Riotsville, USA (2022) Movie Script
A door swung
open in the late '60s,
and someone, something
sprang up and slammed it shut.
Nothing that big or bright or
sudden had ever happened,
and in so many American cities.
Nothing so fierce
or hard to grasp.
The riots blew the
roof off daily life.
1965:
Watts, ripped apart by crowds.
1966:
Chicago swarmed
by the National Guard.
And in 1967:
Newark, Detroit,
and 100 other cities,
what felt like
the entire nation.
That summer,
the people took revenge on
the cities that confined them,
retribution for a
history of containment
and contempt.
A new force lurched
to life in the '60s,
and threatened to
shatter everything.
But that didn't happen.
What does it look like when
the state, the establishment
whatever you want to call the
people who keep things locked in place,
is forced to face the consequence
of its own callousness?
How does the
machine go rumbling on
undaunted?
A brick flies through a
squad car's windshield,
and the riot crashes
through the night.
But we'll be lingering
on the cop car,
and the pile of shattered glass.
My fellow Americans,
we have endured a week
such as no nation
should live through.
A time of violence and tragedy.
For a few minutes tonight,
I want to talk
about that tragedy.
And I want to talk about the
deeper questions that it raises
for us all.
I am tonight appointing a Special
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.
Governor Otto
Kerner, of Illinois,
has agreed to serve as chairman.
The Commission will
investigate the origins
of the recent
disorders in our cities.
It will make
recommendations to prevent
or contain such
disasters in the future.
But first, let there be
no mistake about it:
Crime must be dealt
with forcefully and swiftly,
and certainly, under law.
It would compound
the tragedy, however,
if we should settle for
order that's imposed
by the muzzle of a gun.
The only genuine,
long-range solution
lies in an attack,
mounted at every level,
upon the conditions
that breeds despair,
and breeds violence.
So let us act, in the Congress,
and in the City Halls,
and in every community,
so that this great land of ours
may truly be
one nation
under God
with liberty and justice
for all.
Bruce, what did you think of it?
I think it was a great speech.
It was a call for
national unity.
It wasn't a political speech,
it was a great speech, I think.
You all pretty much
share that view?
You know, I think he normally
gives a pretty good speech,
but I think this is a thing that
you have to dwell on, unity.
We haven't had very
much of that recently.
I share that- as
far as it is, tonight,
I can't say that's always true,
but I certainly agree with Levi
one hundred percent tonight
that this was
not political at all.
I could see no
taint of politics in it.
I thought it was a leader
addressing his people.
I don't think anyone can say
that the situation that's
arising all over the country today
is any one person's failure.
It's been a
failure of all of us.
Governor, there
have been criticism
of the Commission
on the grounds that
the voice of the ghetto
is not represented.
Would you comment?
Well, we discussed
this slightly.
And there's no reason
why we cannot have
even a voice of the
ghetto, so-called,
as part of staff.
And I can't imagine a
more preferable position
to be in to be heard.
One thing should
be absolutely clear,
this matter is far, far
too important for politics.
It goes to the health and
safety of all American citizens.
And I think the composition
of this Commission
is proof against any
narrowness or any partisanship.
You think it's a good idea
to have this sort of
Warren Commission
panel of some of the
biggest names in the country?
I think it's a good idea, yes.
My greatest concern is,
have we asked the people
who are in need of the program
what their needs might be?
We decide what their needs are.
I think perhaps that
they should decide,
that they should
be able to speak.
This is a neighborhood
business district of Riotsville,
an area as yet
unaffected by the violence
occurring in other
parts of the city.
However, the situation here
is considered to be explosive
and the area is
being closely watched
by state and local authorities.
The local police have assigned
covert agents to gather intelligence
and to report indications
of possible violence.
Joint military
and police patrols
are operative in the
area to maintain order
and to demonstrate the
presence of a superior force.
As a part of the precautions
to prevent Riotsville
from experiencing a
violent civil disturbance,
the authorities have made arrangements
to prevent weapons and ammunition
from falling into the
hands of troublemakers.
Even a routine
precautionary measure,
such as this pick-up of weapons,
can breed resentment
among the local residents.
What are we looking at?
Riotsville is a chessboard,
a stage set,
everything
and nothing about the 1960s.
Fake names and non-places,
marched past by soldiers,
doing what they can
to move the play
to its next act.
Maybe it's a dream.
After all,
this is where the state
assembles its fears,
its cruel delusions,
its tattered scraps of memory.
So these are dream riots,
the young men
acting out the fantasy
of conquest and invasion.
What are they thinking of?
Home?
Vietnam?
Do they feel something when they
see a hammer smash a window?
Or when the tanks
come roaring in?
When we asked them,
they had different answers.
Some said, "It was
a long time ago."
Many said,
"I don't know."
I'll get you.
Once I get my
boys, I'll be back.
It is Sunday evening,
December 17th,
and this is the Public
Broadcast Laboratory,
an experiment in
public television
combining elements
of information,
education and entertainment.
Tonight, from PBL in New York.
and from cities across
the United States
a totally live and
unrehearsed examination
of police / minority relations
with PBL chief correspondent
Edward P. Morgan.
Good evening.
Do you believe that
there has ever been a case
of police brutality against
a black citizen in
the city of Newark?
Now that all depends
on what you consider
to be police brutality.
- I'm going to answer your question.
- Physical abuse of a citizen in the city.
Mr. Harrington, I
interrupted you a moment ago
do you have something that
you want to come in with now?
Yes, I had about fifteen things
if I had the chance to
come back and say them.
Because I have a book
here, Reader's Digest,
which is a very respected book
and it states that-
Well, I'm sort of in
a tough spot here.
I know you are.
But you're always
short-cutting us.
Now, let us have our say
or we might as well go home.
I don't think we're
short-cutting you, Mr. Harrington.
And if you don't mind, we want to go
to Detroit, where I think the temperature
is somewhat high in
Reverend Cleage's church.
Yeah, we feel that this
whole program, up this point
has been a deliberate
attempt to evade the issue.
Police brutality-everybody
knows police brutality exists.
For police officers to take
our time, to waste the time
of an entire
nation, talking about
they never heard
of police brutality,
they don't know what black people
are talking about, they can't prove it.
We know, in Detroit,
any time a black person
is brutalized by the
police, he goes into court
and he's arrested for
assault and battery.
Everybody's talking about-
PBL will continue
its examination
of police / community relations
after this pause for
station identification.
You know, we policemen
are not responsible
because people riot on
account of not getting jobs.
We policemen didn't send
Carmichael over to the other side.
We didn't ask Rep. Brown to
damn and curse this country.
But if trouble starts,
we would have to stop it.
And I say to you:
it's only one thin line
between crime and society,
and that's us policemen.
I want to go for a moment
to Reverend Cleage's
congregation in Detroit.
All right, let's go.
We are through with
this white hypocrisy,
with the efforts of white people
to set up a situation
that they can control.
We are tired of sociologists
and psychologists
talking us to death.
We are tired of
police commissioners,
and police experts,
telling us that we're not
getting our heads whipped.
The black revolution is in
progress and it's going on
and we don't care what-
Gentlemen, we would have
been presumptuous in the extreme
if we had thought that we
were gonna solve anything.
We saw society in conflict,
we examined the hostility,
we had some sharp
exchanges in views.
That's what makes an
open society stay open.
Thank you.
PBL hopes that during
this season of giving
you will add your
community-supported
public television
station to your gift list.
We take this opportunity to
wish you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.
Tomorrow, the report of the
President's Commission on Riots
will go on sale in a paperback
edition for a dollar and a quarter.
It will tell White America
what, in the past,
only novelists like
Faulkner and Baldwin
have said so well:
that the United States
is a racist country.
The report summons up an image
that is more like the other
side of the Iron Curtain
or the garrison
states of Latin America
than our image of
the United States.
What we've tried
to do in this report
is to let people see this
thing through our eyes
and to feel it in the pit of
their stomachs, like we do.
And then, if they see
what a crisis this really is,
what a terribly serious
crisis this is for our country,
there could be a great
deal more willingness
to try to move to do
something about it.
It says we must
take immediate action
to create two million new
jobs over the next three years.
Six million new
homes in five years,
a guarantee of minimum income,
far greater aid to schools
than proposed thus far.
A lot of whites
might still have their
bigotry and their racism,
but they will believe
this document
and they will act
accordingly to it.
I think this is the
important part about it.
Buy your books on
the Riot Commission!
On the Riot Commission.
At P.S. 151, where the pupils
are mostly Negro or Puerto Rican,
the school's book
fair was enlarged
to include a table-full of
the paperbound reports.
Throughout the
neighborhood, in various ways,
more than 2,000
copies of the Riot Report
were sold in less than a week.
8,000 more copies
were quickly ordered.
Bantam Books, which
published the first edition,
calls it the fastest
selling paperback
since Valley of the Dolls.
700 pages, with 300 footnotes,
based on thousands
of pages of records
gathered by staffers
pumping out reams of
surveys and statistics.
The result was a pointillist
picture of social collapse.
The Commission had
looked for a lot of things,
conspiracy, of course,
and the mythic
"outside agitators."
They found neither.
Instead, beneath the
data lay an obvious truth.
"Our nation is moving
towards two societies,
"one black, one white,
"separate and unequal."
With those words, 11 of the least
revolutionary people in America
started to sound, strangely,
like the people in the streets.
In his last published essay,
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
"When millions of people
have been cheated for centuries,
"restitution is a
costly process.
"This fact has not
been fully grasped,
"because most of the
gains of the past decade
"were obtained
at bargain rates."
Civil Rights legislation
had been a victory
but it didn't force anyone
to take from the rich
and give to the poor.
That was to be King's next step.
And, thanks to a
hundred flaming cities,
that demand would
appear in the report.
The Commission proposed a
program of unprecedented vastness.
A call to raise taxes,
spread the wealth,
lighten the burden
on the burning ghettos.
It was a high price,
but Johnson had called
for a Great Society.
What else could
that possibly mean?
What's going to be the
answer to this report?
What answer in the form
of action in Washington?
Here's Roger Mudd,
who covers Congress.
Roger, what's the
impact down there?
The one thing that struck me
as I talked to these members
over the last two or three days
was that the obstacle, the
stonewall that this report will hit
in every committee room,
every caucus room,
every corridor, is money.
And they ask how can
the President run one war,
with barely enough
money to do it,
and can't even get
a 10% tax increase,
how can he now be
expected to run a second war?
They're talking about two billion
dollars a month, in the Report.
Well, that's equal
to what the current
expenditure is for Vietnam.
Sound 4.
Is the greatest
amount of publicity
which your company has
received as a result of Vietnam?
Yes, this is.
Do you consider your
production of this gas
to be a public service?
We consider it to
be a public service.
A contribution to the
order of a community?
Yes, we do.
Would you consider it something
like the production of an automobile, or-
Well, I would say that
this is a humane method
of handling
difficult situations.
Just like the dentist gives
you a shot of Novocaine,
before he pulls your tooth.
Are you the greatest
producer of tear gas?
We are the greatest producer
of tear gas in the world.
Could I ask you how
much tear gas you produce?
- Or is that a trade secret?
- That is-
Scene 2, Sound 3, Roll 3.
Are you the greatest
producer of tear gas?
We are the greatest producer
of tear gas in the world.
As one of the
Commission's staffers said,
"We could have tackled
the problem from any angle,
"from class, racism,
the economic system,
"but we didn't follow
any of them through,
"because everyone knew exactly
where dissection would lead:
"to the power and the interests
"of the people sitting right
there on our Commission."
Among the staffers,
mostly young,
one faction wrote
its own analysis.
Their findings:
that the rioters were
like the Algerians,
exploding against
French colonial rule.
"A truly revolutionary spirit,"
they wrote, "has begun to
take hold amongst some.
"An unwillingness to
compromise or wait any longer,
"to risk death rather
than have their people
"continue in a
subordinate status."
Those staffers were
taken off the project.
1967 had given the establishment
proof that something was broken
and being born.
But the Commissioners had
to fight that view, obscure it.
They wanted to present
innocent dissatisfaction,
pain without politics.
It was rhetorical alchemy.
In the language
of the official report,
a picture emerged of black life,
poor life,
in America.
"Yes, there was hardship
"and who wouldn't
be angry about that?
"We ought to pity the
poor and their problems."
But only a radical
could possibly admit
that the rioters might now
just be revising their
role in the social drama.
They were trying to
torch the whole script.
So the nationwide
rebellion was cast
as a mere string
of aimless riots,
structural catastrophe,
bad planning.
All the while,
young people went
blazing through the city.
I believe it was the
system's way of handling it.
I think it was the system's
way of reacting quickly.
And that's what we
do in this society.
We appoint a committee
and we investigate.
Ergo, something's being done.
That's just simply not true.
White America
seems to be engaged
in a kind of public ventilation,
catharsis,
which takes two forms,
as far as I can see.
One, guilt,
in which many white people
seem to be getting their kicks
having Negroes flagellate them,
in terms of telling them
how guilty they have been.
And the other form of catharsis
is by increasing the
hostility towards Negroes.
And I think-
Both things are
happening right now.
Both things are
happening at the same time,
and sometimes, maybe
in the same persons.
Do you think that we're headed
toward an Apartheid society, Mr. Rustin,
or are you still the optimist?
Either we integrate, or
the people of America
decide to give Negroes
a certain number of states
in which to live and
set up their own nation
or they shoot us or the
send us back to Africa.
Or they maintain law and order
in the sense of rounding or
surrounding American ghettos
with mobile and
effective military force
the function of which is
to maintain law and order
with continued
inequities and injustice.
Negro leaders,
Dr. Kenneth Clark,
Bayard Rustin and
Charles Hamilton
continues with part
three in one minute.
Welcome to Riotsville.
This is a simulated
riot in a simulated city,
but as another summer approaches,
it might be Anywhere, U.S.A.
Welcome to Riotsville.
This is a simulated
riot in a simulated city,
but as another summer approaches,
it might be Anywhere, U.S.A.
Hell no, we won't go!
Hell no, we won't go!
Here's what I want you to do:
You put 'em in office
and you can take 'em out!
Please, please, do not
listen to false rumors or lies.
Go home, old man!
The police are not
picking anyone up
and they're not
making false arrests.
You're breaking my arm!
Get off! Get off!
You're breaking it.
Take thirty of you-
I'm not going in that thing.
I'll be back.
I'll be back, you rotten cops.
Rotten-
I'll be back!
I'll be back!
Chief, what will you
do with the information
that you learn at this school?
What would you do with
it after you leave here?
I'll go back to Chicago
and integrate the
information I have here
with our plans in
the department.
With the Democratic
National Convention coming up
and the threat of trouble,
do you feel that Chicago
needs this training
more than other cities?
Well, I believe that
we do have sufficient
force in the city of Chicago
to cope with that problem.
But, on the other hand,
we must always be prepared
for additional help
in case it's needed.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Increasingly, the computer
is becoming a police weapon.
Here, daily reports of
crime are fed into a computer
car thefts, muggings,
robbery, assault,
the statistics of violence.
And then, the
computer draws a map
to show the city's danger areas.
The program attempts
to match the MOs
of the known
criminals to new crimes.
The officers then follow up
these computer generated leads
of the most likely suspects.
The 21st Century is brought
to you by Union Carbide.
The Discovery Company.
Huh?
Police Chiefs across the country
will soon be inspecting
the newest innovation
in riot control equipment.
This 20-ton, half track
tank of "Witch Craft"
designed to scare the wits
out of any steely-nerved rioter.
Tailor-made to subdue
Detroit and Newark-type mobs,
it comes equipped
with bulletproof armor
and blast window-
Well-
The new "Witch Craft"
riot tank carries 15 officers,
battle ready, if anyone
still wants to fight.
Oh, boy.
Governor Kerner also warned
against police departments.
over-preparing for
summer violence.
In the event of an
emergency, Kerner noted,
an armored vehicle
could be borrowed
from private sources,
such as banks.
And in Chicago, a
police spokesman said:
"It doesn't take any
imagination to buy a tank.
"Anybody can do that."
Anybody?
Soldier boy
Oh, my little soldier boy
I'll be true to you
All persons, clear the building.
Sniper, throw out
your rifle and surrender.
You were my first love
And you'll be my last love
I will never make you blue
I'll be true to you
In this whole world
You can love but one girl
Let me be that one girl
For I'll be true to you
Attention in the
furniture building,
A sniper in the building is
firing at persons on the street.
Necessary force will be used
to apprehend this individual.
Soldier boy
Oh, my little soldier boy
I'll be true to you
All right, ma'am.
Now, your gun is ready to fire.
You'll get a grip on
it with your right hand
support it with your left,
support it with your left,
bring your elbows
up and lock straight.
Now fire, right at the
midsection of the target.
Talk in the suburbs
of tax and troops
and terror in the streets has
led her to the pistol range.
A grandmother, fearful.
She's part of the what
the President's report calls
the "polarization of the
American community."
With the little
manuals that you have
that were furnished by one
of the shooting foundations
pretty well sum it up.
Maybe I should ask if
there are any questions?
Uh, like, combat shooting,
where is the vital point?
Well-
The head.
In this group, we don't really
go into the anatomy of this thing,
but you'll find that
those targets are marked.
They're the same targets
that the police departments,
the FBI use. Study the target
and you'll see what they
consider to be the more vital areas.
Believe me, though,
there's nothing more vital
than being hit any
place, almost, in the body.
I think this is just
a terrible thought.
But if it's a
terrible situation,
and you have to resort to this,
well then, the middle, some place.
- Middle.
- Okay?
I don't like the idea
of shooting anybody.
I mean, I don't mind target
shooting. That sounds like fun.
But people, I just
don't like the idea at all.
But, if it's necessary,
I mean, you know, you
do what is necessary.
Isn't-necessity is the mother
of invention or something
or is that the opposite?
See here, one, two,
three, four, five, six.
- Pretty good.
- So you didn't miss by much.
No.
In nearby Pontiac,
an industrial town,
a large Negro population is
very sensitive to what it hears.
They're angry and frightened.
White people ask me
why am I so angry?
And, you know, I don't
have an answer for 'em.
because it would be
ridiculous for me to answer him.
Because he couldn't
understand anyway.
Obviously, because he
asked me the question.
But if a black legislator
was out in the county
telling black people
to arm themselves
where do you
think they'd be now?
If they got 'em to jail,
- Before they killed 'em.
- Before they're killed.
You know, people
talk about genocide.
A lot of people talk
about it, especially now.
And a lot of people
don't believe it,
but it's a very real factor.
It's a very real factor
and white people
are arming themselves
to, you know, bring
this thing about.
Some discussion came up
in the chambers of
the City Commission
and someone said something
about 25 million black people.
And you could hear a little
mumble in the background,
"Yes, and we've got
25 million graves."
This is a very real thing.
This is what they're
planning for us.
The footage of '60s rebellions
has traveled a long way to meet us.
and at least it seems
to prove something.
Here's a street,
a face,
a gun.
Real things.
Real and broken things,
which say:
"This happened and it hurt."
But there are dangers.
A picture can
become a stereotype
or be cleverly conscripted
to this or that project,
dogma,
lie.
Do we just want more
or different images?
Yes and no, we tell ourselves.
Reminded of all those snapshots
of chaos which swarm us
and lose their meaning.
The camera swivels to catch
a cop car bursting into flames.
But that's just one
point in the process,
a single fragment of the story.
We wish we could see
an image of a decade
or a whole century
working through its ironies,
wracked by its explosions,
but with all its
conflicting features settled
or at least accounted for.
Revolution and repression
trapped in a single film frame,
one total, impossible picture.
In Memphis, people were injured,
stores were looted,
property was destroyed,
people were beaten by hoodlums.
At least one Negro youth
is known to have been killed.
And massive rioting
erupted during a march
which was led by
Martin Luther King.
It was a shameful
and totally uncalled for
outburst of lawlessness,
undoubtedly encouraged
by his words and actions
and his presence.
When the predictable
rioting erupted,
Martin Luther
King fled the scene,
leaving it to others to cope
with the destructive forces
he had helped to unleash.
I hope that well-meaning
Negro leaders
will now take a new look
at this man who gets
other people into trouble
and then takes off
like a scared rabbit.
If anybody is to
be hurt or killed
in the disorder which
follows in the wake
of his highly-publicized
marches and demonstrations
he apparently is
going to be sure
that it will be someone
other than Martin Luther King.
Middle of the summer,
Bitten by flies and fleas
Sitting in a
crowded apartment
About 110 degrees
I went outside
The middle of the night
All I had was a
match in my hand
And I wanted to fight
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
And Lord, no one to see
And now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
I called President Johnson
On the phone
His secretary said
he wasn't there
I tried to get in touch
with Mr. Humphrey
They couldn't
find him anywhere
I went into the courtroom
With my poor black face
Didn't have no money
Didn't have no lawyer
They wouldn't plead my case
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
Lord, and no one to see
Now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
I really wanted
a decent citizen
I really needed some scratch
I really wanted
a decent job now
All I had was a match
Couldn't get oil from
Rockefeller's wells
Couldn't get the
diamonds from the mine
I can't enjoy the
American dream
Won't be water
but the fire next time
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
And Lord, no one to see
Now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Need a concern
You've got money to earn
You've got midnight oil to
Burn, baby, burn
I really want a
decent education
I really want a
decent job, now
I really want a decent
place to stay, now
I want to live like
everybody else
I want to live like
everybody else
I want to live like
everybody else
We need a new school
bus in this town, right?
Right!
That thing looks like it took
Henry Ford to school, right?
Yeah!
And playgrounds,
we haven't got one
playground in this town, do we?
No!
Isolated and secured
from outside
interference or agitation,
such demonstrations will
usually terminate peacefully
in a minimum of time.
Now, an incident which will
demand more positive action.
They don't tell me
what to do, man.
I'm a civilian, you dig it?
I put in my time in
that Army, you know?
In these staged demonstrations
the men dressed
in black will typify
hard-core,
professional agitators
When the group refuses to
disband, action must be taken.
Now, the agitators shift
their troublemaking skills
into high gear, using the
naturally contagious qualities
of excitement and violence
to incite them into action.
These confrontations
demand much of you.
You must work
within an atmosphere
of explosive emotionalism
and yet remain
calm and rational.
You will be subjected to the
worst extremes of provocation.
And yet, you must be
guided only by logical thought.
When every natural instinct
within you begs for action
you must remain passive.
And when, finally, the
preservation of law and order
requires the use of force,
you must exercise it with
judgment and without malice.
Why do you want
to be a riot deputy?
Well, I've lived in
Chicago all my life
and if anything were to happen,
I'd like to help out
in any way I could.
Do you know, as a volunteer,
you have to purchase your
own gear and equipment.
That's correct.
You're willing to go through
all the military training
that's going to be
involved in this?
Yes, sir.
You were in the Military Police, in
the Army, honorably discharged?
Yes.
Why do you want to be
a member of this unit?
Well, I did this
type of work before
and so I like it.
You're not racially
prejudiced, are you?
- No, sir.
- In any way?
None whatsoever.
Do you believe people
have a right to march?
To march, you mean
demonstrations?
That's right.
If it's peaceful.
Go there in the hallway and see
Sergeant Black, he'll fingerprint you.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for coming down.
Do you see anything racial
in the nature of
this organization?
No, I think having
half of the group
being half the group colored
and half the group white,
I think it'll be- I think
this is a very good idea.
Some people have said
that this is
anti-Negro in nature.
Obviously, you
don't feel that way.
No, I don't.
How do you feel?
Well, a riot could be-
it could be among the
whites, just as it
could be the Negroes.
But nobody's really expecting
whites to riot this summer, are they?
They're expecting
Negroes to riot.
I don't expect
Negroes to riot. No.
The Chicago Democratic
National Convention.
The sense was mounting,
irrefutable,
this would be the TV
event of the century,
a catastrophic spectacle, and
gripping primetime showdown.
On one side, an
infamous police force
armed with every lethal gadget
they managed to get their hands on.
And on the other,
the shaggy underdogs
and soft-skinned campus waifs.
Unlike Watts, these young people
were white America's
sons and daughters,
yearning children
of the middle class.
Some media outlets
sent their war reporters,
others sent TV critics.
And when the police
started gassing students,
and swinging billy
clubs at camera crews,
the stations got their wish,
the tape went national,
then worldwide.
The point of the demonstration
was to rouse the
conscience of America,
to summon the moral prestige
of Birmingham or Selma.
And in one fell swoop,
bring the war machine
howling to its knees.
That isn't how the chips fell.
Though some
still like to say so.
Something was amiss
in the opinion polls.
The audience tuning in at home,
treated to this televised
feast of state brutality,
wasn't rooting for the kids,
wasn't moved by their
cracked skulls or slogans.
The fact is that white America
ended up siding with the cops.
But another scene had
unfurled that summer,
further south,
though it would be
overshadowed by the DNC,
the 1968 Republican
National Convention.
We've heard about Chicago,
but we've been living
through Miami Beach.
Live, from Miami Beach, Florida.
NBC News reports, the
Republican National Convention.
Good evening.
NBC News is pleased to bring you
the proceedings and
some of the background
of the second day
in the third session
of the 1968 National
Republican Convention.
It will help, probably, if I have
a microphone attached to me.
Put your microphone.
Tonight-
Well, just start over. They
didn't hear the first part.
Welcome to the second
day in the third session
of the GOP National
Convention. How's that?
It is understandable
that the Republicans
decided to hold their convention
south of the Mason-Dixon line.
They had not done
so in 104 years.
And it obvious why anyone
might want to come
to Miami Beach.
But the real reason for the
Republican presence here
are less obvious.
This nine-mile long sandbar
has on advantage
above all others.
It is remote.
Would-be demonstrators could
be met by raised drawbridges
and blocked roadways,
cut-off except for the four
causeways across Biscayne Bay.
It's therefore easy
for the Republicans
to avoid the danger of
large, militant demonstrations.
Well, before I'll be a slave,
I'll be buried in my grave
And go home to
my Lord and be free
Now to Aline Saarinen,
at the headquarters hotel.
Things have livened up
in the headquarters lobby.
The poor people have come in,
they have been followed
not only by the crowd
but by more Secret Service
men than I can count,
who are trying to figure out
how they can get Governor
Reagan through the group of people
and are decided they're
just going to have to
just push their way through.
And now, a motorcade of
Governor Ronald Reagan
is arriving outside,
although most of the people
inside are not yet aware of it.
Here is the Governor,
carried along
by a phalanx of
Secret Service men.
He's a big man
and he looks really
as if he were in
a football game.
He's going over toward the room,
the French room, as it's called.
But I am amazed at the speed
with which the
Secret Service men
can move through an
absolutely solid mass of people.
The Governor was looking
very chipper in his white suit
and I don't know
how he survived.
And the poor people
are keeping going.
They are interested, of
course, in making their point
not only to the
candidate himself
but really to the American
people in general.
How do you think you did
this afternoon in the hotel?
You'll have to choose to do
what you can to help us out.
We got no decision.
It's up to you.
We'll be back in just a moment
after this message from Gulf.
Here is an item, which has
just come to our attention.
At 1675 62nd Street
Northwest in Miami,
there is a large crowd
of about 400 Negroes
most of them young,
conducting a noisy demonstration.
There are reported to be
twelve policeman on the scene
and more coming to
control the situation.
The demonstrators are demanding
the resignation of
Senator Edward Brooke,
over the seating of a
lily-white delegation.
The noise is loud,
and the people seem
extremely determined in
their protest, so we're told.
By the way, it
might be explained
that obviously these
people are demonstrating
because they are objecting to
the decision of this convention
to seat a rather small number
of Negro delegates here.
Here is some more on
the disturbance in Miami.
When the police pulled
back from the troubled area,
groups of Negroes
gathered on the streets.
Some carried signs
calling for "Black Power"
and others were generally
just anti-Republican.
At the corner of 16th and 62nd,
one group stopped
a car, turned it over,
and set it on fire and fled.
No one knows what
happened to the driver.
The Associated Press quoted
one of the sponsors of the rally
earlier today as
blaming the police.
He said, "If ten black
people get together,
"they call it a riot,
"but 300 white people
can get together
"and they call it a convention."
More from Convention
Hall in a moment.
Right now, a message from Gulf.
Swat it.
Hit it.
Get mad.
Or kill it.
Yes, there are many
ways to deal with a fly.
But Gulfspray contains
more pyrethrins
for more instant
knock-out power.
It's available at your
favorite grocery, drug
or hardware store.
And at your Gulf dealer.
Played for as fools.
And they're talking about
everything else but the truth.
We're being sacrificed
in the city of Liberty City.
That's what's happening to us.
So tell the people the
truth, and we can accept it.
I'm afraid I don't
know what we can say.
I just want peace
in the community
and I'm determined to
get it, one way or the other.
I don't know what
the means will be.
It's out of my hands
at the moment.
It is my privilege
to place in nomination
the one man
whom history has so
clearly thrust forward.
Untainted by war, dissension,
lawlessness,
or the threat of fiscal
and moral chaos.
The honorable Richard M. Nixon.
It is my judgment
that he will have them
all over the nation,
because the number
one issue in this campaign
is going to be law and order.
I think the American
people today
want to do away
with this lawlessness
and they want to put
down all this criminality
and they want to
preserve law and order.
We can have no civilized
society without law and order.
And everyone is, of course,
free to interpret the true
meaning of that phrase
however he likes.
I want you to know that
all isn't well in this city.
That an awful lot of people
better get about to business.
You know, you promise and
you promise and you promise-
I promise my son, too.
And there are times
when he tells me,
"Daddy, you either put it
in the bucket or get off."
And that's what
they're saying now.
And I am not a violent man.
I'm a peace-loving man.
I preach love.
But I want to tell you this:
You can't lie to people
forever and get away with it.
And this isn't to say you've
lied, but I'll tell you this:
You played with the truth.
I'm going to bring
ourselves up to date
on the disturbance that
broke out last night, David,
in a section of Northwest Miami.
Two Negroes have been
killed and four wounded
as a result of the violence
in the troubled neighborhood.
The Dade County Police said
two men were killed
in the mid-afternoon
when police were
shot at by a sniper.
They said they returned
the sniper's fire and killed him
and a second man was killed
when he was caught
in the crossfire.
Two other Negroes were
wounded in the same incident.
There are some later
casualty figures here.
Here are some more casualty
figures in this disturbance.
Two Negro men have
been killed by police,
four Negro men
wounded by police,
one white man
wounded by Negroes,
two Negro women
wounded by Negroes,
32 have been arrested.
Yesterday, the first
day of the disturbances
one man was wounded and
ten injured, and 86 were arrested
While there is, as
we say, nothing of
transcendent importance
happening in the Convention,
we are going to hear again
from the Gulf Oil Company.
When Frantz Fanon
traveled to Algeria,
in the midst of
their revolution,
he went as a psychiatrist.
He found that the colonized
dreamed of strength.
"I dream I am jumping,
"swimming,
"running,
"climbing.
"I dream that I
burst out laughing,
"but I span a
river in one stride
"or that I am followed
by a flood of motorcars
"which never catch up with me."
Thus far, we've shown
you what reaction looks like,
what it says and how it moves.
A whole universe in which
it's possible to stop the world.
Flip a switch, and
end the problem.
Enforce contentment from above.
If only.
Just beyond this fiction
lies the real world
with real people,
a place where things still
happen.
Just about an hour ago, it
would have been totally unsafe
to come in where I'm
standing now, on 62nd Street,
just west of 12th Avenue.
It's not really safe right now,
there have been sporadic
sniper shots in this area.
.22 rifles, there was
several shotgun blasts heard.
And the firemen
are still mopping up.
Heavy ash, there's
a smell in the air
of a fire that's
just been put out.
This is Channel 4
newsman Bob Reed,
who has just come
down 62nd Street.
He's walking by-
as you can see, some
of the litter here on 62nd.
We'll find out what's going
on back down the street.
Bob, what's happening
back down there?
Well, there's a
sniper down there
and someone has been shot.
I don't know if it was a sniper
or just a bystander
or policeman.
I haven't been able
to get close enough
to see at this point.
Is it heavy fire,
would you say, or?
There has been fairly
heavy fire sporadically
throughout the
last couple of hours.
At times, it gets pretty heavy.
Most of the shots are
being fired by the police
and then they'll slack off
for a couple of seconds,
then it'll get heavy again.
Of course, you are
in a peculiar position.
You're covering this story, but
you seem to have a good rapport
with the people here, obviously.
What do they tell you
about why this is happening?
Well, it's an interesting thing.
Nobody can really
say why it's happening.
It's just the pent-up
anger and the frustration
and the idea of being
trapped in society.
It's a bursting out.
It's a breaking free.
It's-
It's just a way of
saying, "I will accept
the abuse no longer."
Whatever the reasons,
and there are many
different answers here,
the fact remains
that 62nd Street
looks more like a battleground
than a once relatively
quiet street in Miami.
They've aged
strangely, these images.
They draw us in and freeze us.
What to make of them now,
embedded as we are in the
future they were meant to ensure?
In 1964, before our story began,
before Watts,
before Newark and Detroit,
a police officer
killed a black boy.
300 of his high
school classmates
came bursting into the street.
The next week would be
known as the Harlem Riot.
It wasn't the first one.
The poet June Jordan was there.
Later, she would
write of lunging
through the blasted streets,
throwing herself to the pavement
every time she heard a siren
to miss the flying bullets.
It gave her an idea
for a new Harlem,
a new city,
a place devised for the
possibility of human flourishing.
The rectilinear cross
streets had been a prison.
She called them a
"psychological crucifixion."
This new city would be
built on the bones of the old.
Great communal
towers would rise up over
over vast green space below.
She wrote to the architect
Buckminster Fuller,
and they drew up plans
and had them published
in Esquire Magazine.
Jordan wanted to call
it "Skyrise for Harlem."
Esquire called it,
"Instant Slum Clearance."
She wanted it to be constructed
exactly as she planned.
Esquire called it "Utopian."
Between "Skyrise for
Harlem" and Riotsville,
between futurist towers
and plywood diorama,
between possibility
and repression,
closure and rupture,
parody and dream.
That's where all of
this has taken place,
between two competing pictures
of an impossible city.
"Utopia," that is, "nowhere."
Riotsville,
Anywhere, U.S.A.
In the book of Genesis,
Lot's wife turns
into a pillar of salt
because she can't help herself.
She must look back
at the burning city.
open in the late '60s,
and someone, something
sprang up and slammed it shut.
Nothing that big or bright or
sudden had ever happened,
and in so many American cities.
Nothing so fierce
or hard to grasp.
The riots blew the
roof off daily life.
1965:
Watts, ripped apart by crowds.
1966:
Chicago swarmed
by the National Guard.
And in 1967:
Newark, Detroit,
and 100 other cities,
what felt like
the entire nation.
That summer,
the people took revenge on
the cities that confined them,
retribution for a
history of containment
and contempt.
A new force lurched
to life in the '60s,
and threatened to
shatter everything.
But that didn't happen.
What does it look like when
the state, the establishment
whatever you want to call the
people who keep things locked in place,
is forced to face the consequence
of its own callousness?
How does the
machine go rumbling on
undaunted?
A brick flies through a
squad car's windshield,
and the riot crashes
through the night.
But we'll be lingering
on the cop car,
and the pile of shattered glass.
My fellow Americans,
we have endured a week
such as no nation
should live through.
A time of violence and tragedy.
For a few minutes tonight,
I want to talk
about that tragedy.
And I want to talk about the
deeper questions that it raises
for us all.
I am tonight appointing a Special
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.
Governor Otto
Kerner, of Illinois,
has agreed to serve as chairman.
The Commission will
investigate the origins
of the recent
disorders in our cities.
It will make
recommendations to prevent
or contain such
disasters in the future.
But first, let there be
no mistake about it:
Crime must be dealt
with forcefully and swiftly,
and certainly, under law.
It would compound
the tragedy, however,
if we should settle for
order that's imposed
by the muzzle of a gun.
The only genuine,
long-range solution
lies in an attack,
mounted at every level,
upon the conditions
that breeds despair,
and breeds violence.
So let us act, in the Congress,
and in the City Halls,
and in every community,
so that this great land of ours
may truly be
one nation
under God
with liberty and justice
for all.
Bruce, what did you think of it?
I think it was a great speech.
It was a call for
national unity.
It wasn't a political speech,
it was a great speech, I think.
You all pretty much
share that view?
You know, I think he normally
gives a pretty good speech,
but I think this is a thing that
you have to dwell on, unity.
We haven't had very
much of that recently.
I share that- as
far as it is, tonight,
I can't say that's always true,
but I certainly agree with Levi
one hundred percent tonight
that this was
not political at all.
I could see no
taint of politics in it.
I thought it was a leader
addressing his people.
I don't think anyone can say
that the situation that's
arising all over the country today
is any one person's failure.
It's been a
failure of all of us.
Governor, there
have been criticism
of the Commission
on the grounds that
the voice of the ghetto
is not represented.
Would you comment?
Well, we discussed
this slightly.
And there's no reason
why we cannot have
even a voice of the
ghetto, so-called,
as part of staff.
And I can't imagine a
more preferable position
to be in to be heard.
One thing should
be absolutely clear,
this matter is far, far
too important for politics.
It goes to the health and
safety of all American citizens.
And I think the composition
of this Commission
is proof against any
narrowness or any partisanship.
You think it's a good idea
to have this sort of
Warren Commission
panel of some of the
biggest names in the country?
I think it's a good idea, yes.
My greatest concern is,
have we asked the people
who are in need of the program
what their needs might be?
We decide what their needs are.
I think perhaps that
they should decide,
that they should
be able to speak.
This is a neighborhood
business district of Riotsville,
an area as yet
unaffected by the violence
occurring in other
parts of the city.
However, the situation here
is considered to be explosive
and the area is
being closely watched
by state and local authorities.
The local police have assigned
covert agents to gather intelligence
and to report indications
of possible violence.
Joint military
and police patrols
are operative in the
area to maintain order
and to demonstrate the
presence of a superior force.
As a part of the precautions
to prevent Riotsville
from experiencing a
violent civil disturbance,
the authorities have made arrangements
to prevent weapons and ammunition
from falling into the
hands of troublemakers.
Even a routine
precautionary measure,
such as this pick-up of weapons,
can breed resentment
among the local residents.
What are we looking at?
Riotsville is a chessboard,
a stage set,
everything
and nothing about the 1960s.
Fake names and non-places,
marched past by soldiers,
doing what they can
to move the play
to its next act.
Maybe it's a dream.
After all,
this is where the state
assembles its fears,
its cruel delusions,
its tattered scraps of memory.
So these are dream riots,
the young men
acting out the fantasy
of conquest and invasion.
What are they thinking of?
Home?
Vietnam?
Do they feel something when they
see a hammer smash a window?
Or when the tanks
come roaring in?
When we asked them,
they had different answers.
Some said, "It was
a long time ago."
Many said,
"I don't know."
I'll get you.
Once I get my
boys, I'll be back.
It is Sunday evening,
December 17th,
and this is the Public
Broadcast Laboratory,
an experiment in
public television
combining elements
of information,
education and entertainment.
Tonight, from PBL in New York.
and from cities across
the United States
a totally live and
unrehearsed examination
of police / minority relations
with PBL chief correspondent
Edward P. Morgan.
Good evening.
Do you believe that
there has ever been a case
of police brutality against
a black citizen in
the city of Newark?
Now that all depends
on what you consider
to be police brutality.
- I'm going to answer your question.
- Physical abuse of a citizen in the city.
Mr. Harrington, I
interrupted you a moment ago
do you have something that
you want to come in with now?
Yes, I had about fifteen things
if I had the chance to
come back and say them.
Because I have a book
here, Reader's Digest,
which is a very respected book
and it states that-
Well, I'm sort of in
a tough spot here.
I know you are.
But you're always
short-cutting us.
Now, let us have our say
or we might as well go home.
I don't think we're
short-cutting you, Mr. Harrington.
And if you don't mind, we want to go
to Detroit, where I think the temperature
is somewhat high in
Reverend Cleage's church.
Yeah, we feel that this
whole program, up this point
has been a deliberate
attempt to evade the issue.
Police brutality-everybody
knows police brutality exists.
For police officers to take
our time, to waste the time
of an entire
nation, talking about
they never heard
of police brutality,
they don't know what black people
are talking about, they can't prove it.
We know, in Detroit,
any time a black person
is brutalized by the
police, he goes into court
and he's arrested for
assault and battery.
Everybody's talking about-
PBL will continue
its examination
of police / community relations
after this pause for
station identification.
You know, we policemen
are not responsible
because people riot on
account of not getting jobs.
We policemen didn't send
Carmichael over to the other side.
We didn't ask Rep. Brown to
damn and curse this country.
But if trouble starts,
we would have to stop it.
And I say to you:
it's only one thin line
between crime and society,
and that's us policemen.
I want to go for a moment
to Reverend Cleage's
congregation in Detroit.
All right, let's go.
We are through with
this white hypocrisy,
with the efforts of white people
to set up a situation
that they can control.
We are tired of sociologists
and psychologists
talking us to death.
We are tired of
police commissioners,
and police experts,
telling us that we're not
getting our heads whipped.
The black revolution is in
progress and it's going on
and we don't care what-
Gentlemen, we would have
been presumptuous in the extreme
if we had thought that we
were gonna solve anything.
We saw society in conflict,
we examined the hostility,
we had some sharp
exchanges in views.
That's what makes an
open society stay open.
Thank you.
PBL hopes that during
this season of giving
you will add your
community-supported
public television
station to your gift list.
We take this opportunity to
wish you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.
Tomorrow, the report of the
President's Commission on Riots
will go on sale in a paperback
edition for a dollar and a quarter.
It will tell White America
what, in the past,
only novelists like
Faulkner and Baldwin
have said so well:
that the United States
is a racist country.
The report summons up an image
that is more like the other
side of the Iron Curtain
or the garrison
states of Latin America
than our image of
the United States.
What we've tried
to do in this report
is to let people see this
thing through our eyes
and to feel it in the pit of
their stomachs, like we do.
And then, if they see
what a crisis this really is,
what a terribly serious
crisis this is for our country,
there could be a great
deal more willingness
to try to move to do
something about it.
It says we must
take immediate action
to create two million new
jobs over the next three years.
Six million new
homes in five years,
a guarantee of minimum income,
far greater aid to schools
than proposed thus far.
A lot of whites
might still have their
bigotry and their racism,
but they will believe
this document
and they will act
accordingly to it.
I think this is the
important part about it.
Buy your books on
the Riot Commission!
On the Riot Commission.
At P.S. 151, where the pupils
are mostly Negro or Puerto Rican,
the school's book
fair was enlarged
to include a table-full of
the paperbound reports.
Throughout the
neighborhood, in various ways,
more than 2,000
copies of the Riot Report
were sold in less than a week.
8,000 more copies
were quickly ordered.
Bantam Books, which
published the first edition,
calls it the fastest
selling paperback
since Valley of the Dolls.
700 pages, with 300 footnotes,
based on thousands
of pages of records
gathered by staffers
pumping out reams of
surveys and statistics.
The result was a pointillist
picture of social collapse.
The Commission had
looked for a lot of things,
conspiracy, of course,
and the mythic
"outside agitators."
They found neither.
Instead, beneath the
data lay an obvious truth.
"Our nation is moving
towards two societies,
"one black, one white,
"separate and unequal."
With those words, 11 of the least
revolutionary people in America
started to sound, strangely,
like the people in the streets.
In his last published essay,
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
"When millions of people
have been cheated for centuries,
"restitution is a
costly process.
"This fact has not
been fully grasped,
"because most of the
gains of the past decade
"were obtained
at bargain rates."
Civil Rights legislation
had been a victory
but it didn't force anyone
to take from the rich
and give to the poor.
That was to be King's next step.
And, thanks to a
hundred flaming cities,
that demand would
appear in the report.
The Commission proposed a
program of unprecedented vastness.
A call to raise taxes,
spread the wealth,
lighten the burden
on the burning ghettos.
It was a high price,
but Johnson had called
for a Great Society.
What else could
that possibly mean?
What's going to be the
answer to this report?
What answer in the form
of action in Washington?
Here's Roger Mudd,
who covers Congress.
Roger, what's the
impact down there?
The one thing that struck me
as I talked to these members
over the last two or three days
was that the obstacle, the
stonewall that this report will hit
in every committee room,
every caucus room,
every corridor, is money.
And they ask how can
the President run one war,
with barely enough
money to do it,
and can't even get
a 10% tax increase,
how can he now be
expected to run a second war?
They're talking about two billion
dollars a month, in the Report.
Well, that's equal
to what the current
expenditure is for Vietnam.
Sound 4.
Is the greatest
amount of publicity
which your company has
received as a result of Vietnam?
Yes, this is.
Do you consider your
production of this gas
to be a public service?
We consider it to
be a public service.
A contribution to the
order of a community?
Yes, we do.
Would you consider it something
like the production of an automobile, or-
Well, I would say that
this is a humane method
of handling
difficult situations.
Just like the dentist gives
you a shot of Novocaine,
before he pulls your tooth.
Are you the greatest
producer of tear gas?
We are the greatest producer
of tear gas in the world.
Could I ask you how
much tear gas you produce?
- Or is that a trade secret?
- That is-
Scene 2, Sound 3, Roll 3.
Are you the greatest
producer of tear gas?
We are the greatest producer
of tear gas in the world.
As one of the
Commission's staffers said,
"We could have tackled
the problem from any angle,
"from class, racism,
the economic system,
"but we didn't follow
any of them through,
"because everyone knew exactly
where dissection would lead:
"to the power and the interests
"of the people sitting right
there on our Commission."
Among the staffers,
mostly young,
one faction wrote
its own analysis.
Their findings:
that the rioters were
like the Algerians,
exploding against
French colonial rule.
"A truly revolutionary spirit,"
they wrote, "has begun to
take hold amongst some.
"An unwillingness to
compromise or wait any longer,
"to risk death rather
than have their people
"continue in a
subordinate status."
Those staffers were
taken off the project.
1967 had given the establishment
proof that something was broken
and being born.
But the Commissioners had
to fight that view, obscure it.
They wanted to present
innocent dissatisfaction,
pain without politics.
It was rhetorical alchemy.
In the language
of the official report,
a picture emerged of black life,
poor life,
in America.
"Yes, there was hardship
"and who wouldn't
be angry about that?
"We ought to pity the
poor and their problems."
But only a radical
could possibly admit
that the rioters might now
just be revising their
role in the social drama.
They were trying to
torch the whole script.
So the nationwide
rebellion was cast
as a mere string
of aimless riots,
structural catastrophe,
bad planning.
All the while,
young people went
blazing through the city.
I believe it was the
system's way of handling it.
I think it was the system's
way of reacting quickly.
And that's what we
do in this society.
We appoint a committee
and we investigate.
Ergo, something's being done.
That's just simply not true.
White America
seems to be engaged
in a kind of public ventilation,
catharsis,
which takes two forms,
as far as I can see.
One, guilt,
in which many white people
seem to be getting their kicks
having Negroes flagellate them,
in terms of telling them
how guilty they have been.
And the other form of catharsis
is by increasing the
hostility towards Negroes.
And I think-
Both things are
happening right now.
Both things are
happening at the same time,
and sometimes, maybe
in the same persons.
Do you think that we're headed
toward an Apartheid society, Mr. Rustin,
or are you still the optimist?
Either we integrate, or
the people of America
decide to give Negroes
a certain number of states
in which to live and
set up their own nation
or they shoot us or the
send us back to Africa.
Or they maintain law and order
in the sense of rounding or
surrounding American ghettos
with mobile and
effective military force
the function of which is
to maintain law and order
with continued
inequities and injustice.
Negro leaders,
Dr. Kenneth Clark,
Bayard Rustin and
Charles Hamilton
continues with part
three in one minute.
Welcome to Riotsville.
This is a simulated
riot in a simulated city,
but as another summer approaches,
it might be Anywhere, U.S.A.
Welcome to Riotsville.
This is a simulated
riot in a simulated city,
but as another summer approaches,
it might be Anywhere, U.S.A.
Hell no, we won't go!
Hell no, we won't go!
Here's what I want you to do:
You put 'em in office
and you can take 'em out!
Please, please, do not
listen to false rumors or lies.
Go home, old man!
The police are not
picking anyone up
and they're not
making false arrests.
You're breaking my arm!
Get off! Get off!
You're breaking it.
Take thirty of you-
I'm not going in that thing.
I'll be back.
I'll be back, you rotten cops.
Rotten-
I'll be back!
I'll be back!
Chief, what will you
do with the information
that you learn at this school?
What would you do with
it after you leave here?
I'll go back to Chicago
and integrate the
information I have here
with our plans in
the department.
With the Democratic
National Convention coming up
and the threat of trouble,
do you feel that Chicago
needs this training
more than other cities?
Well, I believe that
we do have sufficient
force in the city of Chicago
to cope with that problem.
But, on the other hand,
we must always be prepared
for additional help
in case it's needed.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Increasingly, the computer
is becoming a police weapon.
Here, daily reports of
crime are fed into a computer
car thefts, muggings,
robbery, assault,
the statistics of violence.
And then, the
computer draws a map
to show the city's danger areas.
The program attempts
to match the MOs
of the known
criminals to new crimes.
The officers then follow up
these computer generated leads
of the most likely suspects.
The 21st Century is brought
to you by Union Carbide.
The Discovery Company.
Huh?
Police Chiefs across the country
will soon be inspecting
the newest innovation
in riot control equipment.
This 20-ton, half track
tank of "Witch Craft"
designed to scare the wits
out of any steely-nerved rioter.
Tailor-made to subdue
Detroit and Newark-type mobs,
it comes equipped
with bulletproof armor
and blast window-
Well-
The new "Witch Craft"
riot tank carries 15 officers,
battle ready, if anyone
still wants to fight.
Oh, boy.
Governor Kerner also warned
against police departments.
over-preparing for
summer violence.
In the event of an
emergency, Kerner noted,
an armored vehicle
could be borrowed
from private sources,
such as banks.
And in Chicago, a
police spokesman said:
"It doesn't take any
imagination to buy a tank.
"Anybody can do that."
Anybody?
Soldier boy
Oh, my little soldier boy
I'll be true to you
All persons, clear the building.
Sniper, throw out
your rifle and surrender.
You were my first love
And you'll be my last love
I will never make you blue
I'll be true to you
In this whole world
You can love but one girl
Let me be that one girl
For I'll be true to you
Attention in the
furniture building,
A sniper in the building is
firing at persons on the street.
Necessary force will be used
to apprehend this individual.
Soldier boy
Oh, my little soldier boy
I'll be true to you
All right, ma'am.
Now, your gun is ready to fire.
You'll get a grip on
it with your right hand
support it with your left,
support it with your left,
bring your elbows
up and lock straight.
Now fire, right at the
midsection of the target.
Talk in the suburbs
of tax and troops
and terror in the streets has
led her to the pistol range.
A grandmother, fearful.
She's part of the what
the President's report calls
the "polarization of the
American community."
With the little
manuals that you have
that were furnished by one
of the shooting foundations
pretty well sum it up.
Maybe I should ask if
there are any questions?
Uh, like, combat shooting,
where is the vital point?
Well-
The head.
In this group, we don't really
go into the anatomy of this thing,
but you'll find that
those targets are marked.
They're the same targets
that the police departments,
the FBI use. Study the target
and you'll see what they
consider to be the more vital areas.
Believe me, though,
there's nothing more vital
than being hit any
place, almost, in the body.
I think this is just
a terrible thought.
But if it's a
terrible situation,
and you have to resort to this,
well then, the middle, some place.
- Middle.
- Okay?
I don't like the idea
of shooting anybody.
I mean, I don't mind target
shooting. That sounds like fun.
But people, I just
don't like the idea at all.
But, if it's necessary,
I mean, you know, you
do what is necessary.
Isn't-necessity is the mother
of invention or something
or is that the opposite?
See here, one, two,
three, four, five, six.
- Pretty good.
- So you didn't miss by much.
No.
In nearby Pontiac,
an industrial town,
a large Negro population is
very sensitive to what it hears.
They're angry and frightened.
White people ask me
why am I so angry?
And, you know, I don't
have an answer for 'em.
because it would be
ridiculous for me to answer him.
Because he couldn't
understand anyway.
Obviously, because he
asked me the question.
But if a black legislator
was out in the county
telling black people
to arm themselves
where do you
think they'd be now?
If they got 'em to jail,
- Before they killed 'em.
- Before they're killed.
You know, people
talk about genocide.
A lot of people talk
about it, especially now.
And a lot of people
don't believe it,
but it's a very real factor.
It's a very real factor
and white people
are arming themselves
to, you know, bring
this thing about.
Some discussion came up
in the chambers of
the City Commission
and someone said something
about 25 million black people.
And you could hear a little
mumble in the background,
"Yes, and we've got
25 million graves."
This is a very real thing.
This is what they're
planning for us.
The footage of '60s rebellions
has traveled a long way to meet us.
and at least it seems
to prove something.
Here's a street,
a face,
a gun.
Real things.
Real and broken things,
which say:
"This happened and it hurt."
But there are dangers.
A picture can
become a stereotype
or be cleverly conscripted
to this or that project,
dogma,
lie.
Do we just want more
or different images?
Yes and no, we tell ourselves.
Reminded of all those snapshots
of chaos which swarm us
and lose their meaning.
The camera swivels to catch
a cop car bursting into flames.
But that's just one
point in the process,
a single fragment of the story.
We wish we could see
an image of a decade
or a whole century
working through its ironies,
wracked by its explosions,
but with all its
conflicting features settled
or at least accounted for.
Revolution and repression
trapped in a single film frame,
one total, impossible picture.
In Memphis, people were injured,
stores were looted,
property was destroyed,
people were beaten by hoodlums.
At least one Negro youth
is known to have been killed.
And massive rioting
erupted during a march
which was led by
Martin Luther King.
It was a shameful
and totally uncalled for
outburst of lawlessness,
undoubtedly encouraged
by his words and actions
and his presence.
When the predictable
rioting erupted,
Martin Luther
King fled the scene,
leaving it to others to cope
with the destructive forces
he had helped to unleash.
I hope that well-meaning
Negro leaders
will now take a new look
at this man who gets
other people into trouble
and then takes off
like a scared rabbit.
If anybody is to
be hurt or killed
in the disorder which
follows in the wake
of his highly-publicized
marches and demonstrations
he apparently is
going to be sure
that it will be someone
other than Martin Luther King.
Middle of the summer,
Bitten by flies and fleas
Sitting in a
crowded apartment
About 110 degrees
I went outside
The middle of the night
All I had was a
match in my hand
And I wanted to fight
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
And Lord, no one to see
And now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
I called President Johnson
On the phone
His secretary said
he wasn't there
I tried to get in touch
with Mr. Humphrey
They couldn't
find him anywhere
I went into the courtroom
With my poor black face
Didn't have no money
Didn't have no lawyer
They wouldn't plead my case
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
Lord, and no one to see
Now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
I really wanted
a decent citizen
I really needed some scratch
I really wanted
a decent job now
All I had was a match
Couldn't get oil from
Rockefeller's wells
Couldn't get the
diamonds from the mine
I can't enjoy the
American dream
Won't be water
but the fire next time
So I said
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Nowhere to be
And Lord, no one to see
Now, nowhere to turn
Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn
Need a concern
You've got money to earn
You've got midnight oil to
Burn, baby, burn
I really want a
decent education
I really want a
decent job, now
I really want a decent
place to stay, now
I want to live like
everybody else
I want to live like
everybody else
I want to live like
everybody else
We need a new school
bus in this town, right?
Right!
That thing looks like it took
Henry Ford to school, right?
Yeah!
And playgrounds,
we haven't got one
playground in this town, do we?
No!
Isolated and secured
from outside
interference or agitation,
such demonstrations will
usually terminate peacefully
in a minimum of time.
Now, an incident which will
demand more positive action.
They don't tell me
what to do, man.
I'm a civilian, you dig it?
I put in my time in
that Army, you know?
In these staged demonstrations
the men dressed
in black will typify
hard-core,
professional agitators
When the group refuses to
disband, action must be taken.
Now, the agitators shift
their troublemaking skills
into high gear, using the
naturally contagious qualities
of excitement and violence
to incite them into action.
These confrontations
demand much of you.
You must work
within an atmosphere
of explosive emotionalism
and yet remain
calm and rational.
You will be subjected to the
worst extremes of provocation.
And yet, you must be
guided only by logical thought.
When every natural instinct
within you begs for action
you must remain passive.
And when, finally, the
preservation of law and order
requires the use of force,
you must exercise it with
judgment and without malice.
Why do you want
to be a riot deputy?
Well, I've lived in
Chicago all my life
and if anything were to happen,
I'd like to help out
in any way I could.
Do you know, as a volunteer,
you have to purchase your
own gear and equipment.
That's correct.
You're willing to go through
all the military training
that's going to be
involved in this?
Yes, sir.
You were in the Military Police, in
the Army, honorably discharged?
Yes.
Why do you want to be
a member of this unit?
Well, I did this
type of work before
and so I like it.
You're not racially
prejudiced, are you?
- No, sir.
- In any way?
None whatsoever.
Do you believe people
have a right to march?
To march, you mean
demonstrations?
That's right.
If it's peaceful.
Go there in the hallway and see
Sergeant Black, he'll fingerprint you.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for coming down.
Do you see anything racial
in the nature of
this organization?
No, I think having
half of the group
being half the group colored
and half the group white,
I think it'll be- I think
this is a very good idea.
Some people have said
that this is
anti-Negro in nature.
Obviously, you
don't feel that way.
No, I don't.
How do you feel?
Well, a riot could be-
it could be among the
whites, just as it
could be the Negroes.
But nobody's really expecting
whites to riot this summer, are they?
They're expecting
Negroes to riot.
I don't expect
Negroes to riot. No.
The Chicago Democratic
National Convention.
The sense was mounting,
irrefutable,
this would be the TV
event of the century,
a catastrophic spectacle, and
gripping primetime showdown.
On one side, an
infamous police force
armed with every lethal gadget
they managed to get their hands on.
And on the other,
the shaggy underdogs
and soft-skinned campus waifs.
Unlike Watts, these young people
were white America's
sons and daughters,
yearning children
of the middle class.
Some media outlets
sent their war reporters,
others sent TV critics.
And when the police
started gassing students,
and swinging billy
clubs at camera crews,
the stations got their wish,
the tape went national,
then worldwide.
The point of the demonstration
was to rouse the
conscience of America,
to summon the moral prestige
of Birmingham or Selma.
And in one fell swoop,
bring the war machine
howling to its knees.
That isn't how the chips fell.
Though some
still like to say so.
Something was amiss
in the opinion polls.
The audience tuning in at home,
treated to this televised
feast of state brutality,
wasn't rooting for the kids,
wasn't moved by their
cracked skulls or slogans.
The fact is that white America
ended up siding with the cops.
But another scene had
unfurled that summer,
further south,
though it would be
overshadowed by the DNC,
the 1968 Republican
National Convention.
We've heard about Chicago,
but we've been living
through Miami Beach.
Live, from Miami Beach, Florida.
NBC News reports, the
Republican National Convention.
Good evening.
NBC News is pleased to bring you
the proceedings and
some of the background
of the second day
in the third session
of the 1968 National
Republican Convention.
It will help, probably, if I have
a microphone attached to me.
Put your microphone.
Tonight-
Well, just start over. They
didn't hear the first part.
Welcome to the second
day in the third session
of the GOP National
Convention. How's that?
It is understandable
that the Republicans
decided to hold their convention
south of the Mason-Dixon line.
They had not done
so in 104 years.
And it obvious why anyone
might want to come
to Miami Beach.
But the real reason for the
Republican presence here
are less obvious.
This nine-mile long sandbar
has on advantage
above all others.
It is remote.
Would-be demonstrators could
be met by raised drawbridges
and blocked roadways,
cut-off except for the four
causeways across Biscayne Bay.
It's therefore easy
for the Republicans
to avoid the danger of
large, militant demonstrations.
Well, before I'll be a slave,
I'll be buried in my grave
And go home to
my Lord and be free
Now to Aline Saarinen,
at the headquarters hotel.
Things have livened up
in the headquarters lobby.
The poor people have come in,
they have been followed
not only by the crowd
but by more Secret Service
men than I can count,
who are trying to figure out
how they can get Governor
Reagan through the group of people
and are decided they're
just going to have to
just push their way through.
And now, a motorcade of
Governor Ronald Reagan
is arriving outside,
although most of the people
inside are not yet aware of it.
Here is the Governor,
carried along
by a phalanx of
Secret Service men.
He's a big man
and he looks really
as if he were in
a football game.
He's going over toward the room,
the French room, as it's called.
But I am amazed at the speed
with which the
Secret Service men
can move through an
absolutely solid mass of people.
The Governor was looking
very chipper in his white suit
and I don't know
how he survived.
And the poor people
are keeping going.
They are interested, of
course, in making their point
not only to the
candidate himself
but really to the American
people in general.
How do you think you did
this afternoon in the hotel?
You'll have to choose to do
what you can to help us out.
We got no decision.
It's up to you.
We'll be back in just a moment
after this message from Gulf.
Here is an item, which has
just come to our attention.
At 1675 62nd Street
Northwest in Miami,
there is a large crowd
of about 400 Negroes
most of them young,
conducting a noisy demonstration.
There are reported to be
twelve policeman on the scene
and more coming to
control the situation.
The demonstrators are demanding
the resignation of
Senator Edward Brooke,
over the seating of a
lily-white delegation.
The noise is loud,
and the people seem
extremely determined in
their protest, so we're told.
By the way, it
might be explained
that obviously these
people are demonstrating
because they are objecting to
the decision of this convention
to seat a rather small number
of Negro delegates here.
Here is some more on
the disturbance in Miami.
When the police pulled
back from the troubled area,
groups of Negroes
gathered on the streets.
Some carried signs
calling for "Black Power"
and others were generally
just anti-Republican.
At the corner of 16th and 62nd,
one group stopped
a car, turned it over,
and set it on fire and fled.
No one knows what
happened to the driver.
The Associated Press quoted
one of the sponsors of the rally
earlier today as
blaming the police.
He said, "If ten black
people get together,
"they call it a riot,
"but 300 white people
can get together
"and they call it a convention."
More from Convention
Hall in a moment.
Right now, a message from Gulf.
Swat it.
Hit it.
Get mad.
Or kill it.
Yes, there are many
ways to deal with a fly.
But Gulfspray contains
more pyrethrins
for more instant
knock-out power.
It's available at your
favorite grocery, drug
or hardware store.
And at your Gulf dealer.
Played for as fools.
And they're talking about
everything else but the truth.
We're being sacrificed
in the city of Liberty City.
That's what's happening to us.
So tell the people the
truth, and we can accept it.
I'm afraid I don't
know what we can say.
I just want peace
in the community
and I'm determined to
get it, one way or the other.
I don't know what
the means will be.
It's out of my hands
at the moment.
It is my privilege
to place in nomination
the one man
whom history has so
clearly thrust forward.
Untainted by war, dissension,
lawlessness,
or the threat of fiscal
and moral chaos.
The honorable Richard M. Nixon.
It is my judgment
that he will have them
all over the nation,
because the number
one issue in this campaign
is going to be law and order.
I think the American
people today
want to do away
with this lawlessness
and they want to put
down all this criminality
and they want to
preserve law and order.
We can have no civilized
society without law and order.
And everyone is, of course,
free to interpret the true
meaning of that phrase
however he likes.
I want you to know that
all isn't well in this city.
That an awful lot of people
better get about to business.
You know, you promise and
you promise and you promise-
I promise my son, too.
And there are times
when he tells me,
"Daddy, you either put it
in the bucket or get off."
And that's what
they're saying now.
And I am not a violent man.
I'm a peace-loving man.
I preach love.
But I want to tell you this:
You can't lie to people
forever and get away with it.
And this isn't to say you've
lied, but I'll tell you this:
You played with the truth.
I'm going to bring
ourselves up to date
on the disturbance that
broke out last night, David,
in a section of Northwest Miami.
Two Negroes have been
killed and four wounded
as a result of the violence
in the troubled neighborhood.
The Dade County Police said
two men were killed
in the mid-afternoon
when police were
shot at by a sniper.
They said they returned
the sniper's fire and killed him
and a second man was killed
when he was caught
in the crossfire.
Two other Negroes were
wounded in the same incident.
There are some later
casualty figures here.
Here are some more casualty
figures in this disturbance.
Two Negro men have
been killed by police,
four Negro men
wounded by police,
one white man
wounded by Negroes,
two Negro women
wounded by Negroes,
32 have been arrested.
Yesterday, the first
day of the disturbances
one man was wounded and
ten injured, and 86 were arrested
While there is, as
we say, nothing of
transcendent importance
happening in the Convention,
we are going to hear again
from the Gulf Oil Company.
When Frantz Fanon
traveled to Algeria,
in the midst of
their revolution,
he went as a psychiatrist.
He found that the colonized
dreamed of strength.
"I dream I am jumping,
"swimming,
"running,
"climbing.
"I dream that I
burst out laughing,
"but I span a
river in one stride
"or that I am followed
by a flood of motorcars
"which never catch up with me."
Thus far, we've shown
you what reaction looks like,
what it says and how it moves.
A whole universe in which
it's possible to stop the world.
Flip a switch, and
end the problem.
Enforce contentment from above.
If only.
Just beyond this fiction
lies the real world
with real people,
a place where things still
happen.
Just about an hour ago, it
would have been totally unsafe
to come in where I'm
standing now, on 62nd Street,
just west of 12th Avenue.
It's not really safe right now,
there have been sporadic
sniper shots in this area.
.22 rifles, there was
several shotgun blasts heard.
And the firemen
are still mopping up.
Heavy ash, there's
a smell in the air
of a fire that's
just been put out.
This is Channel 4
newsman Bob Reed,
who has just come
down 62nd Street.
He's walking by-
as you can see, some
of the litter here on 62nd.
We'll find out what's going
on back down the street.
Bob, what's happening
back down there?
Well, there's a
sniper down there
and someone has been shot.
I don't know if it was a sniper
or just a bystander
or policeman.
I haven't been able
to get close enough
to see at this point.
Is it heavy fire,
would you say, or?
There has been fairly
heavy fire sporadically
throughout the
last couple of hours.
At times, it gets pretty heavy.
Most of the shots are
being fired by the police
and then they'll slack off
for a couple of seconds,
then it'll get heavy again.
Of course, you are
in a peculiar position.
You're covering this story, but
you seem to have a good rapport
with the people here, obviously.
What do they tell you
about why this is happening?
Well, it's an interesting thing.
Nobody can really
say why it's happening.
It's just the pent-up
anger and the frustration
and the idea of being
trapped in society.
It's a bursting out.
It's a breaking free.
It's-
It's just a way of
saying, "I will accept
the abuse no longer."
Whatever the reasons,
and there are many
different answers here,
the fact remains
that 62nd Street
looks more like a battleground
than a once relatively
quiet street in Miami.
They've aged
strangely, these images.
They draw us in and freeze us.
What to make of them now,
embedded as we are in the
future they were meant to ensure?
In 1964, before our story began,
before Watts,
before Newark and Detroit,
a police officer
killed a black boy.
300 of his high
school classmates
came bursting into the street.
The next week would be
known as the Harlem Riot.
It wasn't the first one.
The poet June Jordan was there.
Later, she would
write of lunging
through the blasted streets,
throwing herself to the pavement
every time she heard a siren
to miss the flying bullets.
It gave her an idea
for a new Harlem,
a new city,
a place devised for the
possibility of human flourishing.
The rectilinear cross
streets had been a prison.
She called them a
"psychological crucifixion."
This new city would be
built on the bones of the old.
Great communal
towers would rise up over
over vast green space below.
She wrote to the architect
Buckminster Fuller,
and they drew up plans
and had them published
in Esquire Magazine.
Jordan wanted to call
it "Skyrise for Harlem."
Esquire called it,
"Instant Slum Clearance."
She wanted it to be constructed
exactly as she planned.
Esquire called it "Utopian."
Between "Skyrise for
Harlem" and Riotsville,
between futurist towers
and plywood diorama,
between possibility
and repression,
closure and rupture,
parody and dream.
That's where all of
this has taken place,
between two competing pictures
of an impossible city.
"Utopia," that is, "nowhere."
Riotsville,
Anywhere, U.S.A.
In the book of Genesis,
Lot's wife turns
into a pillar of salt
because she can't help herself.
She must look back
at the burning city.