Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Racial Violence Potential in the United States
This Summer." May 23, 1967.
 EXCERPTS
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
SUBJECT: RACIAL VIOLENCE POTENTIAL IN THE UNITED STATES THIS SUMMER
DATE: MAY 23, 1967
PREFACE
This document is, in essence, an intelligence survey of this summer's racial violence potential
in the United States. Its contents were derived from public sources, public officials, police
officers, knowledgeable observers, and FBI sources. This document should not, however, be
regarded as a report based upon the results of any specific investigation conducted by the FBI.
OVERVIEW
Continuing Racial Tension
After three consecutive summers of racial turbulence in the United States, there were hopes that
the social, economic, and political gains achieved by the Negro in recent years might be
alleviating racial unrest and strife. Civil rights legislation, antipoverty programs, and
better police-community relations have brought a measure of improvement in the status and
treatment of Negroes, but discontent and frustration persist. Race relations have deteriorated
in a number of cities throughout the country during the past year.
Seasonal Phenomenon
We are now in the midst of an era of protracted racial conflict that has produced a crisis in
law enforcement. Along with the annual seasonal rise in summertime crime, it is painfully
evident that racial turmoil has similarly become a summer phenomenon. The racial violence
potential is especially high in hot weather in the Nation's urban areas because large numbers
of Negroes, living under crowded, depressed conditions in ghettos, take to the streets to
escape the heat and seek relaxation and recreation. The situation is compounded by the
restiveness and alienation of large numbers of idle junior and senior high school students and
other Negro youths. Because of the combustible temper of the times, an inconsequential incident
can ignite a riotous situation in any city or town in the country.
Another Riotous Summer
The Spring of 1967 has already witnessed almost daily outbreaks of racial disorder somewhere in
the country. All signs point toward recurrent racial convulsions throughout the country this
summer -- more likely on an even wider scale than in previous years -- marked by plundering,
arson, destruction, and attacks on law enforcement officers. There is the added danger this
year that the scenes of racial strife in large cities might spread from Negro communities into
white neighborhoods and that increased numbers of white people might resort to violence in an
effort to counter Negro demonstrators or rioters. The threat of racial violence hangs heavy
over every urban community in the land. In an atmosphere of ever-present tension, violence can
strike anywhere at any time with all the unpredictability, rapidity, and destructiveness of a
tornado.
Civil Rights Linked with Vietnam
Most of the riots and disturbances of the past three years have been spontaneous eruptions of
mob violence, triggered by some trivial incident and fueled by teen-age Negro youths and various
lawless and irresponsible ghetto elements. But incessant agitation and propaganda on the part
of communists and other subversive and extremists have definitely contributed to Negro unrest
and fomented violence. In particular, demagogues like Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael,
Floyd McKissick, Cassius Clay, and Dick Gregory have fanned the fires of racial discord and
animosity. King has now joined Carmichael, McKissick, and other civil rights extremists in
embracing the communist tactic of linking the civil rights movement with the anti-Vietnam-war
protest movement, claiming that United States involvement in Vietnam is diverting attention
from civil rights. King's exhortation to boycott the draft and refuse to fight could lead
eventually to dangerous displays of civil disobedience and near-seditious activities by Negroes
and whites alike. Thus, the antiwar campaign endorsed by King helps to promote communist aims
and programs in the United States and abroad.
MORE RACIAL TROUBLE PREDICTED
Ominous Warnings
Each spring of the past few years has evoked prognostications from Negro spokesmen and public
officials that the ensuing summer months would see outbursts of racial violence. This spring
the prophecies have been more numerous and more ominous that ever, particularly those voice by
Negro leaders.
"The war in Vietnam has strengthened the forces of bigotry and reaction," declared
Martin Luther King, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). "It
has caused many young people to become disenchanted with our society. The failure to solve the
problems of our cities will only exacerbate the situation, and give the extremists on both sides
a much more receptive audience. Polarization of the race question in the United States won't
merely mean outbreaks of violence. It will mean outright race wars in some of our cities."
At least ten cities across the country were described by King as "powder kegs" which
could explode into racial violence this summer. Among those cities he listed were New York City,
Newark, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Bay area of California, including
Oakland.
Sporadic youth-led riots throughout the country must be expected this summer and every sumer for
the next decade, Bruce Coles, Program Director for the Chicago Young Men's Christian Association,
told the House Education Subcommittee. The continuing tumult, according to Coles, can be traced
to a conflict between the promises of an affluent society and society's limited ability to spread
that affluence around. Unable to get jobs and rise out of the slums, the youngsters -- mostly
teen-age Negro boys -- simply "blame whitey and raise hell," he said.
Alienation and tension in some Negro neighborhoods "are reaching catastrophic proportions
which can lead to unprecedented explosions in 1967," warned Edward Rutledge and Jack E.
Woods, Executive Director and Associate Executive Director of the National Committee Against
Discrimination in Housing, in an annual report. Rutledge and Wood, who forecast racial disorders
in 1965 and 1966, drew their conclusions from a study conducted in 41 cities and 25 states during
1966.
Rutledge and Wood claimed they found a convictions among Negro youth that progress in civil
rights will be achieved through social turmoil, and they repeatedly heard such comments in
ghettos as "We need two and a half more riots to get out of here."
"Hardly any community in this country can call itself immune from trouble this summer,"
declared Floyd McKissick, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). McKissick
placed Cleveland at the top of his list of trouble spots, along with most New Jersey cities.
Other cities he enumerated were New York City; Washington; Detroit; Chicago; Gary, Indiana; St.
Louis; East St. Louis, Illinois; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and Oakland.
A Negro sociologist at Howard University Dr. Nathan Hare, sees a "very real" possibility
of a civil war between whites and Negroes in the United States. "It's going to be quite a
while off yet -- though not so far off as to be outside of our life span," he said. Dr.
Hare, who describes himself as a "theorist" in the "black power" movement,
is actively spreading its philosophy to Negro colleges across the country.
"Violence is the only way left to the black man to achieve his manhood in America,"
Ernest Chambers, a leader of young militants in Omaha, told delegates to the National Conference
on Community Values and Conflict in New York City. He said that "violence purges the soul
of the black man and returns to him his self-respect." Chambers maintained that prevention
of racial violence was up to the white people. They must realize, he said, that injustice is
practiced daily against the Negro and that Negro youths will no longer put up with it.
The key to racial peace this summer, observed Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is jobs for the thousands of young
Negroes who will be turned loose from school "with muscles in their arms and mischief in
their minds," he said, "you are going to have trouble." Wilkins expressed the
hope that there would be no riot in any city, and added: "But I can't say there won't
because all the ingredients are there."
Public officials in a number of large cities have expressed considerable apprehension about the
possibility of racial violence this year. Mayor John V. Lindsay, of New York City, asserted that
"we have not way of knowing what this summer will bring but we do know that if violence
breaks out, the young people of the ghettos will be in its vanguard." He has called upon
the administration to restore cuts in antipoverty funds for summer youth activities or face the
threat of rioting in Negro ghettos this summer.
Disturbances are likely in the Nation's capital this summer, according to Walter N. Tobriner, a
District of Columbia Commissioner, unless funds for recreational programs for school children are
approved. If youthful energy is not channeled constructively, he cautioned, "I am sure that
increased vandalism, destruction, and other antisocial behavior would tend to result." He
added: "Of course, we can never assume summer peace, since incidents fanning neighborhood
reaction are neigher foreseeable nor controllable. But we can, by providing these funds, make
the occurrence of summer incidents less likely and their enlargement to other areas less apt to
occur."
Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., of Atlanta, observed that "in any big city with major slum problems,
incidents amounting almost to riots can occur at any time during the hot summer months whenever
there is provocative leadership that finds an incident that can be exploited. There is always
some incident that provocative leaders can use if they want."
Familiar Pattern
The foreboding of recent years have been amply justified in view of the extensive riotous
conditions that have developed in the United States during the past three summers. Events have
unmistakably shown that any municipality in the country with a Negro population is susceptible
to a racial outbreak. A partial listing of cities and towns where racial disorders have occurred
since 1964 indicates that racial disorders can happen anywhere and everywhere at any time: New York
City; Rochester, New York; Philadelphia; Jersey City; Cleveland; Dayton, Ohio; Lansing, Michigan;
Chicago; Waukegan, Illinois; Omaha; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Atlanta; Fort Lauderdale, Florida;
and Bogalusa, Louisiana. It is obviously impossible to pinpoint when and where racial violence
will erupt.
But there is one aspect of racial violence that can be predicted with some precision: the patter
it will follow. In virtually every instance where major riots have broken out in Negro
communities in recent years, the pattern and sequence of events have been identical: the
escalation of an initial minor episode involving police action; a rapidly growing crowd and
mounting excitement and hysteria fomented by troublemakers, extremists, and subversives; overt
hostility toward the police, accompanied by wild charges of "police brutality"; the
explosion of blind, irrational mob fury and action; street fighting between Negroes and police;
hurling of rocks, bricks, bottles, fire bombs, and other objects; looting, vandalism, and arson;
and, finally, summoning of police reserves and frequently the National Guard to restore law and
order.
The survey on the following pages endeavors to highlight the violence potential which exists in
the United States as the Summer of 1967 draws near.
Washington, D.C.
Population 802,000 (1965); 63 per cent Negro (1965).
The Nation's Capital has a higher percentage of Negroes than any other major city in the United
States. Moreover, in 1965, Negroes in Washington public schools constituted 90 per cent of the
total enrollment.
Opinions as to the potential for racial disturbances in Washington, D.C., during the Summer of
1967, are almost as numerous and varied as the number of persons interviewed. Most would agree,
however, that an isolated incident could develop trouble. Because the city has a huge Negro
population, many of whose opinions do not vary significantly from those of their kinsmen in other
large cities, the following comments concerning the underlying causes of Negro discontent which
leads to disturbances are enumerated:
1. Bitterness and resentment among Negroes come as a result of being the oppressed underdog for
too long a period.
2. Negro youngsters must be given something to do to keep them out of trouble.
3. If young Negroes can obtain employment, they will be able to acquire dignity, buy clothing,
have fun in their spare time, and forget about riots and violence.
4. There are not sufficient summertime jobs and not enough recreational facilities and programs
to keep young Negroes occupied during summer vacation periods.
5. Housing is inadequate. During the summer months, Negro families cannot stay in one-room
apartments where they have been confined all winter. The construction of high-rise, expensive
apartments forces Negroes into an overcrowded environment. Landlords exploit Negroes through
high rent and inadequate facilities.
6. Schools in Negro communities are over-crowded and inferior by comparison with those found in
white neighborhoods.
7. Negroes feel that white police officers treat them as second-class citizens and make them the
target of their racial prejudice. The use of "trigger" words, such as "boy"
and "nigger," results in disrespect for and hostility toward the police. Some in the
Negro ghettos look upon all policemen, white and Negro, as the enemy.
8. The shift made by Martin Luther King to wholehearted support for those protesting United
States participation in the war in Vietnam and his exhortation to boycott the draft may have
far-reaching effects, especially on those facing military service.
9. Adam Clayton Powell is still regarded as an idol and is the favorite of Negroes everywhere.
Negroes believe that Powell's troubles with Congress stemmed from his Negro ancestry. Thus, he
is supported regardless of his faults. If he is denied his seat in Congress, some for of trouble
can be expected.
10. There is a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism developing in the Negro community, because
many merchants and landlords in the Negro communities are Jews.
11. Among Negroes, there is the same rift between the younger generation and the parent
generation that exists among other ethnic groups.
12. The vast majority of the Negro population does not feel that disturbances, riots, and mob
action advance the cause of the Negro.
Concerning conditions peculiar to Washington, D.C., the city is largely dependent upon Congress
for funds. In April 1967, Walter N. Tobriner, a District of Columbia Commissioner, warned
Congress that disorders are likely to occur this summer unless funds for recreation programs are
approved.
In mid-April, the Reverend H. Albion Ferrell, District Parole Board Chairman, said that much
social and economic help is needed in Washington and that "swimming pools and the things
swimming pools represent" will not be enough to maintain peace.
On May 10, 1967, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced that Washington should have 15 new
swimming pools completed by mid-July. On the same day, Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz
announced that $5,400,000 would be spent on a program, beginning in June, to provide jobs or
training for 4,000 Washingtonians.
In mid-May, 1967, Stokely Carmichael, who graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C.,
in 1964, announced his plans to work as SNCC Field Secretary in the Nation's Capital this summer.
He called for a massive "resistance movement" by young people to end the war in Vietnam.
Howard is primarily a Negro university. On March 21, 1967, Selective Service Director Lewis B.
Hershey was booed from a platform at the university by antidraft protesters. A series of
subsequent demonstrations led to the issuing of an order on May 5, 1967, by Howard President
James M. Mabrit placing an administration veto over the time and place of demonstrations and
banning unofficial press conferences. The order met with immediate defiance from the Black Power
Committee, which held a campus demonstration and a press conference hours after the new rules
were announced.
One source states that tensions are created by "rabble-rousing" speeches by so-called
Negro leaders, such as Carmichael, Marion Barry, and Julius Hobson. Barry was formerly SNCC
Director in Washington. Hobson, an extremist, is Chairman of the District of Columbia chapter
of Associated Community Teams (ACT).
This source states that these so-called leaders frequently accuse the local police of brutality,
but investigation usually disproves the accusation. Another source pointed out that Barry and
Lester McKinnie, SNCC Director in Washington, were attempting to provoke a situation when they
were arrested recently after walking against a red traffic light. While real problems involving
the attitude of the police toward Negroes do exist, the source adds, Barry needs issues to keep
the SNCC organization alive. The fact that Barry had to attempt to provoke an incident, this
source concludes, reflects an improvement in the police image.
Police officials and others indicate that a contributing factor of racial tension in Washington
is irresponsible coverage given to all racial incidents or incidents with racial overtones by
local newspapers and radio and television stations. It is said that radical and exaggerated
statements are given publicity, without any attempt to clarify or refute these grossly biased
remarks. Simple and honest reporting, it is felt, would do much to lower the general temper of
the public. Similar comments are made about the national television coverage given to
antiadministration statements by persons such as King, Carmichael, and Cassius Clay.
A member of the Citizens Advisory Council condemns SNCC for displaying in its Washington office
windows posters of a white policeman shouting "Nigger S.O.B." and pictures of
lynchings. According to this source, SNCC's exhortation to "Stop Police Brutality"
is nothing short of hatred and an incitement to riot.
The fatal shooting of a 19-year-old Negro with a lengthy arrest record by a Washington policeman
on May 1, 1967, has precipitated protest on the part of some Negroes. These Negroes threaten
civil violence if the District Commissioners do not sponsor a "citizen investigation"
of the shooting.
FUSION OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND ANTIWAR MOVEMENTS
Aggravating Tension
The innumerable racial riots and disturbances which have plagued the United States since 1964
have had their genesis primarily in the long-smoldering discontent and resentment of Negroes over
unequal job, school, and housing opportunities and their deep-seated antipathy toward the police.
However, constant agitation and propaganda on the part of communists and other subversive and
extremist elements have done much to aggravate tension in the ghettos of the Nation's big cities.
In the nearly 48 years of its existence, the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA), has subjected Negroes
to unending agitation and propaganda. It has portrayed itself to this minority group as the
champion of racial equality, civil rights, and civil liberties, and social protest. To the
credit of the Negroes and to the great disappointment of the communists, the Communist Party
has not been able to recruit and retain significant numbers of Negroes as members. Most Negroes
realize that the communists are interested in them primarily to exploit racial issues and to
create the chaos upon which communism nourishes. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of this
ceaseless agitation and propaganda and the familiar communist charge of "police
brutality" cannot be ignored or minimized.
Creating Opposition to Vietnam War
During a period which has now extended beyond three years, the CPUSA and other subversive
organizations have been engaged in campaigns to influence the United States Government to
withdraw its troops from Vietnam or to participate in negotiations to end the war. They hope,
of course, that either action would result ultimately in advancing the cause of international
communism through a victory in Vietnam.
The activities of the CPUSA in recent months have, almost without exception, been directed in
one way or another toward the creation of opposition to the war in Vietnam. This opposition,
the communists reason, serves to lend encouragement to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong
to continue the fighting despite military adversities and could lead to domestic discontent in
the United States similar to that which contributed to the French military disengagement from
events in Indochina. In view of the historic designs of the CPUSA on the Negro people and the
racial ferment that has been evidenced by the disturbances of recent summers, it was inevitable
that the communists and other subversives and extremists would attempt to link civil rights
protests with antiwar protests so as to increase the magnitude and impetus of each.
As early as April, 1965, General Secretary Gus Hall told the CPUSA Secretariat that the
"peace struggle" is a major and top priority project of the CPUSA. At the same time,
Hall claimed that the protest movements in this country were converging, with peace leaders
becoming civil rights leaders and vice versa. By and large, Hall continued, the same mass of
people reacted against the ultraright in the 1964 presidential election, against conditions in
Alabama, and against events in Vietnam. The struggle for social progress and the struggle
against policies of imperialist aggressions were, in Hall's words, now joined.
Union of Civil Rights and Peace Movements
In antiwar propaganda attuned to Hall's assertion, the CPUSA claims that the war in Vietnam has
racial overtones not only because it involves nonwhites in Asia but also because it consumes
funds that might otherwise be expended for the war on poverty in the depressed areas of large
cities inhabited by Negroes. The CPUSA has also praised the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), the militant civil rights youth group, for being the first to make the tie
between civil rights and peace.
A recent illustration of the fusion of the civil rights and antiwar movements was the so-called
"Vietnam Week," which culminated in mass demonstrations in New York City and San
Francisco on April 15, 1967. This protest activity was sponsored by the Student Mobilization
Committee and the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Among the
participants in the activities of these committees are members of SNCC; the CPUSA; the W.E.B.
DuBois Clubs of America (DCA), a communist-inspired Marxist-oriented youth group; the
pro-Red-Chinese Progressive Labor Party (PLP); the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP);
and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), the SWP's youth and training section.
The activities in one CPUSA district, selected at random, show the extent of communist
involvement in the New York City demonstration on April 15. In early March, members of the
Michigan District were told that they must concentrate on laboring people, Negro communities,
and nationalities groups to organize people to participate in the April 15 demonstration in New
York City. The Michigan District Committee appointed a four-man committee in mid-March to handle
arrangements for the mobilization in New York City. Activities in connection with the
mobilization were described as the most important of all endeavors by members of the Michigan
District.
Participants in the parade in New York City on April 15 included Gus Hall and at least 200 CPUSA
members. Over one half of the total SWP membership in the United States also marched in the
parade. Others participating in the parade and rally in New York City were several members of
the DCA, PLP, and YSA.
The Reverend James Bevel is the National Director of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the
War in Vietnam. He was released by Martin Luther King from a key position in King's Southern
Christian Leadership Conference to permit him to take this assignment.
Significantly, among the principal speakers at the antiwar rally in New York City on April 15
were Martin Luther King; Stokely Carmichael, a top figure in SNCC; Floyd McKissick, National
Director of CORE; and Bevel. Bevel stated that the next objective of the "peace forces"
will be to organize a massive march on Washington, D.C., to confront President Johnson.
Another speaker at this rally was Linda Dannenberg, Executive Secretary of the Spring Mobilization
Committee, who is known to consult with leaders of the New York District of the CPUSA. Dannenberg
announced that thousands are going to be called upon for a "radical action summer" in
which they will go into every town in the United States to organize a massive protest against
this country's involvement in the war in Vietnam. She requested that every interested student
attend an antiwar meeting in Chicago on May 13 and 14, 1967.
As a follow-up to these peace demonstrations, King and other leaders of the Spring Mobilization
Committee launched a nationwide "Vietnam Summer" organizing effort. They called for
10,000 volunteers, including 2,000 full-time workers, to spend the summer in 500 communities
escalating opposition to the Vietnam war, encouraging Negroes to refuse to be drafted, and
attempting to create a political bloc powerful enough to end the war. The antiwar campaign is
patterned after the 1964 summer civil rights drive in Mississippi.
Now that the civil rights and the antiwar protest movements have been joined, with the distinct
possibility of ominous displays of civil disobedience and near seditious activities on the part
of Negroes and whites alike, the outlook for this summer is grim indeed. The injection of antiwar
activities into civil rights activities is bound to intensify racial discord and heighten the
violence potential throughout the country.
In the long run, this consolidated civil rights - peace movement will be detrimental to the
national security and best interests of the Nation, for it will not only tend to encourage the
enemy and prolong the Vietnam war but will also have an adverse effect on the cause of
civil rights.
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