a key event would be the crash of a helicopter on Clarissa Street with four fatalities. However, this was not the best possible example, as that street is on the Southwest side, rather than NE. (I’ll remind myself to include maps.) While it is projected that there will be at least one more Tour, it will still not involve the SW, if I understand correctly.

While I was under a certain time pressure forcing me to cut my participation short, I did get the chance to see a nearby (to the current location of the Lincoln Branch Library, Joseph and Avenue D) fish market. The story there is that the eponymous original owner operator, Jack, is no longer there, although a son is. And the father is still with us, and is a Holocaust survivor!

And that reminds me that part of the presentation involved a recounting of the ethnic focus on each major road going north from downtown.

I was mildly surprised to find out that the main non-Black ethnicity of Clinton Avenue, one main road to the west of Joseph was Jewish. OTOH, I had just passed a former temple when I had to walk half a mile north, after leaving the bus,because I did not know that the current location was not the same as the Lincoln Branch Library I had often visited as a child. :o

The largely Polish presence, still to this day, of Hudson Avenue, one major northbound road to the east, was very well known to me, especially because of the architecture of a RC church and the names of the side streets.

Pleas excuse the many personal references I will be including in this thread. I will, however, be including an historical timeline next time.

3

What do you base this on?

Here’s a graphic of segregation in Rochester. You can see that the inner city is majority black and the outer city is majority white. But there are black and white groups throughout the entire city. This is not a hugely segregated city. For comparison, here are similar graphics of Atlanta, Detroit, and St Louis.

As for poverty, Rochester’s doing pretty well. The Rochester Combined Statistical Area is ranked 42nd in the country in per capita income (out of 166 CSA’s) and the Rochester and the Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Area is ranked 82nd out of 388 MSA’s. This puts Rochester right in the middle of the top half of cities.

4

Well, clearly I “misspoke” on this. :o

I’m thinking now that perhaps what I remembered (?) from a presentation earlier in the year is the considerable measure of poverty among urban minority folks. This would make a strong contrast against the overall relative prosperity of the community as a whole.

Still, the picture is very different in certain ways from 1964. Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb and other companies were making Rochester very prosperous indeed. For us palefaces, that is. African Americans coming from the South expected life to be better here and in other northern cities, including sharing in the booming employment picture. They found out very differently. Some companies steered them away altogether. Others handed them a broom. This stands in stark contrast to the recently passed Civil Rights Act. VERY recently! In June! But the Northern discrimination and segregation was almost always de facto, not de jure.

Getting back to the currently disappointing situation: I’ll contact some of the people involved with the earlier presentations. There may be certain metrics of interest here, such as infant mortality rate and urban violence.

I’ll get back to you about your other point too. :slight_smile: