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The Augusta News-Review - February 16, 1978
Newark’s Vision
Can energy crisis save our cities?
By Rufus Dabney Jr. and
T.D. Allman
NEWARK, N.J. - For those
urban leaders now facing
another harsh winter of
record-cold temperatures and
fuel shortages, Newark Mayor
Kenneth A. Gibson, chief
executive of America’s
third-oldest incorporated city,
has some words of long term
optimism.
Mayor Gibson, a nationally
known spokesman for inner
cities and their inhabitants,
believes the very energy crisis
that paralyzed many northeast
and midwestern cities last
winter has given America’s
older, energy-efficient
communities a new lease on
life.
“Unlike suburbs and
sprawling exurban shopping
centers and industrial parks,’’
says Gibson, “America’s inner
cities are not wasteful of scarce
energy and fuel. They help
conserve energy with
everything from apartment
house living to the use of
public transportation.” Gibson
predicts that “it is just going to
be too expensive not to use
America’s downtown areas
productively and imaginatively
if the energy shortage that is
forecast continues.”
For many Americans,
Newark seems a city of the
past. After a period of rapid
industrial development ending
in the early twentieth century,
Newark became a case study in
urban decay and white
middle-class abandonment.
Until recently the city - which
is hemmed in by affluent
suburbs which make no
contribution to the city’s
welfare while still using its
cultural and economic facilities
seemed left behind by the
automobile age, and the great
American migration to the
suburbs and the Sunbelt.
Mayor Gibson, however, has
never seen things that way.
Calling Newark “the city of the
future,” not the past, he often
has predicted that newer cities
like Houston and Atlanta will
face all of Newark’s problems
in the log run, too, if America
does not make a national
commitment to putting the
inner cities back on their feet.
Today Gibson sees hopeful
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Kenneth A. Gibson
new signs in Newark for the
future of America’s cities.
Gibson said in a recent
interview, “I would have
answered pessimistically.
Today things are different.
This city has a future.”
The mayor of Newark is
banking on high gasoline
prices, drastic increases in
suburban utility bills and the
attractive prices of many inner
city properties to reverse the
middle-class exodus - both
white and Black - from his
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city. He also counts on soaring
capital costs for new exurban
development to make
rehabilitation of inner city
industrial areas attractive to
business and industry.
For the mayor of what has
been called “America’s worst
city,” the return of the
middle-class -- which has
already begun in many old
New Jersey towns on the west
bank of the Hudson River
opposite New York City - is
the hidden social irony of the
energy crisis.
Gibson still thinks racial
phobias were the chief reason
for white flight from Newark
in the 1950 s and 19605. He
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adds that it is the pocketbook,
not changed social attitudes,
that account for the increasing
numbers of formerly suburban
whites who now are moving
into apartments and restoring
old houses in Newark.
“1 must point out the future
of the city has been forced by
the energy crisis,” Gibson
emphasizes. “Not be
enlightenment, mind you, but
by force of economic
circumstance.”
Because of his national
prominence among big-city
mayors, Gibson’s insights carry
a great deal of weight - both
with his fellow urban leaders
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and with the Carter
Administration.
During the forty-fifth annual
U.S. Conference of Mayors in
Tucson last June, Gibson
who recently served a term as
president of that 750-member
organization - denounced
President Carter’s welfare
reform package as “vague.” He
warned his fellow mayors “not
to allow ourselves to be lulled
into total approval of the
Administration’s programs
because some progress has been
made on our urban agenda.”
Gibson has been a national
figure ever since 1970, when he
became Newark’s first Black
mayor. For many, Gibson’s
1970 election seemed the end
of the line for the city.
In July 1967, Newark had
been ravaged by five days of
rioting and looting. It left 23
persons dead and caused over
$lO million in property
damage. The riots followed
demographic trauma which had
harmed the city even more. As
late as 1960, Newark had been
65 per cent white. Just six
years later, it was 52 per cent
Black and ten per cent
Hispanic. The newcomers often
were poor, homeless and
jobless. Those who left Newark
took with them investment
capital, business opportunities
and sources of municipal tax
revenue. In 1967, Newark’s
property taxes were twice as
high as many surrounding
suburbs, and Newark seemed
the most conspicuous example
in America of an inner city
that rapidly was becoming
“brown, Black and broke.”
In spite of the city’s Black
majority, the 1960 UJS. Riot
Commission noted, “the white
population nevertheless
retained political control of the
city. Led by former Mayor
High Addonizio, Newark’s
white minority government
was widely regarded as
incompetent, unresponsive and
utterly corrupt. By 1970,
Addonizio had been convicted
on extortion-conspiracy
charges and the era of
white-deminated machine
politics in Newark was over.
Gibson, one of America’s first
Black big-city mayors, at that
time was often likened to the
caretaker of a graveyard.
Today, more than a decade
after the Newark riots, the city
is a premier example of the
unexpected successes
America’s Black urban
leadership have achieved - and
a I(! &se study, too, in the
overwhelming problems inner
city mayors, whatever their
race, still face everywhere.
“Newark now is moving in
the right direction,” says
Gibson. “We still have
problems with housing,
especially in the middle-class
price range, but we are working
on that problem too.”
Gibson argues that the Black
population of Newark is still
undercounted - and that this
costs the city millions of
dollars in federal and state
funds. The 1975 census
estimate, for example, placed
Newark’s population at
340,000 people. But Gibson
believes Newark’s population is
400,000 now about 60 per
cent Black and 14 per cent
Spanish-speaking.
Now that white flight has
ended, one of Gibson’s mayor
jobs - ironically enough for a
Black leader - is luring the
middle class back into the city.
“We must bring back the
middle class of all races in
Newark,” the mayor says. “We
have stabilized the middle class
we have, and consequently
halted the flight to the
suburbs.”
Although he predicts the
economics of the energy crisis
will lead many commuters to
return to live in Newark,
Gibson has geared his
administration for providing
other incentives for middle
class return as well. These
include:
♦lncreasing public services
such as street-sweeping, fire
“ENERGY CRISIS”
Page 6
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Governor Hunt of N.C.
and The New South
On Monday evening, January 23, 1978,
Governor Hunt of North Carolina, issued
a statement on tire Wilmington Ten. The
Governor had only two honorable
options. He could either pardon the
defendants or he could commute the
balance of their sentences. He did neither.
Instead he chose the path of political
expediency (looking ahead to his next
election) and he played it to the die hards
in the state of North Carolina he would
see these young Black men rot in prison.
By now, the case of the Wilmington
Ten is well known. I became involved in
this case even before these young men
were sentenced. My involvement began at
Union Baptist Church in Baltimore when
a rally for the Wilmington Ten was held.
Os the original ten defendants, nine
still remain in jail. Ann Turner, the only
white person involved, was originally
sentenced to ten years but was released
under parole supervision last year, leaving
only the Blacks in prison.
Only last month I visited two of the
defendants, Wayne Moore and Joe
Wright, who are in the Triangle
Correction Center in North Carolina. All
of die Wilmington Ten are scattered
throughout various prisons in N.C.... two
here, two there, one here, one there. My
visit with them was a heart breaking
experience. Both Wayne and Joe said
they were not hopeful about an early
release because to secure such a release
the state of N.C. would have to admit to
wrong doing. They did not believe the
state would do this and Governor Hunt’s
lack of action has proved them to be
correct.
These defendants have all been
unjustly convicted of crimes that they did
not commit. Allen Hall's charges are very
serious and, if true, constitute a violation
of Federal law and the constitutional
rights of these defendants.
This case lay naked and open the false
platitudes the Administration and the
U.S. Congress have been uttering about
civil rights. When the Carter
Administration talks about violations of
human rights in Uganda, we must ask,
“What about the human rights of Wayne
Moore, now sentenced to 29 years?”
WHen the Executive Branch and the
Congress talk about violations of human
rights in the Soviet Union, we must ask,
“Whatabout Rev. Ben Chavis, now'
sentenced to 34 years?”
More importantly, we must not cease
our efforts until these men are free and
justice is done. Towards that end, I made
the following speech (excerpted) to the
Congress on February 2, 1978: Mr.
Mitchell of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, it is
important that you, and my Colleagues,
have a full understanding of my position
on Human Rights.
Time and time again I have voted for
Human Rights Amendments in this
House. As late as last week, I introduced
a Human Rights Amendment in the
Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs
Committee as we marked up H.R. 9214.
My Amendment failed by two votes
(19-17).
Something occurred on January 23rd
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The presentations were made at the N.N.P.A. Mid-Winter Workshop at the Omni
International Hotel in Miami
which has caused me to reconsider my
position on Human Rights. On Monday,
January 23rd, Governor James Hunt of
North Carolina, issued his statement on
the case of the Wilmington Ten. In the
Congressional Record for January 26,
1978, I gave a brief history of the
Wilmington Ten, I hope you will check
the Congressional Record for that
particular day, page ElB4 under
Extension of Remarks. For now, suffice
it to say, in 1972 ten civil rights activists
were convicted on charges arising from
disturbances in Wilmington, N.C. The ten
persons, nine young Black men, one
young white woman were sentenced to a
collective total of 282 years in prison. Os
the original ten, nine remain in prisons.
Ann Turner, the only white person
involved, was originally sentenced to ten
years but was released under parole
supervision last year, leaving only the
Blacks in prison.
I had hoped that these nine young men
would have bee n p ardoned, or at the
very least that the balance of their
sentences would have been commuted.
These things did not happen. Therefore, 1
have been forced to reconsider my
position on Human Rights.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion
that I cannot, in all good conscience, vote
for Human Rights Amendments for as
long as these young men remain in prison.
Therefore, on this Amendment I will vote
present.
Some of my friends in this House have
counseled me not to take the action I
take today. They point out these young
men have had their cases reviewed time
and again through the appeals process. To
those friends 1 simply say, “Was there not
a similar review process in the Scottsboro
cases?” I say to them, “Was there not a
similar judicial review process in the
Sacco-Vanzetti case?”
Other of my friends counsel against the
action I take today. They ask me “Will
you not support the Human Rights
Amendment in the case of South Africa,
or Uganda, or Chile?”
My reply to them is th at in the future
for me to support such Human Rights
Amendments aimed at those countries
and others would be hypocrisy on my
part for as long as we here in America
continue to violate the Human Rights of
the Wilmington Ten.
In addition, I believe it would be a
travesty to vote for Human Rights
Amendments aimed at South Africa,
while the Ford Company proceeds with
its expansion plans in that racist nation.
Still other friends uige me not to take
this stand because they say it can be used
by those world powers who fight against
America’s stand on Human Rights. It is
not my action or my words today that
will be used by those world powers, it is
the action already taken by the state in
the case of the Wilmington Ten which
will be used to attack this Nation’s
Human Rights policies.
1 shall vote present on this
Amendment, it pains me to do this but
how else can I register my protest against
a miscarriage of justice in America?