58th Anniversary of Newark Rebellion

The 58th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion was commemorated on July 12, with a march and rally organized by the People’s Organization for Progress (POP).

(Photo: Matt Dragon)

POP Chairperson Lawrence Hamm chaired the rally. He gave a detailed chronology of this historic and heroic rebellion. It began after John Smith, a Black taxi driver, was beaten up by two white police officers. Residents of a local housing project witnessed his limp body being brought into a local police precinct. Soon after things kicked off, and the Newark Police Department had to be reinforced by the New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Army National Guard with their tanks rolling on the streets of Newark.

(Photo: Alfreda Coachman Daniels)

Other speakers at the rally included eyewitnesses to the events of July 12-17, 1967, with most making comparisons to the current Palestinian rebellion in Gaza.

Youth Against War and Fascism, then the youth group of Workers World Party, demonstrated July 16, 1967, in solidarity with the Black community of Newark during the week of that rebellion. (WW Photo)